Tag Archives: Nature

Sweet Breathing

One Vast Awakened Thing

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“I have lots of things to teach you now, in case we ever meet, concerning the message that was transmitted to me under a pine tree in North Carolina on a cold winter moonlit night.

It said that Nothing Ever Happened, so don’t worry. It’s all like a dream. Everything is ecstasy, inside. We just don’t know it because of our thinking-minds. But in our true blissful essence of mind is known that everything is alright forever and forever and forever. Close your eyes, let your hands and nerve-ends drop, stop breathing for 3 seconds, listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot, which was taught in immense milky way soft cloud innumerable worlds long ago and not even at all. It is all one vast awakened thing. I call it the golden eternity. It is perfect.”

-Jack Kerouac

Sweet Breathing

Goodbye 2017 (and thank you); Welcome 2018!

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As 2017 comes to a close at midnight, my heart is full with memories.  I know more with each passing day that the sweetness is in awareness. Awareness of all of the magic, majesty and wonder all around, in every single second.  In the trees, the wild ones, the big night sky, the wind, every snow flake, the fragrance of pine, my dog’s intent gaze, the eyes of a stranger, the touch of my beloved…  The moments of wonder stitch together in a tapestry of hours, days,  weeks, and thus this year was made.   Moments of awareness, of being here now, slowly weave together our lives.  There is so very much to treasure, absorb, experience, and be with. How beautiful.

It leaves me breathless for all that 2018 may bring…  It is a precious thing to be alive in this world.

So…goodbye 2017 and thank you!

And to 2018, sending heartfelt wishes for all of us to write on our hearts, pause in the silence of the forest, visit the area of the soul where words don’t penetrate, be peaceful and wild, and Love, Love, Love, in the wondrous moments that will create our new year!

“Write it on your heart… that every day is the best day of the year.”

-R. W. Emerson

“Pausing to experience the silence of the forest during winter months is a gift of presence.”

-Andrea Fereshteh

“Some events are in the area of the soul where words cannot penetrate.”

-Neil Cassady

“There is peaceful. There is wild. I am both at the same time.”

-Nayyirah Waheed

“What is done in love is done well.”

-Vincent Van Gogh

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Yellowstone – A Gallery of Photos

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Yellowstone.  Majestic earth workings of every sort.  Power.  Everlasting change and evolution. Steaming water, geysers, grand waterfalls, canyons, a deep and wide lake, fumaroles, mud pots, elk, bighorn sheep, grizzlies, black bear, cats, moose, and wolves!!  Nine packs of wolves vying for dominance and survival, taking care of their families, broadening their empires.  What a vision of nature’s overwhelming diversity and drive for balance.  Life continuing in all its exuberance.  There is never enough time to take it all in.  I want to return and spend weeks in the Lamar Valley, getting to know the wolves and the landscapes.  To become part of it, to know it.  Undiminished by the island it has become, it is still becoming.  So alive, so magnificent.  Mysterious and overwhelmingly powerful.

“A thousand Yellowstone wonders are calling, ‘Look up and down and round about you.”

-John Muir, 1898

“There is nothing so American as our national parks…. The fundamental idea behind the parks…is that the country belongs to the people, that it is in process of making for the enrichment of the lives of all of us.”

– President Franklin D. Roosevelt

Click onto any image below to view a full size version – click arrows on full size to view all in full size

 

 

Sweet Breathing

Be Thanksgiving

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Be Thanksgiving
by Briana Borten

“This past summer I became really clear that my #1 prayer for my life is that I want to be living in gratitude all of the time. I asked myself “How can I be in every moment, action, and word, a walking thank you card to the Universe? How can I be in the spirit of Thanksgiving all of the time?”

It’s one thing to take a few moments out of the day and write down the things I’m grateful for, which can be a great practice for shifting perspective (and I do daily), but what if I lived every day like my only purpose was to express the immense appreciation I have to the Universe? That would be the ultimate Thanksgiving. How can we live in that feeling all the time? That is a question to examine in this holiday season.

Since I started asking myself that question and bringing more awareness to this idea I’ve noticed that I’m seeing the beauty everywhere and in everything more clearly. I’m taking the time to slow down and be grateful throughout the day. I give compliments more often as I’m seeing the light in others. I’m allowing myself to receive compliments fully. I’m being kinder to myself, and honoring my body with loving attention. I’m taking care of my family with joy and love and feeling more patient than ever. I’m regularly finding myself in awe of all Divine creation.

So even if it’s just for one day – what if we all tried to see the light, to be the light, and share the light with others?

To live as gratitude, in gratitude.”

-Briana Borten

Wild turkey picture taken from home…
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Our Sacred Animals

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“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

 

“Don’t kill animals for glory, that makes you the worst kind of bully.”                                                                                                                     -Seth Kantner

A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men, and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help.  -Albert Schweitzer

“Our treatment of animals will one day be considered barbarous. There cannot be a perfect civilization until man realizes that the rights of every living creature are as sacred as his own.”                                                                                                                      -David Jordon

 

 

Sweet Breathing

Peace

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“We shall find peace. We shall hear the angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.”

—Anton Chekhov

“Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.”

—Baruch Spinoza

“Peace has never come from dropping bombs. Real peace comes from enlightenment and educating people to behave more in a divine manner.”

—Carlos Santana

“Peace is not a relationship of nations. It is a condition of mind brought about by a serenity of soul. Peace is not merely the absence of war. It is also a state of mind. Lasting peace can come only to peaceful people.”

—Jawaharlal Nehru

“You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.”

—Malcolm X

“If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.”

—Moshe Dayan

“Every day we do things, we are things that have to do with peace. If we are aware of our life…, our way of looking at things, we will know how to make peace right in the moment, we are alive.”

—Thich Nhat Hanh

“First keep the peace within yourself, then you can also bring peace to others.”

—Thomas Kempis

Sweet Breathing

With Love and Reverence

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“Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.”

-Henry David Thoreau

“Love they said burns you and builds you!

But with you, there is no ash,

Just Light.

-Kamand Kojouni

“Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.”

-John Milton