Category: Today’s Living

After The Count

After the count and the claim,
I wake to dense morning fog.
Buried in a cloud,
I surmise through memory
what is before me,
as what is now present does
not reflect my vision.

Confusion, wonderment,
and disbelief fill me, while
the soft glow of morning light 
cuts through the haze into
the beauty of the trees,
the sky, and the rough shadows
of a day touched with mystery.

I do not need to understand.
I do need to love, laugh, 
and live in beauty. One reality 
does not abolish the other. 
They merely dance out of step,
as I polish my heart to get
a clear view.

“One common mistake is to think that one reality is the reality. You must always be prepared to leave one reality for a greater one.”

-Mother Meera

“You may not be able to alter reality, but you can alter your attitude towards it, and this, paradoxically, alters reality. Try it and see.”

-Margaret Atwood

“Dear friend, your heart is a polished mirror. You must wipe it clean of the veil of dust that has gathered upon it, because it is destined to reflect the light of divine secrets.”

-Al-Ghazali

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One Crazy Ride

When we arrive at the door of sorrow,
our hearts grieve what is lost and
awaken to what is before us as we 
sit in the narrow wedge we call home.

Let us come alive to all life, all being,
as we navigate rough waters, and
wish to enter morning dawn unharmed.

Let go of safety to be in the stream.
Let go of secure to ride the wave.
The risk is before us with the choice
to sit safe or move into form.

Let go, let life arise.
It is our choice.
Our hearts response. 
Our one crazy ride.

Image is mine

“Taking risks doesn’t mean shirking responsibility but embracing possibilities.”

-Vick Hope

“Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.”

-Hermann Hesse

“Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.”

-Golda Meir

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Morning Peace

Morning peace arrives with first light.
Love and strength shelter me as I sit 
in repose and allow spirit to flow.
Thoughts arise that tremble my heart
and crease the folds of love that feel
tender and bruised. I observe; I 
move on. Breathe in, breathe out,
and sit in this moment in time,
this place of resonance, that awakens to all.

“Empathy is the faculty to resonate with the feelings of others. When we meet someone who is joyful, we smile. When we witness someone in pain, we suffer in resonance with his or her suffering.”

-Matthieu Ricard

“As our nation has become more divided, there is a resonance for a message to bring people together.”

-Martin Luther King III

“I say that a myth is a story which has particular energy, mythic resonance. I always say that a myth is a tear in the fabric of reality through which all of this spiritual energy pours.”

-Jay Parini

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The Colors of Life

See the beauty 
in the colors of life 
that unfold the truth, 
buried within each of us,
waiting to come to light, 
waiting to be released 
into a world of change.

When the old die off 
we enter a new way of being,
seeing, and living. Trust
in the way of evolution. 
Trust in the heart of life.
Grieve what is set aside
as space opens for new to enter. 

Change unsettles the balance
we thought we had created and
now we release into an unknown
that beckons us forth.
Step into the void. Step into
the mystery—the change
unfolding before us.

Step into and let go.
Breathe into life.
You are re-born.
The colors that seem lost
will arise in vibrant hues.
Search now for your color.
It will guide you.

(Image-my own)

“Under the anger, under the fear, under the despair, under the broken heartedness, there is a radiance that has never been harmed, that has never been lost, that is the truth of who one is.”

-Gangaji

“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”

-John F. Kennedy

“A human being is a part of a whole called by us the universe.”

― Tsoknyi Rinpoche

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The Path of Hurricane Helene

Shock and sadness wash through lives as water rises, washes away dreams, muddies lives, upends structures, and rips apart the trajectory of what feels certain, familiar, steady, and known. Water finds its path, determines lives, then flows to the source.  Watery tears are shed for all that is lost and forever changed.

“Death is water’s close companion. The two cannot be separated, and neither can be separated from us, for they are what we are ultimately made of: the versatility of water, and the closeness of death. Water has no beginning and no end, but death has both. Death is both. Sometimes death travels hidden in water, and sometimes water will chase death away, but they go together always, in the world and in us.”

― Emmi Itäranta, Memory of Water

“Water is life’s matter and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water.”

– Albert Szent-Gyorgyi.

“We forget that water and life cycles are one.”

-Jacques Cousteau.

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Infinite Stillness

Today, goldfinch perches on a tranquil tree
with no breeze, nor rustle to disturb. She rests
with trust and looks out into the world ready
to fly when she must yet, she feels no call to do so.
She studies the world around her as she watches and waits
for the moment when all is alive within her.  
When her beating heart is in tune with the sound of the universe,  
it is then, she takes wing and soars.

“The dance had distilled her, and she had become one with the essence of all that is.”
― Holly Lynn Payne

“Meditation is the process of entering into a receptive state and letting the goodness of the universe fill you. It is dipping your toe into a pool of infinite stillness.”
― Amy Leigh Mercree

“Your greatest teacher is the One with you always”
― Leland Lewis

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Time For Rest

My dear WordPress and Facebook friends,

It has been a big summer. My heart has been saying “take a break” and I keep resisting—until now. It might be a couple of weeks, maybe more. I am needing to recalibrate, renew, revive, and integrate.

Peace…Janis

“It’s very important that we re-learn the art of resting and relaxing. Not only does it help prevent the onset of many illnesses that develop through chronic tension and worrying; it allows us to clear our minds, focus, and find creative solutions to problems.”

-Thich Nhat Hanh

“Resting for me is fitness training.”

-Jenson Button

“I get a lot of the ideas when I’m resting – either when I’m meditating or getting some kind of work done on my back, like physical therapy or acupuncture. That’s where I get my best ideas, maybe because I’m balancing my body.”

-Katy Perry

It’s Not Going To Happen and, It Is Happening

Today, I sat to write a poem for my weekly post. It is not happening. My brain is tired. I have run out of words to edify, describe, inspire.

For the past two months, I have been preparing for two sermons that I will be offering at Common Ground Community UMC , our local worship community. Tomorrow, Sumday the 18th, at 9:30 Central Time is the first. The two part series is on suffering, transformation, and compassion. The seocnd part is Sunday the 25th.

If you are interested, I will post a link to their archives and you can pick it up later. This post may be arriving too late for the livestream but it is here.

https://commongroundumc.org

“The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.”

–Ben Okri

“Life and death are illusions. We are in a constant state of transformation.”

–Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”

–Dalai Lama

A Moment

A moment,
a pause, 
reflected,
refracted.
The world
in cadence,
in syncopation.
And I,
in this moment,
find peace.

“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”

-Mother Teresa

“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”

-Edith Wharton

“Harmony is the inner cadence of contentment we feel when the melody of life is in tune.”

-Sarah Ban Breathnach

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Laugh Out Loud

Take a break,
grab your bestie, 
go outside, 
lay on the grass,
look at the clouds 
and giggle out loud.
There’s one that looks
like an elephant,
one a goose.
Then giggle some more 
until you can’t stop laughing 
and your bladder’s going to burst. 
Remember those days?
When you laughed 
with abandon?
When you laughed so hard
you started to cry?
We need it now—
our joy and our tears,
from the heart,
the tender heart
that is ready to break.
Break open!
Live the connection,
friend to friend,
us to clouds.
The heart knows 
the One. 
The One in the All.
Where love is all One.

“The highest state is laughter.”

– Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

“We don’t laugh because we’re happy – we’re happy because we laugh.”

– William James

“Everybody laughs the same in every language because laughter is a universal connection.”

– Jakob Smirnoff

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