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Posts tagged ‘Seasons’

Dec 28

Firing Up the Landscape

“Prayer is a small fire lit to keep cold hands warm. Prayer is a practice that flourishes both with faith and doubt. Prayer is asking, and prayer is sitting. Prayer is the breath. Prayer is not an answer, always, because not all questions can be answered.”― Pádraig Ó Tuama, Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community

Red Bird by Mary Oliver

“Red bird came all winter
Firing up the landscape
As nothing else could.
Of course I love the sparrows,
Those dun-colored darlings,
So hungry and so many.
I am a God-fearing feeder of birds,
I know he has many children,
Not all of them bold in spirit.
Still, for whatever reason-
Perhaps because the winter is so long
And the sky so black-blue,
Or perhaps because the heart narrows
As often as it opens-
I am grateful
That red bird comes all winter
Firing up the landscape
As nothing else can do.”

On the way but not arrived
Space between ending and beginning
Hallway between rooms
In this quiet space between the end of the year and the beginning of the new
Holiday hurrying to winter slowing
Reflect and frame
Slow and discard
Plan and allow
Gratitude and grace
Color brighter on the backdrop of the season
Red birds pause
Firing up the landscape
Look around.

“The only place to begin is where I am, and whether by desire or disaster, I am here. My being here is not dependent on my recognition of the fact. I am here anyway. But it might help if I could learn to look around.”― Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World

Dec 21

Inflection Point

“I need rituals that encourage me to embrace what is repetitive, ancient, and quiet. But what I crave is novelty and stimulation.”― Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life

“The winter solstice has always been special to me as a barren darkness that gives birth to a verdant future beyond imagination, a time of pain and withdrawal that produces something joyfully inconceivable, like a monarch butterfly masterfully extracting itself from the confines of its cocoon, bursting forth into unexpected glory.” – Gary Zukav

Longest day of darkness.
Tipping point.
The start of light returning slowly.
Wintering to prepare for spring.
Do not bypass, resist, reject the gift of winter.
To pause, to slow, to rest.
Depth of time.
Gravity of presence.
Seasons, cycles, circles.
Cocoon to butterfly.
Seed to bloom.
Sun rise, sun set.
Inflection point.
The word solstice comes from the Latin words sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still).
Stand still, new life unfolding.

“Both the Winter and the Summer Solstices are expressions of love. They show us the opposition of light and dark, expansion and contraction, that characterize our experiences in the Earth school so that we can recognize our options as we move through our lives.” – Gary Zukav

Dec 2

Season of Light

“There is a quiet light that shines in every heart. It draws no attention to itself though it is always secretly there. It is what illuminates our minds to see beauty, our desire to seek possibility and our hearts to love life.” – John O’Donohue

“That luminous part of you that exists beyond personality–your soul, if you will–is as bright and shining as any that has ever been….Clear away everything that keeps you separate from this secret luminous place. Believe it exists, come to know it better, nurture it, share its fruits tirelessly.”― George Saunders

Luminous.
Light.
Energy.
Thin spaces.
Quiet, steady light within.
Shine.
Christmas unfolding slowly.
Enter the season of light.

“During Advent, we occupy our greatest longings.”– Ruth Haley Barton

Nov 23

1 Comment

Spring Under Construction

“Snow creates that quality of awe in the face of a power greater than ours. It epitomises the aesthetic notion of the sublime, in which greatness and beauty couple to overcome you—a small, frail human—entirely.”― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

“Winter is the oldest season; it has some quality of the absolute. Yet beneath the surface of winter, the miracle of spring is already in preparation; the cold is relenting; seeds are wakening up. Colors are beginning to imagine how they will return. Then, imperceptibly, somewhere one bug opens and the symphony of renewal is no longer reversible. From the black heart of winter a miraculous, breathing plenitude of color emerges.

The beauty of nature insists on taking its time. Everything is prepared. Nothing is rushed. The rhythm of emergence is a gradual slow beat always inching its way forward; change remains faithful to itself until the new unfolds in the full confidence of true arrival. Because nothing is abrupt, the beginning of spring nearly always catches us unawares. It is there before we see it; and then we can look nowhere without seeing it.”― John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

To enter winter.
Without resistance.
A welcoming.
Curiosity.
Quieting and preparation.
Softening and slowing.
The place, space, foothold of transformation.
Time and timing.
Spring under construction.

“Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible.”― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

Nov 13

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The Action of Hope

“But hope can heal us, for hope unsettles us with the passionate unrest that propels us toward great things, and it is imagination that gives us the entrance ticket into the hope-filled world of possibility.”― The Irish Jesuits

“The only recognizable feature of hope is action.”― Grace Paley

Fall to winter.
Short days.
Long nights.
Cold winds.
Downshift to second gear.
Slowing.
Resisting.
Resting.
Light brighter in the dark.
When it makes no sense is when joy makes the most sense.
Where it does its work.
Beauty, hope, kindness – healing balms.
Life jackets to keep our head above water.
Ropes that pull us through when we are too tired to push.
Detours, delays, potholes, four-way stops where no one knows whose turn it is.
This is the stuff of life.
We choose daily to participate or spectate.
To criticize or create.
To judge or love.
Channel, guide, direct your energy, attention, time, ability.
Laughter is a sister of light.
Shaking us from complacency, self-pity, licking our wounds into the present moment.
Engage with life fully.
The whole messy thing.
Cast light, love, peace.

“The difference between a life lived actively, and a life of passive drifting and dispersal of energies, is an immense difference. Once we begin to feel committed to our lives, responsible to ourselves, we can never again be satisfied with the old, passive way.”― Adrienne Rich

Nov 2

Seek Out Light

“Our age needs to rediscover the fruitfulness of silence in order to overcome the dissipation of sounds, images, and chatter that too often prevent the voice of God from being heard.”― Fr. Boniface Hicks

“WELCOME NOVEMBER…
There is something about November that says ‘keep going’.
We are not quite through the year, yet the finish-line looms.
We are plunged into darkness by Mother Nature.
We are faced with the ‘season of joy’, and yet many of us wonder where we will find it.
And I think November is a great time to take a little peek behind you, and see just how much you’ve done. To take stock of your achievements, your endurance, your survival.
To rest, reinforce, before the festivities envelope us all.
Before beautiful new beginnings.
And most importantly, November is a time to seek out light.
As the natural order darkens, we must find it ourselves.
We must do whatever we can to brighten our day, our home, the world.
Seek out light wherever you can my friends, and pay no heed to those who condemn your sparkle.
You are much-needed.
Keep showing up, in that special way only you can do.
And show up for yourself too (which can sometimes mean not showing up at all).
This year has been hard.
Again.
But beautiful.
Again.
As is the way of life.
As is the way of life.” – Donna Ashworth

Gaining an hour of sleep.
Losing an hour of light.
Fall at its golden hour.
The cusp of wintering.
Each season bears its own gifts.
Take solace in restoration, in slowing.
Restored by reflection and pause.
In the darkening.
Seek out light.
In all seasons, found within.

“We have seasons when we flourish and seasons when the leaves fall from us, revealing our bare bones. Given time, they grow again.”― Katherine May, Wintering

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

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