Tag: peace

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

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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Into a New Day

He came to see me 
after the death 
and the days then months 
attempting to rebuild what was
to be both she and he
for the little one who longed for just one 
as the blocks placed one atop another 
crash down to the floor
then stacked and restacked 
a life that could no longer be 
until he forgot himself 
could not sit nor play 
with the boy he loved 
and lost the sleep longed for 
to ease the pain felt in a heart 
that ached to open to peace 
and being in change 
that can’t be contained or
reversed only built upon 
as he lives into 
being carried and opened 
then transformed 
as he and his son 
walk hand in hand
into a new day.

“The song is ended but the melody lingers on.”

Irving Berlin

“No one ever told me that grief felt so much like fear.”

C. S. Lewis

“You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present.”

Jan Gildwell

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What’s After?

She advances ever close to her last breath,
and asks, “What is after?”
“After this belly rises as I breathe,
the touch of grandbabies soft skin,
the kiss placed on these lips by my love,
after the thoughts that drift through this mind,
the fear in not knowing,
the joy in seeing my beloved’s face.”
Then, she hears from within,
Look to what was before.
“Before this body descended
from my mother’s warmth,
wailed as I took my first breath,
before this body formed
from a seed fertilized to grow,
before I was a thought or a desire,
before the stars formed?”
You were a part of everything, and nothing.
A drop in the ocean of love,
the scent of a flower wafting on a breeze,
all that is after that which was before.
“Now I see,” she whispers. 
“I will return from what I have learned,
from this body, from form, from life, in love.
I return to the ocean of love.”

(image from Hubble Telescope)

“In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory.” 

J.R.R. Tolklen

“That’s what heaven is. You get to make sense of your yesterdays.”

Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet In Heaven

“Seeing death as the end of life is like seeing the horizon as the end of the ocean.” 

David Searls

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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 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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KINDNESS

The news reads of  
cluster bombs
and record heat 
of all time
and I attend 
a party for a
Ukrainian family
who are now here 
safe from war 
over there, while
I got stuck on 
cluster bombs 
with my heart
clenched like a 
fist pumping
“Enough! Enough!
Enough!”
Then night brings
a dream 
with me standing
in a field with
one friend on
my left 
the other 
up ahead on
my right and
the question,
What is most important now? 
One friend says
this and that 
and the other
and the one up 
ahead says,
“Kindness.”
I look from 
one to the other
not wanting to 
offend in choosing 
but I know and raise
my arms and yell
“KINDNESS”, and 
with a thumbs up I
run through the
golden grass in
the hot sun
to a lone tree
and lay my body down 
with my back 
on the moist 
cool soil
bringing me to 
breath and to
peace as the 
shade brings
balance of 
kindness to 
this hot and
wild earth.

“One who lives in accordance with nature does not go against the way of things. He moves in harmony with the present moment, always knowing the truth of just what to do.”

8th Verse of the Tao Te Ching, trans. by Dr. Wayne Dyer

“We can be sure that the greatest hope for maintaining equilibrium in the face of any situation rests within ourselves.”

Francis J. Braceland

“My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.”

Dalai Lama

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