You are here: Home / Archives for resistance

Sunday Morning: Be a Seashell

July 19, 2015 by 4 Comments

seashell-close-up

I take the seashell from my jeans pocket and rub my fingers across its silken, indented surface, shallow as my own open hand. This chalice, subtly shaped by some divine intelligence to allow water to flow in and out with ease, is what I aspire to become: a vessel through which feelings can pour in and spill right out again, without all the grasping and holding that obstructs the flow. Can I be as serene and simple as this bleached shell, rubbed smooth by wind and water, receiving and releasing, filling and emptying and filling again, eternally receptive to the currents of life?

~ Katrina Kenison, Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment

Photograph: Crones

Filed Under: Grow, Inspire, Photography, Poetry, Quotes Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Feel it. In both directions.

July 15, 2015 by 9 Comments

floating-swimming

I like swimming against the current,
but only because it makes me feel
I’ve earned the ease and pleasure
of floating back to where I started.

~ Jan Heller Levi, from “Conversation,” Once I Gazed at You in Wonder

 

Poem Source: memoryslandscape. Image: Discover Magazine

Filed Under: Inspire, Life, Photography, Poetry, Quotes Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Yin: “I want to” and “I need to”. Now to the Yang.

July 14, 2015 by 43 Comments

wind-wheat-back-woman-portrait

What I want to say to you, my dear, is this: Just for today, live the passionate truth of who you are. Stop looking at what is undone, what you haven’t achieved, where you’ve fallen short. Look, instead, into your own full heart…Your own strong roots are in place – in your own body, in the earth, in the ongoing story of your life, just as it is. Put your faith in those roots, and allow yourself to go with the flow. Let go and breathe into the goodness that you already are. Move with the current, not against it. Resist nothing. Let life carry you. You have work to do. Begin it.

~ Katrina Kenison, Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment

Quote: Thank you Make Believe Boutique. Photograph: mennyfox55.

Filed Under: Grow, Inspire, Photography, Quotes Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Mihály Csíkszentmihályi would say…go with the Flow.

January 6, 2015 by 21 Comments

black-white-breeze-wind-flow

“We say to the confused,

Know thyself,

as if knowing yourself was not the fifth and most difficult of human arithmetical operations,

we say to the apathetic,

Where there’s a will, there’s a way,

as if the brute realities of the world did not amuse themselves each day by turning that phrase on its head,

we say to the indecisive,

Begin at the beginning,

as if beginning were the clearly visible point of a loosely wound thread and all we had to do was to keep pulling until we reached the other end, and as if, between the former and the latter, we had held in our hands a smooth, continuous thread with no knots to untie, no snarls to untangle, a complete impossibility in the life of a skein, or indeed, if we may be permitted one more stock phrase, in the skein of life.”

― José Saramago, The Cave

Notes:

Filed Under: Inspire, Photography, Quotes Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Your Muse. She prefers sweat.

October 17, 2013 by 20 Comments

work, hard work,

“Is this magic? A miracle? No, it’s common as dirt.

It’s how creativity works. We show up. We do our best. Good things happen.

This is the intersection of Hard Work and Inspiration.

When we say “Put your ass where your heart wants to be,” this is what we mean.

This is what being a pro is all about. It’s why we practice self-discipline, self-validation, self-reinforcement…

We master all of those disciplines for one reason: so that we can be sitting there in the sweet spot when the Muse’s rocket ship passes by. That’s how the two sides work together. Hard work and inspiration.

Diligence produces inspiration because it shows respect to the goddess.

Genius and brilliance do not earn her favor. She prefers sweat. Get your butt in to the studio. Sit down at the piano. Boot up your iMac.

See yourself as the Muse sees you. You’ll know what to do.”

~ Stephen Pressfield, “You, as the Muse Sees You“

Image Credit: Patrick Wilbanks

Filed Under: Grow, Inspire, Photography, Quotes Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Not a single inch of grass

September 12, 2013 by 12 Comments

desert-air-george-steinmetz-photograph

“The Master, addressing the assembly, said, “Brothers, it is the beginning of autumn, and the end of summer. You may go east or west, but you should go only to a place where there is not a single inch of grass for ten thousand li.” After pausing for a while he asked, “How does one go to a place where there is not a single inch of grass for ten thousand li?”

Later this was related to Shih-shuang, who said, “Why didn’t someone say, ‘As soon as one goes out the door, there is grass’?”

The Master, hearing of this response, said, “Within the country of the Great T’ang such a man is rare.”

-The Record of Tung-Shan

Filed Under: Inspire, Life, Quotes Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Who Binds You?

July 31, 2013 by 30 Comments

wind, flow


Who binds you?
A monk asked Seng ts’an, “Master, show me the way to liberation.”
Seng ts’an replied, “Who binds you?”
The monk responded, “No one binds me.”
Seng ts’an said, “Then why do you seek liberation?”

Credits: Image – Madam Scherzo. Quote:  whiskeyriver.blogspot.com.  This is an Ancient koan / teaching story.  Seng Ts’an is the third Zen ancestor in China.

Filed Under: Inspire, Life, Quotes Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
%d bloggers like this: