What if there were a prayer like an incantation, one to be recited, or sung—if you could carry a tune— echoing around the world like the wood pigeon’s call, five notes radiating as light rays fill the sky announcing: “Morning has arrived”.
What if, I ask, because I wonder what might bloom in our hearts if we held five words to lift us into the dawn— could they luminate our path through starless nights of change, surprise, and dread where daily news suspends us in silent, trembling pause?
Focus. Sing out. A clear message.
One that says: Lift your hearts today. Let love be your guide. My joy illuminates.
Could we, in unison, each in our own language of hope, sing until certainty rises that dawn has arrived, and all are bathed in new light.
Could we sing together and dispel the darkness that seeps through shadowed corners, permeating rooms of despair? Could we try?
There lies hope: Our one honest prayer of life. Together we could light the universe.
My most recent work, Heart Coherence, took a blue ribbon award of excellence at the five county Image Show put on by the East Central Regional Arts Council in central Minnesota. What an honor!
I have not had much time to paint this year due to many many things happening but to get me moving, I took a twelve week abstract art course on line and this inspiration came during the short teaser course before the full course started. I used acrylic, pencil, and ink. After the framing and the show, I am happy to have it at home. I will enjoy it for a while and decide if it is for sale. Some are just hard to let go of. 😊
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.”
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.”
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
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.”
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.”
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.”
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
