Tag: Nature

The Untold Story

When we are born the heavens tell a story.
We don’t know the text, so we fill in the blanks, 
to live it out or to create a new path. Without a plot
to foretell the dangers that come our way,

we trip and dance and love and grieve, 
as details of a life unfold, 
and arguments of free will rise.
We ask ourselves, “to do or not to do” —

a question we face each day, as we 
flow through life’s ups and downs,
then wonder if we still end up, after all the fuss, 
in the place foretold at our birth,
where we were headed all along.

Just as the river meanders,
with new routes created 
by natures unfolding desires,
may it be so— 
that we move along,
to exactly where we need to be.

“The world you are forced to inhabit does not match up to the world.”

Rosemary Breen, Pisces: Horoscope Compatibility

“I knew at an early age I wanted to act. Acting was always easy for me. I don’t believe in predestination, but I do believe that once you get wherever it is you are going, that is where you were going to be.”

Morgan Freeman

“What I’m saying is . . . remembering feels like time travel, right? Dreaming works the same way. Well, what if that’s all we have in the first place? Thoughts arranged in time. And we’re free—if we can only learn how—to change those thoughts around all we like. So, no predestination. One world. One ever-changing universe. And we can change it!”

Cliff Jones Jr., Dreck

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Awaken to Morning

Each morning, the news feed stuns me: 
	images, pain, apprehension—
        helplessness in the face of atrocities. 

Each morning calls forth: 
	support, humanitarian aid, food, medical care.

Each morning:
        directs me toward the depths of humanity—
        that which links us all. 

Each morning, I sit in quiet and remember: 
         go within, anchor in, seek the calm still point, 
         believe in the sacred seed—within each living thing. 

Each morning, I awaken to wonder:
        what will be next? 

This morning: 
        I watch the yellow finch, 
        sip my tea, 
        sit in my sacred space. 

This morning, as the unthinkable looms: 
         I remember, remember, and remember—
         the source, the beauty, and the bounty of this, 
         our one amazing world.

(reworked poem from March 2022)

“Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.” 

Mahatma Gandhi

“There is peace even in the storm” 

Vincent Van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh

“When I’m in turmoil, when I can’t think, when I’m exhausted and afraid and feeling very, very alone, I go for walks.”

Jim Butcher, Storm Front

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To learn more about my upcoming book, visit my book page at: http://janisdehler.com/river-spirit-books/

A Bonus Day in River Spirit Studios

El Camino Series V: Into The Calm

A big thank you goes to the collector who decided to choose this painting as the one she wants for her home.

The inspiration for Into the Calm arose from my experience of hiking El Camino de Santiago in northern Spain in 2017. The sense of calm in this painting followed the experience of feeling as if I was crawling on my knees through shale, up high elevation, in cold and foggy weather. After shedding tears and processing many emotions that arose, a feeling of inner peace filled me.

“Peace comes from within.  Do not seek it without.” 

Siddhártha Gautama

Notes From the Studio

Dancing Under One Sun II

She is varnished and ready to hang at the East Central Minnesota Image Art Show this weekend.

Check out my Events page for details. http://janisdehler.com/events/

I am not getting much time in the studio as book creation is taking the bulk of my days; it is all cyclical and I will find myself with paintbrush in hand once again.

Life is an endlessly creative experience, and we are shaping ourselves at every moment by every decision we make.

Kent Nerburn

PEACE

I see you, deer,
outside the window, 
resting on fallen leaves
between the wooden fence rails 
and the blue spruce. You appear peaceful 
and content, while not twenty feet away 
your son or daughter nestles under the apple tree.
How sweet you look in repose, 
like the rambunctious toddler 
who wreaks havoc when awake, 
yet when asleep melts my heart 
and I want to give soft kisses,
and think only loving thoughts.
With the view of you, my shoulders release, 
I breathe softly. I prepare dinner, 
eat, then linger at the table and
relish your presence as you watch over us. 
When you are ready, you rise, 
wait for your young one, 
glance back at the house, 
and walk away toward the river.
I thank you for your gentle visit. 
Peace—in this moment—
so easy and uncomplicated.

“It is not enough to win a war; it is more important to organize the peace.”

Aristotle

“You find peace not by rearranging the circumstances of your life, but by realizing who you are at the deepest level.”

Eckhart Tolle

“World peace must develop from inner peace. Peace is not just mere absence of violence. Peace is, I think, the manifestation of human compassion.”

Dalai Lama XIV

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The Sentinel

 
We sit at the water’s edge as
he arrives to march back and forth,
like a sentinel sent to guard his domain,
gray and white feathers proud 
he pauses to rest on one leg, 
tucks the other beneath, 
affects indifference as he
keeps a close eye on all around—
waiting. 
In a flash he is between our feet
to grab a crumb that falls. 

As we sit, intent on 
absorbing the peace and beauty 
of the setting sun, the pungent smell
of water at the shore where drift
brings in sticks and vegetation,
and rest at the end of our day,
seagull offers us a visual—
life lived in reaction, 
to guard, to wait, to snatch, 
when the moment is ripe for the taking.

“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.”

Charles R. Swindoll

“How people treat you is their karma, how you react is yours.”

Dr. Wayne Dyer

“You can’t change how people act, but what you can change is how you react.”

Bonnie Hammer

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The Unseen Force

I thought of the ways we rejoice in life,
offer gratitude to the unseen force,
weary then from trial and toil,
seek solace to soothe our soul.

One thought riding the other,
one emotion responding to need,
making our way to a final day
when breath retires
and we release to what comes beyond—
something or nothing.
We call it faith or delusion,
each in their own way.

Then, I watched the sun set,
sparkling on the waters deep,
hearing a child’s laughter 
as she ran through the evening waves.
Whatever you are, I mused, 
this is what you are.
This is how you speak.

“Thus, to know humanity, understand the earth. To know the earth, understand heaven. To know heaven, understand the Way. To know the Way, understand the great within yourself.”

25th Verse of the Tao Te Ching

“My work is like a dialogue between me and unseen powers, like alchemy.”

Cai Guo-Qiang

“To work magic is to weave the unseen forces into form; to soar beyond sight; to explore the uncharted dream realm of the hidden reality; to infuse life with color, motion and strange scents that intoxicate; to leap beyond imagination into that space between the worlds where fantasy becomes real; to be at once animal and god. Magic is…the ultimate adventure.”

Starhawk

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To Possess or Let Flow

The line on a Facebook post went something like this:

“If we would all possess the same truth, we could get along.”

I thought, possess and truth do not belong in the same sentence.

This must be an error!

Does this person want to build a dam for a flowing river?

Stop the wind from blowing?

I rewrote the sentence:

If we go deep within, we find a truth that flows throughout all life.

“May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back, the way it is with children.” 

Rainer Maria Rilke

“The river is everywhere.” 

Herman Hesse, Siddhartha

“Humans, chuckled the vampire, so possessive.” 

Gail Carriger, Soulless

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The Dive

In my kayak 
I float on water 
under the sun 
tickled by a breeze.
Clouds drift, 
rain drops splash, 
while loon teaches 
her young 
to dive to life 
under the surface. 
Like loon, I descend 
to what lies beneath 
sensory perception, 
in search of sustenance 
for my journey.

Be the silent watcher of your thoughts and behavior. You are beneath the thinker. You are the stillness beneath the mental noise. You are the love and joy beneath the pain.

Eckhart Tolle

“Hold this rope while I dive into my soul; don’t even bother pulling it if I didn’t come up on my own.” 

Ahmed Mostafa

“I will dive into my chaos, and my Abyss will turn it into an art scene.” 

― Talismanist Giebra, Talismanist: Fragments of the Ancient Fire. Philosophy of Fragmentism Series.

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In This House

That house I used to live in,
the one that eluded me
as things do when you try to forget,
or simply don’t remember,
felt lacking, uncertain,
incomplete, like—
What’s in that closet?

Such a jumble,
I could not tell you.
I did not seem to be
a part of it, nor it to me,
yet it’s where life happened:
birth and death, joy, and sadness,
memories made for a lifetime,
the joy of children and delight.

Today, in this house, I breathe, 
feel comfort and recognize each corner—
each room in accord.
This house I now live in feels whole,
part of a creation, mine, and 
not mine. Like the earth places 
where I feel I belong, as I 
merely travel through.

“On this sacred path of Radical Acceptance, rather than striving for perfection, we discover how to love ourselves into wholeness.”

Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance

“We all have a sacred calling that has very little to do with what we accomplish in this world. It is the calling of the sacred — the quiet pull of an implicit wholeness within each of us that awaits our conscious recognition.”

John J. Prendergast, The Deep Heart, Our Portal to Presence
 

“By psychological work we are changed. In spiritual work we are revealed: we manifest our inner wholeness in conscious daily life.”

David Richo, How to be an Adult: A Handbook on Psychological and Spiritual Integration

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