Category Archives: Gratitude

withstanding the heartbreak in the muck of life…

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fire & ice

Spiritual maturity is not a function of age, or of years on the path, but of a powerful & discerning choice from within to cultivate gratitude as a way of being in the world. Like contentment, gratitude arises from learning to discern clearly. To praise is to choose gratitude even in hell. One description of ‘faith’ is ‘love of the unknown,’ meaning, ‘I am given everything I need, even if it is not what I imagine that I want.’  Faith says, ‘I choose the life I am given.’…..Mariana Caplan

hot & cold….this is how we live…. going deeper…coming up for air now & again..but ultimately realizing there is only one path…the one we walk on….when we see the other’s suffering, the mask is stripped away…& the flood of gratitude gifts us with an after-rain-washed-clean resting place…

who do you gift your story to?

There is a beautiful Tibetan myth that helps us to accept our sadness as a threshold to all that is life-changing & lasting. This myth affirms that all spiritual warriors have a broken heart- alas, must have a broken heart, because it is only through the break that the wonder & mysteries of life can enter us. Being a spiritual warrior is about the sincerity with which a soul faces itself in a daily way….Mark Nepo

the kid in us…& why leaping up comes from falling down…

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what are little boys made of? snips & snails & puppy dog tails...

Setting out is always a leap of faith, a risk in the deepest sense of the term, & yet an adventure too. None of us go into our spiritual maturity completely of our own accord, or by a totally free choice. We are led by ’mystery,’ rightly called grace. The familiar & the habitual are so falsely reassuring, & most of us make our homes there permanently. But the soul has many secrets. They are only revealed to those who want them, the ones who have heard some deep invitation to ‘something more,’  & set out to find it by grace & daring. One of the best kept secrets, yet hidden in plain sight, is that ’the way up is the way down.’  The central message of how spiritual growth happens is that we grow much more by doing it wrong than by doing it right……Richard Rohr

the beauty & wonderment of children comes from this concept….they innately know & are ok with this….their egos have not ripened into perfectionistic walls yet..they are willing to jump right in…explore with abandon….fall down….& laugh at themselves…..our instincts draw us to children to learn from them….to help us return to our natural state of grace which is pure in its imperfections….

find a kid & play while….

we discover love when we let go….love as a discovery, a surprise, a something much bigger than ourselves, a place of resilience we didn’t know we cradled in a tiny pocket of our heart…the innocence of children….an instinctual poetic power….

To live from a deep place is to go back or down to that origin of your life that is not in the least explained by the autobiographical myth…..Thomas Moore

New Awards…..Gratitude & Connection…..

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Sharing Awards & Inspiration…..

Thanks to Mira Jay & her blog, Divine Rhythm, for her fun nomination….

her Baskets of Love Award…..

she’s multi-talented as you will see…engaging & intriguing….

check out her lengthy awards page….

then spend a little time with her poetry….beauteous….

Passing on Baskets of Love to…..

Etheoric

The Liberated Way

Life Just Is

likethesunshone

Waiting for the Karma Truck

Thank you Leigh for nominating me for The Beautiful Blogger Award….

(with rules of gratitude, links & 6 new nominations)

Her lovely blog, Bluegrass Notes, invites you into her ‘real journey’

an inspirational blog to this aspiring yogi….

And she’s witty too!

Passing on the Beautiful Blogger Award to….

Resting In Awareness

Angela Hickman

Sticky Fingers

The Ordinary Truth

Drawn to Life

Four Winds Haiga

sunshine award

Lisa & her blog, A Charmed Yogi, have thrilled me

with another Sunshine Award…(please see rules & questions there)

Her blog inspires me to be a little more present,

& renews my love & faith in contemplative practices….

Check out her insightful blog…..

 Ben & his blog, The Sacred Art of Language,

has also nominated me for a Sunshine Award….

Love his unabashed excitement about life…..

Need something new? Read Ben’s poetry….

Passing on the The Sunshine Award to….

Known is a Drop, Unknown is the Ocean

The Awakened Dreamer

Sleep is for the Weak

On Second Thought

Granbee

Freestyle Awakening

Ina

Season’s Light

And last, but certainly not least, big gratitude to

Francina at Season’s Poetry

for including me in her lovely blogroll

of assorted nominations….great idea!

Please visit her blog for poetry & photography…..

both high quality & eloquent in equal measure….

the gifts we find in each other & the lonesome depths….

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gifts

To me it seems that at those moments, which are characterized by the sudden lifting of the burden of anxiety & fear which presses upon our daily lives so steadily that we are unaware of it, what happens is something negative: that is to say, not ‘inspiration’ as we commonly think of it, but the breaking down of strong habitual barriers—which tend to reform very quickly. Some obstruction is momentarily whisked away. The accompanying feeling is less like what we know as positive pleasure, than like a sudden relief from an intolerable burden.
…T.S. Eliot

we don’t live in a society that fosters self-awareness….we have to forge our own way….much of the time with a deep lack of community….we aren’t given the tools to transform our experience from surface reactions to more profound spiritual deepening….we find them together…..another reason to foster great compassion…

ode to the lonesome moments….

‘What wisdom can you find that is greater than Kindness?’ …Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile

keep looking for the angels…..keep tending the angels…keep nurturing your wings….

In the end, it is not enough to think what we know. We must live it. For only by living it can Love show itself as the greatest principle……Wu Feng

your neighbor, your shaman, your echoed heart…

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open the sky

“Disturb us, O Lord when we are too well-pleased with ourselves, when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little, because we sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, O Lord when with the abundance of things we possess, we have lost our thirst for the water of life when, having fallen in love with time, we have ceased to dream of eternity & in our efforts to build a new earth, we have allowed our vision of Heaven to grow dim. Stir us, O Lord to dare more boldly, to venture into wider seas where storms show Thy mastery, where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars. In the name of Him who pushed back the horizons of our hopes & invited the brave to follow. Amen.”
….Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu adapted from an original prayer by Sir Francis Drake

a fall from grace can be an ascension of dusty, rusty wings….spiritual insight moves from the not-so-gentle nudge of reflection….to the ordinary & gifted sharp edge of spirit….

a glimpse of the divine….

may we remember & honor each other’s transcendent pauses…..there is real & unimaginable depth in a placid life….

To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp & whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly & as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious……Albert Einstein

the rooster calls….look up….

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a good soul-friend & reminder to look up

The art of being lost is not a matter of merely getting lost, but rather being lost & enthusiastically surrendering to the unlimited potential of it. By trusting your unknowing, your old standards of progress dissolve, becoming eligible for new ones that come not from your mind but from the depths of your soul…..Bill Plotkin

ok, so you’re in the now…really in the now when you’re lost….like suddenly seeing roosters in trees & noticing your shoes don’t match & you really hate the word ‘inappropriate’….

funny thing is….it doesn’t matter anymore…out of the box & into your life….

Fall & Call belong together. As the web of deception & death appears & the golden world fades, the memory of that world, which seemed once so safe & whole, continues to call. Fallen angels, we are still angels. The wound of our fallenness becomes a school of empathy. We learn sympathy & compassion. From the eyes above all, ‘mirrors of the soul,’ we learn to achnowledge the depths of our own interiority. ‘There but by the grace of God go I.’ Art, literature, & music become messengers, intermediaries of the call. This call to ‘metanoia,’ transformation, comes to us in different ways. Yet we must ‘hit bottom’ & vow to change our lives. Such a vow is not made once, but must be renewed with every breath…..Christopher Bamford

drift awhile, drop out, & remember again….

imperfections of the heart

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I love my friends..may we remain in heart space....

love may be the most abused word, like battering our own hearts…

this is our heart’s momentum, moving through time & space …

In each & every aspect of life, the chance to turn the straw we find into gold is there in our hearts. All that is asked is our respectful attention, our willingness to learn from difficulty. Instead of fighting, when we see with eyes of wisdom, difficulties can become our good fortune…..

in this keen longing for ‘goodness’ & ‘understanding’….

what arrows pierce our heart?

Without ideals, the heart can turn the suffering & imperfections we encounter into the path of compassion. In this nonidealistic practice, the divine can shine through even in acts of ignorance & fear, inviting us to wonder at the mystery of all that is…This spirituality is about who we are rather than what ideal we pursue……

tune in to your worrisome heart…

shining your own light to see darkness….find it at the corner bar….

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spiritual hunger

There is no question that there is an unseen world. The problem is how far is it from midtown & how late it is open?

…..Woody Allen

not too much profundity please…..got to have a little fun in this adventure of happiness & wholeness….consider letting go of one ‘icky thing’ every day…yes, we all know what those things are….& let’s not take ourselves too seriously…consider just hangin’ out too…..I have no idea what that is really, but I’m ready to find out….

don’t let ‘em save you….save it up for a rainy day….

Nothing is so hungry as the human heart. A craving & longing for spiritual as well as human fulfillment stirs so deeply within us that most of us do not dare acknowledge its presence for fear it will consume us. We sense a volcano of stored potentiality stirring beneath the surface of our own consciousness. We intuit our own subterranean existence. For some of us though, it seems that the path reaches toward us, inserts itself into our lives. We are wise to remember what Carl Jung taught, ‘When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.’  Intelligent skepticism is advisable…..Mariana Caplan

Inspiring Blog Award #3 & a Little Travel Time

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Thank you to anilraheja for nominating me for my

3rd Very Inspiring Blogger Award…

This award is especially appreciated because this particular blog, an incredible source of love & light, celebrating Ahaan’s life,

is an amazing example of what it means to have an inspiring blog…

Please visit, support & be touched in a new way….

I would love to pass on this lovely award to….(in no particular order)….

Please visit, congratulate & meet new fellow travelers along the way….

lifeyum

living in the now

ettagirl

with an open heart

jmgoyder

poems & art by jason frost

beyond words

knowthesphere

fierce buddhist

christa in new york

On a Personal Note….

I will be traveling for a little while

& may not be able to get to comments & blog visits

in as timely a manner as usual….

I will still be around though & my posts will continue….

Thank You All

the undercurrents of challenge, how we live with our flaws…

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mercy

Now I become myself. It’s taken

Time, many years & places,

I have been dissolved & shaken,

Worn other people’s faces,

Run madly, as if Time were there,

Terribly old, crying a warning,

‘Hurry, you will be dead before-’

(What? Before you reach the morning?

or the end of the poem is clear?

Or love safe in the walled city?)

Now to stand still, to be here,

Feel my own weight & density?

Now there is time & Time is young.

O, in this single hour I live

All of myself & do not move

I, the pursued, who madly ran,

Stand still, stand still, & stop the Sun!

…..May Sarton

to pause in between……in between moments of the day, in between phases of our lives, in between who we are & who we think we are….humanizing the spirit…..reconciling the unreconcilable by waking up….

We All Spill Soup….

(If you want to save the world, then when you spill the soup, simply say, ‘I’m sorry I spilled the soup.’)

Wanting to reform the world without

discovering one’s true self is like trying

to cover the world with leather to avoid

the pain of walking on stones & thorns.

It is much simpler to wear shoes.

…Ramana Maharshi

rest like the tree….give in to okness & restless winds….

without avoiding the difficult roots….

walk in the shadows…