Category Archives: Sweet Breathing

Creation’s Dawn

The morning stars were resplendent as this new day unfolded.

Remembering that we all live in creation’s dawn is rejuvenating, exhilarating and liberating!  We can always start anew bringing our best and most creative selves to this newest dawn.

“…I also live in ‘creation’s dawn.’

The morning stars still sing together,

Night-Sky-2012-January-1038x576and the world,

not

yet half made,

becomes more

beautiful every day.”

-John Muir

Blue Sky, Tall Trees & Sun Burst

 

Morning has broken like the first morning, blackbird has spoken like the first bird.  Praise for the singing!  Praise for the morning!”        

     Morning Has Broken (Song Lyrics, Cat Stevens)

 

Every morning the world is created.  Under the orange sticks of the sun the heaped ashes of the night turn into leaves again and fasten themselves to the high branches—and the ponds appear like black cloth on which are painted islands of summer lilies.  If it is your nature to be happy you will swim away along the soft trails for hours, your imagination alighting everywhere.  And if your spirit carries within it the thorn that is heavier than lead—if it’s all you can do to keep on trudging—there is still somewhere deep within you a beast shouting that the earth is exactly what is wanted—each pond with its blazing lilies is a prayer heard and answered lavishly, every morning, whether or not you have ever dared to be happy, whether or not you have ever dared to pray.”

-Morning Poem, Mary Oliver

Manatee Springs Water Lillies

 

Sail Away From Safe Harbor. Explore. Dream. Discover.

April!

Full of rain showers and promise, budding possibilities, growth in every molecular moment!

Red Buds, Blue Sky

 

The earth is singing of new life.  Trees radiating their energy.  Water flowing.  Melting, absorbing, being….

Time to get immersed in the wonders all around.

Uncomplicate.  Be amazed. Feel the majesty.

 

“Maintaining a complicated life is a great way to

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avoid changing it.”

-Elaine St. James

“There are years that ask

questions and years that answer”

-Zora Neale Hurston

 

Raven Child Portrait

“Keep walking, though there is no where to get to.

Don’t try to see through the distances.

That’s not for human beings.

Move within, but don’t move the way that fear makes you move”

-Rumi

Swiftcurrent Lake

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the

things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.  So throw

off the bowlines.  Sail away from safe harSan Juan Island Sunsetbor.  Catch the trade

winds in your sails.

Explore.  Dream.

Discover.”

-Mark Twain

Here Comes The Sun

Bright sun shining day!

In northwest Montana, Spring comes slowly – a gradual awakening, full of fits and starts.  Beautiful warmth in the daytime, back to freezing at night.  Comfortable transition.  Exciting anticipation.  The earth waking up, baby critters on the way, red buds on shrubs by the river, cottonwoods showing bright yellow…

Yes!  Here Comes The Sun, and I say, “It’s all right!”

 

 

Thin Places

Peter Gomes, a Harvard theologian, writes:

“There is in Celtic mythology the notion of ‘thin places’ in the universe where the visible and the invisible world come into their closest proximity. To seek such places is the vocation of the wise and the good — and for those that find them, the clearest communication between the temporal and eternal. Mountains and rivers are particularly favored as thin places marking invariably as they do, the horizontal and perpendicular frontiers. But perhaps the ultimate of these thin places in the human condition are the experiences people are likely to have as they encounter suffering, joy, and mystery.”

Mountains and Rivers and

Soft Stream in the Forest

 

Mysteries as the clearest communicators between the temporal and the eternal – yes, for me, absorbed in those sacred places in nature and contemplating the Great Mystery, the visible and invisible are almost merged.  The veil is thin and the feeling is of a wondrous oneness.

Chief with Clouds

To The Morning

What a lovely way to start the new morning – Dan Fogelberg……..

(the photography in the video accompanying the song is just stunning, click below to hear the song and/or just look at the photos – it’s such an inspiring collection of images)

“To The Morning” (Lyrics, Dan Fogelberg)

Watching the sun…watching it come
Watching it come up over the rooftops
Cloudy and warm…maybe a storm
You can never quite tell from the morning

(Chorus)
And it’s going to be a day
There is really no way to say no to the morning
Yes it’s going to be a day
There is really nothing left to say but come on morning

Waiting for mail
Maybe a tale from an old friend or even a lover
Sometimes there’s none
But we have fun thinking of all who might have written

(Chorus)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=RxClQ_pInzc

And maybe there are seasons
And maybe they change
And maybe to love is not so strange

The sounds of the day
Now they hurry away
Now they are gone until tomorrow
When day will break and you will wake
And you will rake your hands across your eyes and realize
That it’s going to be a day
There is really no way to say no to the morning
Yes it’s going to be a day
There is really nothing left to say but come on morning

And maybe there are seasons and maybe they change
And maybe to love is not so strange

When You See Mystery

Light in the SkyThere is so much wonder and mystery in the world…   and so much we can never know.  We desperately want the “knowing” of answers to life’s big questions and work toward that end with studying and learning.   Because we are seekers, the continuing unknowns and mysteries can be unnerving – all those big questions are pressing to be solved.

I believe though that there can be calm in the face of the unknown.  Peace even within the space of all that can’t be understood.  Safety in what comes next.  Trust in the process of life’s unfolding.  Where there is connection and a oneness it is enough.  There can be sanctuary in the midst of the mystery.

As the Lakota say, “When you see Mystery, call it Mystery”.

The more these words are contemplated, the more they seem to be the most respectful and honoring of the possible ways to celebrate the enormity of all that can’t be known or named or understood.  It is all just too big to be contained in human constraints. Feeble attempts to find words for these wonders make them small and limited.  Better to let the power remain unnamed; call it mystery and feel the awe.

There is peace in the surrender to not knowing.  Not knowing and still trusting.  Loving without explaining.  Feelings without words.  Falling into the wonder…

 Stillwater Landing Fishing

“Once again I accept that life is uncertain and that the goal is not to become more certain about anything but to relax more into the mystery of not knowing what will come next.”

-Elizabeth Lesser

“Great Mystery, teach me how to trust my heart, my mind, my intuition, my inner knowing, the senses of my body, the blessings of my spirit. Teach me to trust these things so that I may enter my sacred space and love beyond my fear, and thus walk in balance with the passing of each glorious sun.”

― American Indian Lakota Prayer

“Life is an unanswered question, but let’s still believe in the dignity and importance of the question”

― Tennessee Williams

 

Whitefish at Night – A Gallery of Photos

Living in the woods, our little town proves itself a nearby haven of good food, community, gatherings, parades, celebrations, galleries, farmer’s markets, the Depot, and even night life!  It is a sweet, rustic, western, town that provides a warm, lively, hub of activity for locals and visitors alike.  For me, the simple life is tremendously enhanced by this small town, so full of unique personality.

A few black and white photographs of Whitefish at night are in the gallery below (slideshow will load below).

“In the great cities we see so little of the world, we drift into our minority. In the little towns and villages there are no minorities; people are not numerous enough. You must see the world there, perforce. Every man is himself a class; every hour carries its new challenge. When you pass the inn at the end of the village you leave your favourite whimsy behind you; for you will meet no one who can share it. We listen to eloquent speaking, read books and write them, settle all the affairs of the universe…..
W.B. Yeats, The Celtic Twilight: Faerie and Folklore

 

Spring!

Oh, sweet Spring, welcome.

She brings her volatile mix of winds, snow, rain, gropple, melt, growth, buds, fawns, raven babies, and the bright greens of new grass in the meadow, aspens and larch.

Rebirth and sprouting and earth’s bounty are bubbling with heated passionate energy to be expressed.

Bring it! Bring it all!

May 10

“It was such a spring day as breathes into a man an ineffable yearning, a painful sweetness, a longing that makes him stand motionless, looking at the leaves or grass, and fling out his arms to embrace he knows not what.”
-John Galsworthy

Tree Silhouette

 

“When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

Sunset from Somers