The Greater Need - D. H. Lawrence

The rhythm of the cosmos is something we cannot get
away from without impoverishing our lives.  We must get
back into relation, vivid and nourishing relation to the cosmos
and universe.
For the truth is, we perish for lack of fulfillment of our greater
needs, we are cut off from the great source of our inward
nourishment and renewal, sources which flow eternally
in the universe...

D. H. Lawrence

~

Life involves both chaos and order and we sometimes
want desperately to control things, and we become
vulnerable to simplistic answers.

What is needed is courage to live in the midst of the
ambiguities of this moment...

Swimme and Tucker

~

Photo taken by my husband

 

Break For Freedom - David Whyte

To remove ourselves entirely and absolutely, abruptly and
at times uncompromisingly is often the real and radically
courageous break for freedom.  Unsticking ourselves from
the mythical Tar Baby, seemingly set up, just for us, right
in the middle of our path, we start the process of losing
our sense of falsity, of ridding ourselves of illusions, of
letting go of our self-manufactured enemies, and even our
false friends, and most especially the false sense of self
we have manufactured to live with them.  We make
ourselves available for the simple seeing of ourselves
and our world more elementally and therefore more clearly
again.  We withdraw, not to disappear, but to find another
ground from which to see; a solid ground from which to
step, and from which to speak again, in a different way, a
clear, rested, embodied voice we begin to remember as our own.

David Whyte
Excerpt from an essay - "Withdrawal"

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Courage - Fra Giovanni

[.....] The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet
within our reach, is joy.  There is radiance in darkness, could
we but see.  And to see we have only to look...

Life is a generous giver.  But we, judging its gifts by their
covering, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard.  Remove
the covering, and you find beneath it a living splendor, woven
of love by wisdom...

Welcome it, grasp it, and you touch the angel's hand that brings
it to you.  Everything we call a trial, a sorrow or a duty, the gift
is there and the wonder of an overwhelming presence.  Your
joys too, be not content with them as joys.  They, too, conceal
divine gifts.

Life is full of beauty beneath its covering, you will find earth
but cloaks your heaven.  Courage then to claim it.  But courage
you have, and the knowledge that we are pilgrims together,
wending through unknown country home.

Fra Giovanni
1513

with thanks to Love Is A Place

~

"We're just walking each other home."

Ram Dass

~

Photo from the internet

 

Time is Limited - Steve Jobs

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living
someone else's life. Don't be trapped by
dogma. which is living the results of other
people's thinking.  Don't let the noise of others'
opinions drown out your inner voice.  And 
most importantly, have the courage to follow
your heart and intuition.  They somehow
already know what you truly want...

Steve Jobs

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Full Participation - Matt Licata

 With the moon as your witness, renew your vow to no
longer postpone your full participation here, for even
one moment.  It is rare for one human being to allow the
implications of what it really means to take birth in a
star where love is alive.

While it may appear that your sensitivity and your heartbreak
are obstacles along the way, look carefully and see they are
forming the light strands of your journey in every moment.

Within the embodied temple of your heart-essence nature, 
everything is utterly valid, outrageously intelligent, and
overwhelmingly creative.

Without you and your vulnerability - without your unique gifts,

your courage, and your willingness to give everything for the
call to intimacy with all things - this realm will never know the
burning essence of timeless and eternal love.  The oceans, the
galaxies, the snow-capped mountains, and the translucent stars
are counting on you, for it is only through you that love can
enter into this rare world of time and space.

May love pour through you, awakening your cells, your organs,
and each and every strand of your sacred DNA.  May it open you
to the magic of the sacred world, re-wiring everything in its
wake with its signature and fragrance of aliveness.  May it make
use of your eyes to see the truth, your hands to touch another
sweetly, your body to feel more, your words to speak kindness,
and your presence to shower healing upon everyone and everything
you encounter.

May the mysteries of separation and union pour out of the unseen
and take form as your body, your nervous system, and as the flow
of thought, feeling, and emotion within you, crafted as a vehicle
of grace to see this world with the wild, creative, particles
of love.

Matt Licata, PhD
From a post on his blog

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Your Outlook Matters - John O'Donohue

Sometimes when we look out, the world seems dark.
War, violence, hunger and misery seem to abound.
This makes us anxious...  What can I do in my private little
corner of life that could have an effect on world events?
Believing ourselves to be helpless, we hand over our
power to forces and systems outside us that then act in
our names; they go on to put their beliefs into action; and
ironically their actions are often sinister and destructive.

We live in times when the call to real presence is urgent.
We need to rediscover the careless courage, yet devastating
simplicity of the little boy who, in the middle of the
numbed multitude, in naive Socratic fashion, blurts out:
"But the emperor has no clothes."
When spoken, the truth can bring down citadels of falsity.

The spirit of a time is incredibly subtle [or not], yet a hugely
powerful force.  And it is comprised of the mentality and spirit
of all individuals.  The way you look at things is not actually
a private matter.  Your outlook actually and concretely affects
what goes on.  When you take back your power and choose
to see the possibilities for healing and transformation, your
creativity awakens and flows to become an active force of
renewal and encouragement in the world.  In this way, even
in your own hidden life, you can become a powerful agent
of transformation in a broken, darkened world.

John O'Donohue
From: To Bless the Space Between Us
(written in 2008!)

~

Intuitive Art - Mystic Meandering

If you look closely you can see little "beads"
scattered in the painting and the larger one in the purple heart.
They are Snowflake Obsidian from a bracelet I once wore,
and just happened to find them in a little plastic cup.  I had placed
them in a particular order on the painting that was lying on
my work table, and then accidentally hit the canvas, scattering
the little beads over the black and white swirls of the painting. 
I left them where they were, and glued them to the painting. :)

The properties of Snowflake Obsidian are:
Brings about balance, removes negativity from
 a space or person, and  promotes a sense of calm and
 inner centering - where our real power lies.

Amazing!

A Room - Jane Hirshfield

A room does not turn its back on grief.
Anger does not excite it.
Before desire, it neither responds
nor draws back in fear.

Without changing expression,
it takes
and gives back;
not a tuft in the mattress alters.

Windowsills evenly welcome
both heat and cold.
Radiators speak or fall silent as they must.

Doors are not equivocal,
floorboards do not hesitate or startle.
Impatience does not stir the curtains,
a bed is neither irritable or rapacious.

Whatever disquiet we sense in a room
we have brought there.

And so I instruct my ribs each morning,
pointing to hinge and plaster and wood -

You are matter, as they are.
See how perfectly it can be done.
Hold, one day more, what is asked.

Jane Hirshfield
from The Lives of the Heart

via The Beauty We Love

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
digitally altered

Aloneness - John O'Donohue

It takes great courage to meet the full force of your aloneness.
Most of the activity in society is subconsciously designed to
quell the voice crying in the wilderness within you.  The
Mystic Thomas Kempis said that when you go out into the
world, you return to having lost some of yourself.  Until you
learn to inhabit your aloneness, the lonely distraction and noise
of society will seduce you into false belonging, with which you
will only become empty and weary.  When you face your
aloneness, something begins to happen..... a sense of true
belonging.  This is a slow and open-ended transition...
In a sense this is the endless task of finding your true home
within your life.  It is not narcissistic, for as soon as you
rest in the house of your own heart, doors and windows
begin to open outwards to the world.  No longer on the run
from your aloneness, your connections with others becomes
real and creative.  You no longer need to covertly scrape
affirmations from others or from projects outside yourself.
This is slow work; it takes years to bring your mind home.

John O'Donohue
From: Eternal Echoes

For A New Beginning - John O'Donohue

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life's desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

John O'Donohue

From: To Bless the Space Between Us

The Courage to Trust Life - Jeff Carreira

To make no effort at all requires only trust; unbroken trust in life -
unguarded, undefended, and open.  ...making the profound effort
to do nothing at all, the only thing left is pure experience of being.
You are abiding at the very essence of what it means to be
alive and aware.

Underneath the fear, the pain, the worry and self-concern,
the living source of life is untarnished and pure.  The source of
our being is not the pain and suffering.  It is the expansive flow
of life.

When we are free of our compulsive concern with everything
that is wrong we discover that life truly is a miracle even if
bad things happen.  We are free to experience pain and suffering
without losing touch with the inherent goodness of life.  We
must find the courage to let go of our current sphere of [self]
concern so that we can discover a deep and profound trust in life...

Jeff Carreira

Divine Courage - Hafiz

We have not come here to take prisoners
but to surrender ever more deeply
to freedom and joy.
We have not come into this exquisite world
to hold ourselves hostage from love...

Run my dear, from anything
that may not strengthen
your precious budding wings.

Run like hell, my dear,
from anyone likely to put a sharp knife
into the sacred, tender vision
of your beautiful heart...

[.....]

For we have not come here to take prisoners,
or to confine our wondrous spirits,
but to experience ever and ever more deeply
our divine courage, freedom, and Light!

Hafiz

Excerpt from:
"We Have Not Come To Take Prisoners"

Photo: Mandala Art digitally altered

For A New Beginning - John O'Donohue

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
where your thoughts never think to wander,
this beginning has been quietly forming,
waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
feeling the emptiness inside you,
noticing how you willed yourself on,
still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
and the gray promise that sameness whispered,
heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
and out you stepped onto new ground,
your eyes young again with energy and dream,
a path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear,
you can trust the promise of this opening;
unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
that is at one with your life's desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
for your soul senses the world that awaits you.

John O'Donohue
"For A New Beginning"

~

Photo - Portal Cloud

Courage - Oriah & O'Donohue...

I must find the ways, the people, the places, the practices
 that support me in being all
I truly am.

I must cultivate ways of being that let me feel the warmth
 of encouragement against
my heart when it is weary.
I must be fiercely and compassionately honest
with myself  about those choices and actions
that are inconsistent with my essential nature...
I must find the song lines that run through
my life, the melodies that remind me of what
I really am and call me gently back to
acting on this knowing.
I must learn to dance.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

From: The Dance

I took her words and put then into prose poetry form.

No day or minute offers itself twice.
There is an amazing serenity
when life has been lived to the full.
When the true dream of life has been neglected
or postponed, there is helpless regret.
Life is a huge, urgent invitation.
As Rainer Rilke says:
It is so easy to lose your way -
to end up respectable, trusted and
admirably fulfilling your role.
Yet the whole time you could be suffocating
 inside and no one sees it.
So much depends on how you embrace
the world within you.
There is some limbo in which each
life is caught.
The air is poor in limbo;
grey is the one color there.
Stagnation is the status quo.
All things seem blurred in this half-sleep.
Boredom and indifference conspire to keep
the anxiety buried.
There is endless chatter, but nothing said.
Perhaps it is time to leave limbo.
To awaken: to really come alive…

John O’Donohue

These are his words that I put into
prose poetry form.

For Samhain - "A Morning Blessing"

“I bless the night that nourished my heart
to set the ghosts of longing free
into the flow and figure of dream
that went to harvest from the dark,
bread for the hunger that no one sees.

All that is eternal in me
welcome the wonder of this day,
the field of brightness it creates
offering time for each thing
to arise and illuminate.

I place on the altar of dawn:
The quiet loyalty of breath,
the tent of thought where I shelter,
wave 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 time on fear no more…”

John O’Donohue
”A Morning Offering”
From: To Bless the Space Between Us

~

For those of the ancient Celtic and Druid traditions Samhain
 (Nov. 1) is the beginning of a new cycle in
 the Great Round of Time - recognizing the cyclical nature
 of manifest existence.

Warm Blessings to all no matter what your tradition…

Unconfined...

"We have not come here to take prisoners

but to surrender evere more deeply
to freedom and joy… 

We have not come into this exquisite world

to hold ourselves hostage from love.

  

Run, my dear, from anything

that may not strengthen
your precious budding wings.

  

 Run like hell, my dear,

from anyone likely to put a sharp knife
into the sacred, tender vision
of your beautiful heart.

We have a duty to befriend

those aspects…..
that stand outside of our house
and shout to our reason,
”oh please, oh please,
come out to play.”

  

 For we have not come here to take prisoners,

or to confine our wondrous spirits,
but to experience ever and ever more deeply
our divine courage, freedom and Light!"

  

Hafiz

Hafiz poem from Love Is A Place

"Courageously Creative"

I received an e-newsletter the other day from an astrologer friend of ours, Cindy Morris. In it she talks about the New Year’s Eve Blue Moon Lunar Eclipse and its meaning for the New Year… I was struck by the timing of receiving this newsletter and its contents. The energy of the eclipse evidently offers an opportunity for inner focus and contemplation, and then a releasing of what is no longer needed – essentially letting go of the “crap” in our lives… Hmmm… Yes, I think I got that message this week with the clogged sewer pipe :) The “stars” are evidently trying to communicate with me!

She refers to a particular alignment of planets and says: “…when we are willing to be courageously creative, thinking outside our usual limited perception of what we think can and cannot be, we can turn chaos into creative action that transforms…” Something inside me began to tune in to these words – “courageously creative” – as in how can I live these present chaotic life circumstances in courageously creative ways, rising from the ashes, or is that the dung heap, transforming “crap” into compost. Instead of being focused on what’s not working, how can I shift my focus to creatively living with what is - without the whining. Can I see what Life is offering me through these challenging events and circumstances, without asking - why isn’t Life flowing the way I want it to…

And then she asks: “How courageously creative are you willing to be in 2010?” “…am I willing to take a quantum leap of courage to create my heart’s desire?” – she asks herself.

Good question, I thought, can I do the same – considering everything that’s happening here – and how contracted I’ve become around it all – momentarily forgetting the awakened wisdom within.

So - how *do* I *live* the Heart’s desire – creatively and courageously…

I think of the creative people and artists out there in the blogosphere that I’ve come to know over the last few months who courageously live their heart’s desire in and through their art and creativity… And although I’m not an artist, I feel that same sense of creative expression in what I now call my “fun-qi” art :) (art for arts sake from the Life Force within) and to a certain extent the poetry that comes through from time to time. But it’s the actual act of “creating” with color on paper, using my fingers – more allowing this creative expression to come through from the space of Presence - that continually amazes me and connects me with the flow of inner Stillness, giving me a renewed sense of flow with Life ~~~~~~ And I certainly don’t create as often as I’d like – or need to. But I know more clearly that this Heart, this Presence within needs to express, to create, as that’s what gives me the courage to live life courageously…

Interestingly, last night I spent nearly 6 hours creating our new calendar for the year, working well into the early hours of the morning. It was a delightfully creative way to transition into the New Year – creatively focused. It’s something I’ve never done before…. Maybe a good omen! :)

Maria over at Liminal Light wrote a wonderful blog post called: Peace On Earth, For Real and indirectly addresses this same issue of courage and creativity. She writes: “Is it possible to look very clearly at Peace apart from its symbols and face value, to get all the way down to what it means to you, and then just live in it, even part time? Living in peace and love means simply expressing a natural aspect of yourself. It is already there…. It is restless with creativity… You can hear it, see it and feel it right now… ” May you have “the courage to let it live in what you say and do!”

And so as we continue on in another “New Year” of seeming chaos and entropy, both individually and collectively, may we all be “courageously creative” in life, in art and in our “spirituality”, willing to leave the “crap” behind and go deeper, fully recognizing The Self within, this courageous Creative Self that wants to live and express Itself from Its space of Divine Presence.

You can read Cindy Morris’ full astrological newsletter at her astrology blog.

Fun-Qi Art™ - :) Christine