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Posts tagged ‘Seasons’

Oct 2

Poetry of Presence

“Go, sit upon the lofty hill, And turn your eyes around, Where waving woods and waters wild Do hymn an autumn sound. The summer sun is faint on them— The summer flowers depart— Sit still— as all transformed to stone, Except your musing heart.” – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

“come back
believer in shade
believer in silence and elegance
believer in ferns
believer in patience
believer in the rain”― W.S. Merwin

One foot in summer.
One foot in fall.
Thresholds and transitions.
The middle place.
Where we reside often.
See the beauty in this place.
Joy in this moment.
Fresh canvas today.
What will you see for the first time.
Poetry of presence.

“Poetry is a way of looking at the world for the first time.”― W.S. Merwin

Jul 14

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Between the Lines

“The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.”― Robert Frost

“The reward is a full human experience, complete with all the emotions at maximum dosage, where we have been put to great use and found an other-centric love that is complete in its expression and its transmission. The reward is to end up soft and humble, empty and in awe, knowing that of all the magnificence we have beheld from cradle to grave, the most eye-popping was interpersonal.

So here’s to anyone who notices and reads between the lines, who asks the right questions, but not too many, who takes notes at the doctor’s office and wipes butts, young and old, who listens, holds and stays. We, who, untrained and always a little off-guard, still dare to do love. To be love. That’s brave.” – Kelly Corrigan, To Love is to Be Brave, TedTalk 2024

May I read between the lines.
Ask more questions to understand.
To never assume first impressions are true.
To dig deeper to reveal complexities and nuances.
To hold and be held.
Awake in the middle.
Soft and humble.
Emptied of the futile to make room for the truly important.
In awe of the magnificence of love woven in ordinary days.
Often overlooked and sped by on the way to what’s next.
Amplifying now, tending to what’s next when it arrives.
Full human experience, maximum dosage of the present beautiful day.
Brave love in action.

“Behind all the stories we tell ourselves and the conditioning and beliefs we’ve adopted, there is a voice that is constantly whispering our truth. An internal GPS that knows our ‘yes’s’, and ‘no’s’ our ‘this way’s’ or ‘that way’s’, our core intent.”― Shayne Traviss, Your Vivid Life

Jun 28

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Fresh Paths

“We do not have a fear of the unknown. What we fear is giving up the known.” – Anthony DeMello

“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.

New beginnings.
Thresholds to cross.
Bridges from the old to the new.
Narrow paths.
Uncharted territory.
One step at a time.
Rooted in the willingness to start in a direction, without the entire journey mapped out.
The first step, then the next. Repeat.
Leaving the old behind to make space for the new.
Eyes on the road ahead.
Trust the gift, the call, the pull of new beginnings.
Start.
Never too late, never too old.
Dreams and the work to achieve them available to all.
Trust the still small voice.
Do the work.
Follow.

“You can learn new things at any time in your life if you’re willing to be a beginner. If you actually learn to like being a beginner, the whole world opens up to you.” — Barbara Shur

Feb 25

Sacred Shaping

“The soul speaks its truth only under quiet, inviting and trustworthy conditions…If we are willing to walk quietly into the woods and sit silently for an hour or two at the base of a tree, the creature we’re waiting for may well emerge.” – Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak

“The miracle, upside-down work of God is that our failure isn’t an obstacle, it’s an opportunity to remember to sink into God. Not having what it takes is not a liability, it’s a prerequisite. Maybe there is hope for us after all.”― Emily P. Freeman, A Million Little Ways: Uncover the Art You Were Made to Live

In the putting down.
In rest and reflection.
In slowing.
Clenched fists opening.
Seeds falling.
Seeds taking root.
To receive something not of our doing, efficiency and striving.
Borne of our not doing, of our very being.
Wintering to prepare for the brilliance of spring.
In the putting down, in the pause, in the stillness.
We discern what to pick up again.
What to leave behind.
Reshaped, renewed, refreshed.
Sacred shaping at work.

“Be faithful to plant. Release the growing to God. Open up clenched fists and let the seeds drop into the ground, let them burrow down deep and do their secret work in the dark. Sacred shaping happens in the waiting.”― Emily P. Freeman, A Million Little Ways: Uncover the Art You Were Made to Live

Dec 21

Sacred Immanence

“A flower will always grow in the direction of the sun because beauty recognizes beauty.”― Matshona Dhliwayo

“Today we celebrate light and honor the wisdom of the shadows. In connecting with the natural world in a way that honors the sacred immanence in all things, we establish a resonance with the seasons.”― Dacha Avelin

Winter solstice
Pivot
Turning point
Threshold into light
That lingers longer each day
A drop at a time
Adding up slowly
Then suddenly we notice
Winter, the precursor to spring
Seasons, cycles, circles of life
Keep crossing thresholds
Where finish lines become new start lines
And we unfold and become, reborn again and again
Solstice well.

“After the longest night, tomorrow we sing up the dawn. There is a rejoicing that, even in the darkest time, the sun is not vanquished. As of tomorrow, the days begin to get longer as the light of day grows. While the gentle winter sun slowly opens its eyes, let us all bring more light and compassion into the world. ”― Dacha Avelin

Oct 16

Pause and Partake

“It is not our job to remain whole.
We came to lose our leaves
Like the trees, and be born again,
Drawing up from the great roots.”― Robert Bly

“In the end, I learned that the practice of Not-Knowing is the very ground of altruism, because it opens us up to a much wider horizon than our preconceptions could ever afford us and can let in connection and tenderness.”― Joan Halifax, Standing at the Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet

Seasons have much to teach us.
Transitions to transformation.
Returning again to the same made new with time.
Cycles, circles, spirals.
Leaving and returning home.
Shedding our ego, expectations, knowing.
Into being, unfolding, rebirth.
Rooted and fresh seedlings.
In the middle of daily doing, make space for BEing time.
To ground and fly at the same time.
To pause and partake.

“but BEing time is never wasted time. When we are BEing, not only are we collaborating with chronological time, but we are touching on kairos, and are freed from the normal restrictions of time.”― Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

Oct 10

Autumn Blaze

“October, baptize me with leaves! Swaddle me in corduroy and nurse me with split pea soup. October, tuck tiny candy bars in my pockets and carve my smile into a thousand pumpkins. O autumn! O teakettle! O grace!”― Rainbow Rowell , Attachments

October by Robert Frost

“O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—
For the grapes’ sake along the wall.”

October, the heart of autumn.
Deep rich colors ablaze.
Hearty foliage.
Soon to shed.
Bloom in reverse.
Harvest from seeds planted in spring.
Loved through the summer.
Do not wish to go back nor dread winter ahead.
Remain in this day, in this season.
Seek the beauty and purpose in each season.
Gather the harvest.
Steep in abundance.

Sep 7

Summer Fall Dance

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” — Albert Camus

“Make your learning abundant and speak of it with precision, then you will speak of essentials.”― Mencius, Mencius

The in between of seasons changing.
Hot then cool.
Back to school.
Schedules and busy replace slow and wide-open spaces.
Hold onto the slow and create space in all seasons.
The color of flowers in bloom cascades to leaves ablaze.
Find the beauty in harvest time.

“Be gentle. Pay attention. Offer purposeful healing. Seek Equilibrium. Unfreeze, slowly. Stretch yourself out into the world. Let your eyes calibrate to this new light and notice how it caresses the lines and curves and soft and hard of you. Allow your mouth to twist and stumble around new shapes. Be so very sensory. Notice everything. From every angle. The way your bones feel. The way you orient to space and time. Invite your whole being into this new way of living, into the totality and wholeness of it. Let it be strange and uncomfortable and painful and stiff. Let it be magical and novel and unfamiliar and entirely wonderful. Follow the whispers where they lead.”― Jeanette LeBlanc

Sep 6

The Sun Remains

“Let the sun set, let the darkness fall, do not be afraid, as long as the sun does not set in your mind!”― Mehmet Murat ildan

“In a world where everything comes at a price, if you’re choosing to stay kind, if you’re choosing to value your dignity and your integrity, if your choosing to understand and embrace the smile of Solitude, if you’re choosing to employ your faculties to understand the real questions of Life, then you’re alive, much more alive than your human dreams could have made you feel. Because no matter what, when sunset hits the night, and the day comes to a close you know you’ve done your part, you know you have embraced one more day with gratitude and grace, with a formidable zeal for Life and an invincible spirit of human understanding that stands firm pillared with Hope and Faith. And then no matter how many voices shrill your mind, the echo of your soul would pierce through your heart and enlighten every inch of your mind, body and soul, and you would know how proud the Universe must be to see the faithfulness, the strength and resilience in your soul, the very mould that was shaped in the fire of the Stardust that shines upon the sky, sometimes becoming a beacon to others while sometimes lying beautifully hidden but always there, always alive.” ― Debatrayee Banerjee

As summer tumbles into fall slowly but surely.
As seasons change without fail.
The sun remains.
Rising and falling.
Inviting us to find and make meaning in each day.
Beginnings and endings again and again.
The middle, the makings of our life.
Stay kind, gentle, curious, and alive through it all.
A beacon, a light.

“The sun’s descent marks not just the end of another day, but a symbolic passage—a reminder that life, like the sun, moves in cycles, each ending giving birth to a new beginning.”― Ryan Gelpke, Peruvian Day

Aug 28

In and Through Us

“The power of finding beauty in the humblest things makes home happy and life lovely.”
― Louisa May Alcott

“The sun shines not on us but in us. The rivers flow not past, but through us. Thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing. The trees wave and the flowers bloom in our bodies as well as our souls, and every bird song, wind song, and tremendous storm song of the rocks in the heart of the mountains is our song, our very own, and sings our love.”― John Muir

A new week.
The last week of August.
Summer’s dance with fall.
Seasons. Transitions. Harvest.
Start. Middle. Finish.
Repeat. Grow. Change.
Enter the rhythm and flow.
Become apart of it rather than lamenting or fighting it.
The gift of joy given freely in beauty, seasons, celebration of ordinary days.

“Joy is not produced because others praise you. Joy emanates unbidden and unforced. Joy comes as a gift when you least expect it. At those fleeting moments you know why you were put here and what truth you serve. You may not feel giddy at those moments, you may not hear the orchestra’s delirious swell or see flashes of crimson and gold, but you will feel a satisfaction, a silence, a peace—a hush. Those moments are the blessings and the signs of a beautiful life.”― David Brooks, The Road to Character

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