Tag Archives: Nature

Sweet Breathing

Hear the Stir of a Single Snowflake

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“May you grow still enough to hear the small noises earth makes in preparing for the long sleep of winter, so that you yourself may grow calm and grounded deep within.

May you grow still enough to hear the trickling of water seeping into the ground, so that your soul may be softened and healed, and guided in its flow.

May your grow still enough to hear the splintering of starlight in the winter sky and the roar of earth’s fiery core.

May you grow still enough to hear the stir of  a single snowflake in the air, so that your inner silence may turn into hushed expectation.”

-Brother David Steindl Rast

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Boundless and Infinite

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“I want to live simply. I want to sit by the window when it rains and read books I’ll never be tested on. I want to paint because I want to, not because I’ve got something to prove. I want to listen to my body, fall asleep when the moon is high and wake up slowly, with no place to rush off to. I want not to be governed by money or clocks or any of the artificial restraints that humanity imposes on itself. I just want to be, boundless and infinite.”

-Richard Tabhan

Sweet Breathing

When Great Trees Fall

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When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,
fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of dark, cold
caves.

And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.

-Maya Angelo

“And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those that are friends.”

-Richard Bach

“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.”

-Richard Bach

“Death is the beginning of the soul’s new journey”

-Sri Chinmoy

Dedicated to Reza and Arlisa…

“How are you going to choose to spend this moment …this breath? It’s all there is. How much can you love? How will you choose to live today?
Let us drop the the bullshit, let go of the stories of who you think you are, the voices that keep you small and the misbelief that you are anything less than the absolute totality of LOVE. Claim your moment…NOW. It is really all there is…right here right now”

-Arlisa Houston

“How our world has changed.

Apart but still together. Incredible.”

-Reza Darmono

Sweet Breathing

I Say Yes

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An ancient voice, always there, unearthed and unleashed, surrounded and supported by yesterday’s strangers who are now forever friends,  deeply embedded in my heart. Witnessing Love and Self through another’s eyes. Walking the earth wide open and singing.  Sitting in wonder.  Absorbing the resonances of the sounds brought as a gift by candlelight.  The gong filled with whale song. The mornings fresh, the nights pod like, nestled among my fellow travelers, yet in dark personal silence.  Full to brimming. Rain in the valley, snow on the mountain tops, hail and sunshine glowing through the trees, five white swans to grace us, a gaggle of geese landing in stunning symmetry on the pond….

There is bravery here, there is innocence, there is vulnerability, and there is power.  It is good. And so it is.

I say YES!

Yes to:

Surrender & Trust & Allowing & Receiving & Acceptance

Yes to:

The Grandmother & The Mother & to Gratitude and to Holiness

Yes to:

Deepening and Listening & Witnessing the Love & Radiance in the Eyes & Heart of Each Soul

Yes to:

The Earth, The Sun, The Stars, The Light, The Ancestors & to Spirit

Yes to Life in all her Guises, Learnings and Transformations

(with honor and love to Katherine, Wil, Debbie, Lynn, Lori, Red Star & Justin)

 

 

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Going to the Woods Alone

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“Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone,
with not a single friend,
for they are all smilers and talkers
and therefore unsuitable.
I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds
or hugging the old black oak tree.

I have my ways of praying,
as you no doubt have yours.
Besides, when I am alone
I can become invisible.
I can sit on the top of a dune
as motionless as an uprise of weeds,
until the foxes run by unconcerned.

 

I can hear the almost unhearable sound of the roses singing.

 


If you have ever gone to the woods with me,
I must love you very much.”

-Mary Oliver

 

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

Our Rarest Commodity

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“As our world becomes increasingly polluted with noise, silence is becoming our rarest commodity. Through all the madness, how can we possibly hear what the Earth is so patiently trying to tell us? Wilderness is our only hope. The one place we can always come back to.”

-Scott Stillman