Category Archives: Flowers

Flowers, Home, Inspiring Words, Sweet Breathing

What Took You So Long?

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Thank you John Roedel for this resonant missive this morning!!

“my brain and heart divorced

a decade ago

over who was

to blame about

how big of a mess

I have become

eventually,

they couldn’t be

in the same room

with each other

now my head and heart

share custody of me

I stay with my brain

during the week

and my heart

gets me on weekends

they never speak to one another

– instead, they give me

the same note to pass

to each other every week

and their notes they

send to one another always

says the same thing:

“This is all your fault”

on Sundays

my heart complains

about how my

head has let me down

in the past

and on Wednesday

my head lists all

of the times my

heart has screwed

things up for me

in the future

they blame each

other for the

state of my life

there’s been a lot

of yelling – and crying

so,

lately, I’ve been

spending a lot of

time with my gut

who serves as my

unofficial therapist

most nights, I sneak out of the

window in my ribcage

and slide down my spine

and collapse on my

gut’s plush leather chair

that’s always open for me

~ and I just sit sit sit sit

until the sun comes up

last evening,

my gut asked me

if I was having a hard

time being caught

between my heart

and my head

I nodded

I said I didn’t know

if I could live with

either of them anymore

“my heart is always sad about

something that happened yesterday

while my head is always worried

about something that may happen tomorrow,”

I lamented

my gut squeezed my hand

“I just can’t live with

my mistakes of the past

or my anxiety about the future,”

I sighed

my gut smiled and said:

“in that case,

you should

go stay with your

lungs for a while,”

I was confused

– the look on my face gave it away

“if you are exhausted about

your heart’s obsession with

the fixed past and your mind’s focus

on the uncertain future

your lungs are the perfect place for you

there is no yesterday in your lungs

there is no tomorrow there either

there is only now

there is only inhale

there is only exhale

there is only this moment

there is only breath

and in that breath

you can rest while your

heart and head work

their relationship out.”

this morning,

while my brain

was busy reading

tea leaves

and while my

heart was staring

at old photographs

I packed a little

bag and walked

to the door of

my lungs

before I could even knock

she opened the door

with a smile and as

a gust of air embraced me

she said

“what took you so long?”

~ john roedel

(from “Remedy”)

Sweet Breathing Indeed……

Flowers, Home, Inspiring Words, Nature, Photography, Sweet Breathing

When The Human World Seems Heavy

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Brigit Anna McNeill always in all ways uplifts a heavy heart. She brings us a welcome fresh perspective, deeper, one that is healing and true. May her words heal and uplift you today. Let’s drop the heaviness and lean in to nature’s gifts and strengths, remembering that we are “wild, wise and ensouled.” Yes.

“When the human world feels heavy, take yourself to the homely arms of oak, into the whispers of the ocean and find the call of bird.

Let new languages, new sounds, new meanings fill your bones.

Let the beauty of this more than human world settle your frightened heart.

Let your wider community show you, strengthen you, let them tell you stories of the wildness that is seeded from the darkness.

Find the white of blackthorn blossom amidst the bare spaces, the gold of celandine and the song of the bee.

Let rose and hawthorn hold your heart, and nettle strengthen your resolve.

Let dandelion’s medicine speak to you of courage, weaving tales of tenacity and rewilding into your gut.

Find the verdant seedlings grown from death, the young Elder birthed from a breaking.

Watch how the little alchemists, the insects, the fungi and the worms eat the shit and turn it into gold.

You are more than stagnant human in concrete and chaos.

You are wild, wise and ensouled.

Let yourself remember.”

~ Brigit Anna McNeill

Flowers, Home, Nature, Photography, Sweet Breathing

You Carry Your World With You

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These words by Silvatiicus Riddle resonated today. Of course not everything is terrible, not even most things, not even a large percentage of things. Perspective. Laying down the learned anger, the fear, the rhetoric, and remembering the love that permeates all, the overwhelming beauty, the magnificence of life, the privilege of it, are all at our fingertips, alive in our hearts,and available for the asking. In this little piece of the world we inhabit, yes, we have everything we need.

“Not everything is terrible.

Read that again. Say it aloud. Know that it is ultimately the truth.

Somewhere birds sing. Somewhere cats play and roll in the grass. Somewhere there is a brand new baby seeing snowfall for the first time. An ocean washes the tired feet of a grandmother with a lifetime of memories etched into her kindly face. Somewhere someone is deeply in love, and falls asleep with their lover’s face still in their eyes. Somewhere there are trees that have seen terrible men rise and fall, that have watched war planes flying overhead, that have felt in the ground and mycelium the distant strike of the ax, and yet…they dig their roots deeper. They reach up proudly for the sunlight, unashamed. They allow the world around them to fall away, or shift with time. Because sometimes, when it is difficult, when it is scary, that is the only way to live.

The flowers will grow. The storms will pass. Life will begin and end and begin again, because that is the way of it. It may not be okay in the whole world, but you can sing. You can pet the soft fur of your animals, you can feel the coolness or warmth of a comforting drink. The touch of a hand. You can recall the survival of an ancestor through trying times, call their strength to you. You can read a good story, or make one up. Tell one about a great adventure –a quest for the precious jewel that gives you life, and how the old witch helped you discover that you’ve carried it with you all along, that it exists inside of you, and you have everything you need right now, in this very moment. Because you do. You really do.

In the little piece of the world that you claim beneath your feet, it is okay. You carry your world with you.

Not everything is terrible.

Remember, and seek out the good.”

Silvatiicus Riddle

Flowers, Home, Inspiring Words, Nature

The Altar of Dawn

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“I place on the altar of dawn:
The quiet loyalty of breath,
The tent of thought where I shelter,
Waves of desire I am shore to
And all beauty drawn to the eye.
May my mind come alive today
To the invisible geography
That invites me to new frontiers,
To break the dead shell of yesterdays,
To risk being disturbed and changed.
May I have the courage today
To live the life that I would love,
To postpone my dream no longer
But do at last what I came here for
And waste my heart on fear no more.”
-John O’Donohue
Flowers, Inspiring Words, Nature, Photography, Sweet Breathing

Sunflowers are Angels Sometimes

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“I don’t know
if the sunflowers
are angels always,
but surely sometimes.
Who, even in heaven,
wouldn’t want to wear,
for awhile,
such a seed-face
and brave spine,
a coat of leaves
with so many pockets—
and who wouldn’t want
to stand, for a summer day,
in the hot fields,
in the lonely country
of the wild-haired corn?
This much I know,
when I see the bright
stars of their faces,
when I’m strolling nearby,
I grow soft in my speech,
and soft in my thoughts,
and I remember how everything will be everything else,
by and by.”

-Mary Oliver, from “By the Wild-Haired Corn”, Long Life : Essays and Other Writings

Flowers, Glacier National Park, Home, Inspiring Words, Nature, Photography, Sweet Breathing

You Are the Medicine

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“Cure yourself, with the light of the sun and the rays of the moon. With the sound of the river and the waterfall.
With the swaying of the sea and the fluttering of birds.
Heal yourself, with the mint and mint leaves,
with neem and eucalyptus.
Sweeten yourself with lavender, rosemary, and chamomile.
Hug yourself with the cocoa bean and a touch of cinnamon. Put love in tea instead of sugar. And take it looking at the stars.
Heal yourself, with the kisses that the wind gives you and the hugs of the rain.
Get strong with bare feet on the ground
and with everything that is born from it.
Get smarter every day by listening to your intuition, looking at the world with the eye of your forehead.
Jump, dance, sing, so that you live happier.
Heal yourself, with beautiful love, and always remember …
you are the medicine.”
-Maria Sabina
Flowers, Home, Inspiring Words, Nature, Photography, Sweet Breathing

Live In Fertile Soil

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“In the rush to return to normal, use this time to consider which parts of normal are worth rushing back to.”

-Dave Hollis

“Live in fertile soil. Take in nutrients like your life depends on it. Breathe fresh air, in and out. Take a break from the rapids, surrender, and the current will either carry you or kick you out towards its gentle edges. Move away from depleting habitats. Leave a sedentary mind and body for the one that is waiting for you on the other side of this and any other present uncertainty. Your future gains certainty when you rise, like your voluntary breath, actively inspiring, consciously and unconsciously inhaling and exhaling.”

-Erika Putnam

Flowers, Home, Inspiring Words, Nature, Photography, Sweet Breathing

Between Our Breaths

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“Even in movement there is stillness                                                      If we would but awaken.

Between our breaths                                                                       breathing in and breathing out,                                                    Between the blinking of our eyes                                                        and the beating of our heart,

In that space,                                                                                                  as time begins falling into the timeless                                                We focus on that still point                                                                    and cross the threshold

Awareness rises.”

-Bob Holmes