Source: How Loopy Is That
Tuesday Morning Wake-Up Call (Post Long Weekend)
January 21, 2020 by 15 Comments
Monday Morning Wake-Up Call
January 13, 2020 by 20 Comments
You really don’t have to lose everything and travel to a remote valley to discover that the world is always rushing forward to teach us, and that the greatest thing we can do is stand there, open and available, and be taught by it. There is no limit to what this cracked and broken and achingly beautiful world can offer, and there is equally no limit to our ability to meet it.
Each day, the sun rises and we get out of bed. Another day has begun and bravely, almost recklessly, we stagger into it not knowing what it will bring to us. How will we meet this unpredictable, untamable human life? How will we answer its many questions and challenges and delights? What will we do when we find ourselves, stumble over ourselves, encounter ourselves, once again, in the kitchen?
~ Dana Velden, Finding Yourself in the Kitchen: Kitchen Meditations and Inspired Recipes from a Mindful Cook (Rodale Books, September 8, 2015)
Notes:
- Quote source – Thank you Catherine @ beyondthefieldsweknow.org. Be sure to check out her blog and her design studio @ The KerrdeLune Design Works.
- Photo: elenandrevn (via BruWho)
- Post inspired by Make Believe Boutique: “When the True Self breaks through, a new and impassioned approach to life often makes itself known. We tap into an inner radiance that I call delight. I’m speaking of a unique kind of response to life that can coexist with our most painful realities. I’m speaking of the joy of saying yes to life in the core of our being. I believe that the capacity to delight in life is deeply carved by our waiting. Delight can become a way of life, a way of journeying. There’s a saying, “Religion is not to be believed, but danced.” I like this idea, as it shifts the emphasis from our endless pursuit of religious knowledge back to the dimension of living our religion in such a way that it becomes a dance, a celebration in which we open our arms and say yes to life. ~ Sue Monk Kidd, “When the Heart Waits. Spiritual Direction for Life’s Sacred Questions”
Sunday Morning
January 12, 2020 by 20 Comments
I want to be a monk because I think that would be a very good use of me, he continued. Does that sound strange? It sounds a bit arrogant, I suppose. I don’t mean to be arrogant. I want to be an implement. Something like a shovel with a beard. If I live with humility and intent, if I do what I do well and gracefully, that is good. Beyond that I cannot go. When I speak to children they will ask me things like, if I do enough good, and other people do good, then the good stacks up, right? and the good eventually beats the bad, right? and I cannot say this is so. I am not very interested in speculation about such things. I was never interested in theology. I think theology is an attempt to make sense of that to which sense does not apply. I cannot explain why I hope that what I do matters; all I can do is do what I do, either well or ill, patiently or not, gracefully or not. And I do find that doing things mindfully, patiently, easefully, makes the task far more interesting. I love to cut the grass here, for I sometimes come to a sort of understanding with the grass, and the hill, and the creatures in the grass, and with my legs and arms and back, a sort of silent conversation in which we all communicate easily and thoroughly. Do you have any idea of what I mean with all this?
~ Brian Doyle, from “Because It’s Hard” in “One Long River of Song: Notes on Wonder” (Little, Brown and Company, December 3, 2019)
Notes:
- Thank you Sawsan for sharing.
- NY Times Book Review by Margaret Renkl titled “Brian Doyle Noticed the Little Things. His Book Reminds Us We Should Too“
Monday Morning Wake-Up Call
January 6, 2020 by 40 Comments
Don’t ask. Don’t ask how many times I’ve watched this loop. Source: gifycat. Thank you Jack.
Saturday Morning
December 21, 2019 by 23 Comments
(She) enjoyed the privilege of stillness, most days did absolutely nothing but breathe and look and hear and smell the world turning.
A self-appointed Judge of Existence.
~ Niall Williams, “This Is Happiness” (Bloomsbury Publishing; December 3, 2019)
Photo: Carlos Gotay (via Mennyfox55)
Monday Morning
December 9, 2019 by 19 Comments
When I began this gathering of essays, which, yes, comes from the French essai, meaning to try, or to attempt, I planned on writing one of these things — these attempts — every day for a year. When I decided this I was walking back to my lodging in a castle (delight) from two very strong espressos at a café in Umbertide (delight), having just accidentally pilfered a handful of loquats from what I thought was a public tree (but upon just a touch more scrutiny was obviously not — delight!), and sucking on the ripe little fruit, turning the smooth gems of their seeds around in my mouth as wild fennel fronds wisped in the breeze on the roadside, a field of sunflowers stretched to the horizon, casting their seedy grins to the sun above, the honeybees in the linden trees thick enough for me not only to hear but to feel in my body, the sun like a guiding hand on my back, saying everything is possible. Everything.
~ Ross Gay, The Book of Delights
Notes: Loquat Photo. Quote via Brain Pickings
Saturday Morning
December 7, 2019 by 13 Comments
And for moments, nothing more.
Some people understand the privilege of stillness and can sit and breathe and look and hear and smell the world turning and let what’s next wait the while.
~ Niall Williams, “This Is Happiness” (Bloomsbury Publishing; December 3, 2019)
Photo: Levas Žiriakovas with Spring Sun
Monday Morning Wake-Up Call
December 2, 2019 by 16 Comments
The way a deer emerges from a thicket is the opposite of a wound.
Like the moon in the morning — all firmament, beautiful, about to vanish.
Each morning I walk out my apartment & wonder what is going to become of me.
— Devin Kelly, “Deer on the Side of an American Highway,” published in drDOCTOR
Photo: Fredrik Stige with “White Tailed Deer, Montana“
Thanksgiving morn. House full of sleepers.
November 28, 2019 by 55 Comments
Quiet has many moods. When our sons are home, their energy is palpable. Even when they’re upstairs sleeping I can sense them, can feel the house filling with their presence, expanding like a sail billowed with air. I love the dawn stillness of a house full of sleepers, love knowing that within these walls our entire family is contained and safe, reunited, our stable four-sided shape resurrected.
~ Katrina Kenison, Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment
Notes: Photo: Mennyfox55
