Tag: inspiration

We The People

We ran in fear.
We towed the line.
As consciousness rises
we stand in truth
of who we are,
no longer choosing
from what is hidden
in shadow,
no longer following
blindly in darkness,
we rise to heart’s bidding—
the All, unfolding before us,
that calls us to live
in simplicity and love,
as we learn to believe,
what is good for all 
is good for me.

(Image: From the One World Series, We All Belong by Janis Dehler)

“The main tenet of design thinking is empathy for the people you’re trying to design for. Leadership is exactly the same thing – building empathy for the people that you’re entrusted to help.”

-David M. Kelley

“Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For, indeed, that’s all who ever have.”

-Margaret Mead

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”

-Voltaire

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A Prayer of Gratitude

I lift my gaze to the sun, the moon,
the stars, to the birds of the air, 
to the universe of mystery, to the
everything and the nothing.

I lower my gaze to the earth, 
to the plants, the animals, 
to the crawling things,
to all that grounds me into Gaia—

the bosom of the mother who
nourishes, protects, challenges,
and grieves, who is alive in
her evolution, who pulses life.

I open my heart to those before me,
to the whispers of love and compassion,
to the cries of war and hate, and on to 
my shadow of fear, pain, and sorrow.

I look to the mountains, the seas,
the vast life before me—the unknown.
For it all, my heart says, yes, 
in gratitude for life, for the journey,

the opportunity to be in body,
in human form, walking each day
with those who seek, who carry light,
who reach to touch the stars to earth—
an angel's kiss. I bow in gratitude.

(Image my own)

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.”

-Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Gratitude is the inward feeling of kindness received. Thankfulness is the natural impulse to express that feeling. Thanksgiving is the following of that impulse.”

-Henry Van Dyke

“Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind.”

-Lionel Hampton

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Life In Expansion

NASA/ESA/Hubble

I imagine the vast universe
in flow, color,
swirls of energy, 
calling, reminding me: 
life is everywhere,
teeming with possibility,
pulsing with joy,
expanding in love.

It is said, 
what is out, is in. 
Is this the sight of
my internal being—
in expansion,
in evolution,
in every cell, vibrating
within this experience called life.

“You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.”

-Buddha

“We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.”

-Stephen Hawking

“Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy.”

-Albert Einstein

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It Is Now

Drift into the morning light
that beckons you forward.
Drift into the dew of a reality
that moistens your heart.
Draw into the path of being
that guides you into love.
For what is hope but the desire
for what we are born for.
What is hope but the knowledge
that something is there—
that we are not alone, not forgotten.
Move from hope to is.
It is now.
It is all within you in this moment.
Your future is your present.
Hope is found when we allow.
Live in your now to open the door
to your desire.
You are your hope.

“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present.”
― Bill Keane

“Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”

– Vaclav Havel

“Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird,That cannot fly.”
― Langston Hughes

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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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From the Events Page

There is still space available for my workshop, Growth Through Creative Spiritual Practice. I’d love to see you for an evening of poetry and art with playful writing and/or painting. No experience necessary, it is all creative play. Come and enjoy.

Visit www.wisdomwayscenter.org or call 651-696-2787.