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Posts tagged ‘transition’

Apr 15

Next Up

“I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.” – e. e. cummings

“I imagine that yes is the only living thing.” –  e. e. cummings

Lilacs on the cusp of bursting.
Blue dream of sky.
Rain on Tuesday should advance the bloom.
Short lived but powerful fragrance and soft purple.
Remaining gratefully present with one foot in hope for what’s next up.
Like the flowers surety, steadfastness and certainty.
The lessons of the season of bloom.
In nature and within.

“If everything on earth were rational, nothing would happen.”― Dostoevski

Apr 10

Wing Building

“If you are falling….dive.”― Joseph Campbell

“I take pleasure in my transformations. I look quiet and consistent, but few know how many women there are in me.”― Anais Nin

To be never done.
Yet content.
Unfolding.
Unfurling.
Waiting.
Slow then sudden.
Tipping points.
Becoming.
Thresholds and transitions.
Masterpieces in the making, never finished.
Trust the still small voice.
Doing the next right thing.
The stuff of transformation.
Of wing building.

“When she transformed into a butterfly, the caterpillars spoke not of her beauty, but of her weirdness. They wanted her to change back into what she always had been. But she had wings.”― Dean Jackson

Oct 20

Hold Fast to Joy

“Most of the things we need to be most fully alive never come in busyness. They grow in rest.”― Mark Buchanan, The Holy Wild: Trusting in the Character of God

“So let the world go, but hold fast to joy.”― May Sarton, Selected Poems

Not done.
Never really done.
The work of becoming.
Unfolding.
Fresh starts.
Long middles.
Sudden ends.
Making space for new beginnings.
Some chosen.
Most not.
Thresholds.
Bridges.
Seed to bloom.
Dirt to color.
Growing slowing.
Surely.
Pieces of a puzzle coming together.
Often without the box to see what the picture will be.
Trusting.
Changing.
A step at a time.
Joy on the journey.
Hold fast.

“Prayer is not asking for what you think you want, but asking to be changed in ways you can’t imagine.”― Kathleen Norris

Sep 11

Last for Now

“The present moment is the only time over which we have dominion.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

“The answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.”― Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

The water is colder within a week.
Leaves are starting to change.
Chrysalis time.
Cool mornings. Warm days with an edge. Cool evenings.
Last swim for the girls.
Topping off a summer filled with swims, play, delight.
Last for now.
Fresh delight to partake in.
Seasons meld from one to the next.
Returning again and again.
Same and different.
We change from one season to the next.
Sometimes we choose, sometimes we are forced.
Growth and transformation if we allow and receive.
Remain in the present season, knowing the next will surely come.
In due time without fail.
Last for now, making way for next and new.

“One of the more delicate gifts of soul that can come from the chrysalis is a refined attunement to the here-and-now. We learn how to be genuinely present to life.”— Sue Monk Kidd, When the Heart Waits: Spiritual Direction for Life’s Sacred Questions

Jul 23

Disturb the Universe

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
― T. S. Eliot, Four Quartet

“Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.”― T.S. Eliot

Bridges crossed.
Bridges bypassed.
Transition to transformation.
Waiting in between.
Exploration and avoidance.
Lost and found.
Floundering and flourishing.
Slow yet still moving.
Disturb the universe.
In a minute.
In a change of heart and mind.
In an instance.
See the same differently.
Invite new, embrace change.
The visible and invisible light.
Before, around and within

“Light
Light
The visible reminder of Invisible Light.”― T.S. Eliot

Mar 1

The Promise of March

“Spring drew on…and a greenness grew over those brown beds, which, freshening daily, suggested the thought that Hope traversed them at night, and left each morning brighter traces of her steps.”― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“March came in that winter like the meekest and mildest of lambs, bringing days that were crisp and golden and tingling, each followed by a frosty pink twilight which gradually lost itself in an elfland of moonshine.”― L.M. Montgomery

March 1st.
The snow is softly falling.
And it’s March,
Threshold month.
One foot in winter.
One foot tipping into spring.
Not before.
Not after.
In between but tilting to the promise of spring.
The harvest of wintering, of preparation to fruition.
Bloom coming soon.
Colors to burst.
Sun to linger longer.
The power of transformation, and of seeing it unfold.

“It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.”― Rainer Maria Rilke

Sep 4

Summer-Fall

“Life is the flower for which love is the honey.” – Victor Hugo

“There is a time in the last few days of summer when the ripeness of autumn fills the air.” – Rudolfo Anaya

Cool mornings
Warm afternoons
Cool evenings
Summer not quite over
Fall knocking on the door
Flowers in bloom and drying up
On the cusp
The balance beam
The edge
Multiplicity, both and
Threshold, a foot on each side
Transition time, a familiar place of life
Do not surpass or rush by
Stay awake on the path to transformation

“Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view, That stand upon the threshold of the new. – Edmund Waller

Apr 24

Prelude to Spring

“April hath put a spirit of youth in everything.” – William Shakespeare

“The earth was all before me. With a heart
Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty,
I look about; and should the chosen guide
Be nothing better than a wandering cloud,
I cannot miss my way.”― William Wordsworth, The Prelude

Those moments before spring, tipping point to awakening, the prelude;
The anticipation of the kiss, the unfolding, the sweetness within reach;
Our winters to springs;
Within and around;
Alone and connected to all at the same time;
Joy in the prelude, the postlude, the new beginning;
Celebration and exultation in each day.

“Here must thou be, O man,
Strength to thyself — no helper hast thou here —
Here keepest thou thy individual state:
No other can divide with thee this work,
No secondary hand can intervene
To fashion this ability. ‘Tis thine,
The prime and vital principle is thine
In the recesses of thy nature, far
From any reach of outward fellowship,
Else ’tis not thine at all.” ― William Wordsworth, The Prelude

“Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive But to be young was very heaven.”— William Wordsworth

Apr 2

In Between Time

“Light precedes every transition. Whether at the end of a tunnel, through a crack in the door or the flash of an idea, it is always there, heralding a new beginning.” – Theresa Tsalaky

A Blessing for the In-Between

“Blessed are we, somewhere unnameable, fully present to our reality. Tracking it, with all its subtle gradations and colors and contrasts, the sweetness and the struggle, the stuck and not-quite-fitting. Authentic to it, mapping the full strangeness of the new emergent landscape. Blessed are we, dear ones, not calling it too soon. Not settling for the neat and buttoned-up, the too-tied-up, the not-quite-true. Bless all of it, the way we might widen our gaze to encompass it and embrace it. And bless you, moving into the unknown, waiting, daring to hope.”— Good Enough: 40ish Devotionals for a Life of Imperfection by Kate Bowler, Jessica Richie

Lent is in between time.
Two plus years of a pandemic is in between time.
I just quit a job I’ve had for 17 years and will be starting a new job on April 20 – in between again.
The threshold. One foot behind and one on the other side.

We spend a lot of our life in between, hurdling, crossing. Getting stuck in the past one day and stuck in the future in another. Usually missing this day. It’s beauty and blessings. What was or to come than what is.

Change is often thrust upon us, not of our choice or making. We react, resist, hold tight to what is to not make waves. Change beckons us to move out of our comfort, familiarity, certainty, even if false. When we get to choose change, when we dare to move into the unfamiliar, unstuck, new territory, we move into our power.

May you feel blessed in the in between times, the endings and new beginnings. Hopeful, steady and renewed in the dance of transition. Winter to spring back to winter and then finally spring. Move into the growth, the present, the possibilities.

“It is when we are in transition that we are most completely alive.” – William Bridges

Mar 23

Whispers to Wings

“I want to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.”
― Mary Oliver

May you always hear your own voice above the noise.
From whispers to wings.
Take flight.
Complete your journey.

The Journey by Mary Oliver

“One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice —
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do —
determined to save
the only life you could save.”

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