Your life is your life. You are marvelous.

I have a lot of big things to share, but in due time.  I need to sit and reflect a bit this weekend and then…consider it blogged!  For now though, a few things to remember for your weekend:

Source: goldrush021.tumblr.com via Anj on Pinterest

“I live not in dreams but in contemplation of a reality that is perhaps the future.” 
-Rilke

This gem was passed on by my beautiful sister.  Thanks, Em!…

Source: thrilld.com via Anj on Pinterest

 

Really great posts by Sarah Wilson on meditation: here and here.   

“You know that sucking feeling when you stick a Mac powercord in the socket?  That’s how it feels when you slip into the meditative state – like it all fits snugly, nothing is missing, things are firm and certain.” -Sarah Wilson

I love this description!  I am NO expert on the meditating front, but I have been delving in much more lately and the things that have taken place are still boggling my mind (refer to opening sentence of this post).   

What happens when a favorite musician reads a favorite poet’s work?  Magic and wisdom!

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

-The Laughing Heart; Charles Bukowski

I hope your weekend feels like this: 

Source: flickr.com via canderka on Pinterest

night falls

Tonight I watched the sun set through the reflection of one window onto another.  When I looked up and saw this little glimpse of secret sky it occured to me that life hands us hidden gems all the time…we just have to look beyond what we already know is there.

All night I’ve been wanting to write the perfect post about this 
but I think photos 
an amazing song 
and a beautiful poem
do the trick.

Goodnight, my loves.

 

Waking at 3 a.m.

Even in the cave of the night when you
wake and are free and lonely,
neglected by others, discarded, loved only
by what doesn’t matter—even in that
big room no one can see,
you push with your eyes till forever
comes in its twisted figure eight
and lies down in your head.

You think water in the river;
you think slower than the tide in
the grain of the wood; you become
a secret storehouse that saves the country,
so open and foolish and empty.

You look over all that the darkness
ripples across. More than has ever
been found comforts you. You open your
eyes in a vault that unlocks as fast
and as far as your thought can run.
A great snug wall goes around everything,
has always been there, will always
remain. It is a good world to be
lost in. It comforts you. It is
all right. And you sleep.

-William Stafford.

Spring Giddiness

I could ramble on about how much I love spring, but we’re going to go with some Rumi and photos instead :)

Spring Giddiness

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.

I would love to kiss you.
The price of kissing is your life.
Now my loving is running toward my life shouting,
What a bargain, let’s buy it.

Daylight, full of small dancing particles
and the one great turning, our souls
are dancing with you, without feet, they dance.
Can you see them when I whisper in your ear?

All day and night, music,
a quiet, bright
reedsong. If it
fades, we fade.

-Jelaluddin Rumi

Blooming flowers have to be one of the most inspiring phenomenons.  I get so excited when I see them peeking up from the ground!  Then one day they look like they’re just about to burst and before you know it, full bloom.  

 

Happy Sunday!

some Saturday thoughts on trees, sweaters, patience and inspiration

Brrr!  It is May tomorrow, right?  It snowed last night.  And today.  SNOWED!  Patience, patience, patience. . .

The other day it was warm, so a friend and I took a lovely walk to our favorite coffee spot and stumbled upon this sweet little tree and I knew I had to share.  Can you imagine the work that goes into this?!  

I did some searching and this beautiful act of tree adorning happens all over.  I'm probably behind on that news, but I love it!  

Source: fashionofphilly.com via Angela on Pinterest

Source: lolitas.se via Amy on Pinterest

Source: deputy-dog.com via Souzi on Pinterest

SO amazing! 

What small details inspire you today?

I for one, am going to try to be patient with this weather and wear socks and sweaters and hoodies as long as I must :)

Look at the trees, look at the birds, look at the clouds, look at the stars...
and if you have eyes you will be able to see that the whole existence is joyful.  Everything is simply happy.  Trees are happy for no reason;
they are not going to become prime ministers or presidents and they are not going to become rich and they will never have any bank balance. 
Look at the flowers - for no reason.  It is simply unbelievable how happy flowers are.  

-Osho

"Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn’t force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast. I learn it every day of my life, learn it with pain I am grateful for: patience is everything!”

-Rilke

under heaven's skies

I'm sure I've already posted this video, BUT . . .

. . .life seems to be full of unexpected things, people, and experiences lately and this song reminds me of how lucky I am to love the people I love, and be in the presence of such beauty, blooming and bursting from somewhere I can't quite understand yet. 

"To feel the love of people whom we love is a fire that feeds our life." 
— Pablo Neruda

xoxo
*A 

a wind has blown the rain away. . .

I'm late posting this baby.  But considering that there is about 3 feet of snow outside, I'm going to let it slide and visually reminisce about the beautiful season that just came to a close.

 

and a poem for you, my loves. . . 

a wind has blown the rain away
by e.e. cummings

a wind has blown the rain away and blown

the sky away and all the leaves away,

and the trees stand. I think i too have known

autumn too long

         (and what have you to say,

wind wind wind—did you love somebody

and have you the petal of somewhere in your heart

pinched from dumb summer?

         O crazy daddy

of death dance cruelly for us and start

the last leaf whirling in the final brain

of air!)Let us as we have seen see

doom’s integration………a wind has blown the rain

away and the leaves and the sky and the

trees stand:

       the trees stand. The trees,

suddenly wait against the moon’s face.

a bit of my heart

Fully Empowered

I write in the clear sun, in the teeming street,
at full sea tide, in a place where I can sing;
only the wayward night inhibits me,
but, interrupted by it, I recover space,
I gather shadows to last a long time.

The black crop of the night is growing
while my eyes in the meantime measure the plain.
So, from sun to sun, I forge the keys.
In the half light I look for locks
and keep on opening broken doors to the sea
until I fill the cupboards up with foam.

And I never weary of going and returning.
Death in its stone aspect does not stop me.
I am weary neither of being nor of non-being.

Sometime I wonder where—
from father or mother or the mountains—
I inherited all my mineral obligations,

the threads spreading from a sea on fire;
and I know I go on and go on because I go on
and I sing because I sing and because I sing.

There is no way of explaining what happens
when I close my eyes and waver
as between two underwater channels—
one lifts me in its branches toward dying
and the other sings in order that I may sing.

And so I am formed out of non-being,
and as the sea goes battering at a reef
in a wave on wave of salty white-tops
and drags back stones in its ebb,
so what there is of death surrounding me
opens in me a window out to living,
and, in a spasm of being, I am asleep.
In the full light of day, I walk in the shade.

-Pablo Neruda

in with the new

For a while now, I've needed a place free of constraints, just to express.
My website's blog won't be going anywhere soon, but as far as the random daily
thoughts go, this is where I'll be :)  My intention is that it become a daily piece of
the affirmation/poem that inspired it. . .

may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it's sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there's never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile

-e.e. cummings