I Have Recently Experienced...

 

Frida Kahlo

I have recently experienced a loss 

which has profoundly opened up my heart, 

and while I feel my nerve endings 

to almost an unbearable extent, 

nonetheless I feel a sense of the whole universe opening up to me. 

I'd love to hold on to this intensity of heart, 

to learn to live in it more habitually. 

And instead of buffering the rawness that comes, 

I find my creative world has opened up

 to express this state, 

and so that comment 

from Rodney about a state of "rediscovery" 

really fits for me. 

Healing has become an act of blessing 

and revivifying my life, 

in order that this loss be productive 

of new sprouts of being and living.

~J

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May All My Encounters Be Holy...

 

May all my encounters be holy

Today I see every encounter as a sacred one, 

blessing anyone I meet 

or even think of. 

May a holy light shine forth from my heart 

and bless all living things. 

May my presence on earth 

be a touchstone for God‘s love.

I place my relationships 

in the hands of God 

and pray that they be used by Him.

May anyone who enters my presence 

feel the healing balm of peace. 

May my thoughts and actions 

extend the love that fills God’s heart, and mine.

Dear God,

Please use my encounters

To increase Your love.

May they be a blessing

On all involved.

Amen.

May all my encounters be holy

~Marianne Williamson

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This Above All...

Betty Billups

 “This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
~William Shakespeare - Hamlet, Act I, Scene III

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One Of The Most Powerful Rituals...

 

One of the most powerful rituals 

I perform on a daily basis is composting. 

It gives me Hydrogens, 

to observe how the rinds and peels 

and byproducts in my kitchen 

so quickly become fertile soil. 

Soil that I spread 

in my garden at the roots of new plants 

that grow to feed our family yet again. 

                                                              ~E

 

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I Am Making Efforts...

 

Arcade Latour

I am making efforts 

to see that these frictions are a gift. 

It is quite difficult for the machine to accept this. 

Watching other students suffer through this also, 

especially when identified with one’s friction, 

it seems the last thing one wants to hear 

is that this friction is a gift.

~M

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In Nature...

 

In nature we never see anything isolated, 

but everything in connection 

with something else 

which is before it, 

beside it, under it and over it.

~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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We Have Our Breadcrumbs...

We have our breadcrumbs, 

like in the story of Hansel and Gretel 

that remind us that we can return home. 

I believe that these are our verifications. 

Using the tools in the work of self-observation 

and extending that outward 

to see more broadly into things. 

I remember times 

when I approached situations differently. 

These were moments 

when I was pierced with realizations 

that stay with me, 

breadcrumbs, that I can follow when I am lost - 

for instance when I was able 

(with these gifts of the work- the tools- the higher help) 

to see the beauty in all things. 

When once I would not even bother to look 

or want to see something painful, ugly, etc., 

I could see beauty there. 

And expanding on that, 

allowing myself 

to move inwardly from that moment,

 holding -and each time holding - 

I see now that I was increasing my capacity 

to hold states of love in me - 

surrounding me and going through me. 

And allowing those sensations 

to linger as long as they may. 

Practicing not controlling and letting go!

~M

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I Have Noticed...

 

Michael Arnold

I have noticed 

and actually recently verified 

is the love state exists in us 

now and in every moment. 

What is becoming more and more clear 

is that it is our features and false personality 

that prevent us from being united with it. 

The work is a gift 

that provides us with the tools to strip it away, 

so that the love may be ever present.

~G

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If I Speak ...

Edward Burne-Jones

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, 

but have not love, 

I am a noisy gong 

or a clanging cymbal.

And if I have prophetic powers, 

and understand all mysteries 

and all knowledge, 

and if I have all faith, 

so as to remove mountains, 

but have not love, I am nothing.

If I give away all I have, 

and if I deliver up my body 

to be burned, 

but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; 

love does not envy or boast; 

it is not arrogant or rude. 

It does not insist on its own way; 

it is not irritable or resentful; 

it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, 

but rejoices with the truth.

Love bears all things, 

believes all things, 

hopes all things, 

endures all things. 

Love never ends.

As for prophecies, they will pass away; 

as for tongues, they will cease; 

as for knowledge, it will pass away. 

For we know in part 

and we prophesy in part, 

but when the perfect comes, 

the partial will pass away.

When I was a child, 

I spoke like a child, 

I thought like a child, 

I reasoned like a child.

When I became a man, 

I gave up childish ways.

For now we see in a mirror dimly, 

but then face to face.

Now I know in part; 

then I shall know fully, 

even as I have been fully known.

So now faith, hope, and love abide, 

these three;

 but the greatest of these 

is love.

~Paul's Letter to the Corinthians

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