Saying yes

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I rarely let the word “no” escape

from my mouth

because it is plain to my soul

that God has shouted “Yes, Yes, Yes!”

to every luminous moment of existence.

Hafiz

 

Courage: A wider perspective

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May you receive great encouragement
when new frontiers beckon.

May you take time to celebrate
the quiet miracles that seek no attention.

May you experience each day
as a sacred gift
woven around the heart of wonder.

John O’Donoghue, Benedictus

photo slieve bloom mountains by mooro1

Moments

cowslips

There is no such thing as a charmed life, not for any of us, no matter where we live or how mindfully we attend to the tasks at hand. But there are charmed moments, all the time, in every life and in every day, if we are only awake enough to experience them when they come and wise enough to appreciate them.

Katrina Kenison, The Gift of an Ordinary Day

Sunday Quote: The heart that knows poetry

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Spring has returned

The earth is like a chld that knows poems. 

Rainer Maria Rilke

photo attribution: Jess Mann

Patience: Darkness and light, conscious and unconscious

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Night after night, darkness enters the face
of the lily which, lightly, closes its five walls around itself,
and its purse of honey, and its fragrance,
and is content to stand there
in the garden, not quite sleeping,
and, maybe, saying in lily language
some small words we can’t hear
even when there is no wind anywhere,
its lips are so secret, its tongue is so hidden –
or, maybe, it says nothing at all
but just stands there
with the patience
of vegetables and saints
until the whole earth has turned around
and the silver moon becomes the golden sun –
as the lily absolutely knew it would,
which is itself, isn’t it, the perfect prayer?

Mary Oliver, The Lily

photo magnus manske

Where you are

Black River

I said to the wanting-creature inside me:
What is this river you want to cross?
Do you believe there is some place that will make the
soul less thirsty?
In that great absence you will find nothing.

Be strong then, and enter into your own body;
there you have a solid place for your feet.
Think about it carefully!
Don’t go off somewhere else!

Kabir says this: just throw away all thoughts of
imaginary things,
and stand firm in that which you are.

Kabir