“Sometimes I need
only to stand
wherever I am
to be blessed.”
― Mary Oliver, Evidence: Poems

Truth

Arthur James, first Earl of Balfour:

Our highest truths are but half-truths;
Think not to settle down forever in any truth.
Make use of it as a tent in which to pass a summer's night,
But build no house of it, or it will be your tomb.
When you first have an inkling of its insufficiency
And begin to descry a dim counter-truth looming up beyond,
Then weep not, but give thanks:
It is the Lord's voice whispering,
"Take up thy bed and walk."

Spirtual Adventure

"I had been on an adventure, searching for a genuine and fearless kind of spirituality.  Id didn't want to become anything more than my most vibrant, peaceful and grateful self.  I wanted to find a sacred path through the fullness of life in the real world -a daily discipline that reached into the heavens even as it dug deeply into my psyche, helping me to overcome resistance, falseness and mistrust."  Elizabeth Lesser

STOP!

"Just for this moment, stop. Stop everything. Stop and look around. Stop and breathe. Stop and take in what you already have. Name the beauty around you. Each and every thing, sight, color. Just for a moment--or five moments. Notice all the things that feed you that aren't food. And then notice what happens."  Geneen Roth

Love

“Love has no other
desire but to fulfill itself. To melt and be like a running brook that
sings its melody to the night. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and
...give thanks for another day of loving.”

~Kahlil Gibran

Spiritual Adventure

"I had been on an adventure, searching for a genuine and fearless kind of spirituality.   I didn't want to become anything other than my most vibrant, peaceful and grateful self.   I wanted to find a sacred path through the fullness of life in the real world - a daily discipline that reached into the heavens even as it dug deeply into my psyche, helping me to overcome resistance, falseness and mistrust."  Elizabeth Lesser

Gratitude

"Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it." ~~~William Arthur Ward

Prayer

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.
~ Meister Eckhardt ♥ 

Gratitude

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird-
equal seekers of sweetness
Here the quickening yeast, there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect?
Let me keep my mind on what matters;
this is my walk.

Which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

Which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth, with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy, dug up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is that we live forever.

Mary Oliver

Gratitude

"I am grateful for what I am and have.  My thanksgiving is perpetual.   It is surprising how content one can be with nothing definite - only a sense of existence."   HDT

Gratitude

"The world offers itself to me in a thousand ways, and I ache with an awareness of how infrequently I am able to receive more than a small fraction of what is offered, of how often I reject what is because I feel it is not good enough."   Oriah

Relationship

"Relationship is not a project, it is a grace.  Responding to the grace of relationship, it is important to appreciate, to give thanks, to honor, to celebrate, to tend, and to observe."   Thomas Moore

Gratitude

"Being satisfied with what we already have is a magical key to being alive in a full, unrestricted, and inspiring way."   Pema Chondron

Parenting

"As I breathe in the dark smell of the earth,  I will stop trying to solve everything.  I will revere the mystery.   Then I will raise my face to the brilliant blue sky and receive the sun on my skin.  I will wash myself with gratitude.  I will promise to trust the wisdom of the unseen hand in my children's lives.  I will grant them their god-given right (as if I have any say in the matter) to fall down and get up again.  I'll notice, for the umpteenth time, that I am a small creature, loking at the smallest segment of a huge painting.   Here, from our little corner of the canvas, how can we fathom the purpose in the design, the overarching message, or the end of the story?   And so today, I will stretch out in the leaves and drift into space.   I'll let myself be a child, safe in the arms of the Great Mother and the Great Father"  Elizabeth Lesser

Honesty with Self

"Admitting who we are and what we want, recognizing our dependence and gratitude, puts us in a vulnerable position.   We learn that human strengths and abilities are always limited by weakness, tiredness, forgetfulness, bad habits and other imperfections.   These innate limitations awaken us to the ways we need others and compels us to appreciate how we are helped and sustained by our relationships.   Hiding from the truth leads only to the opposite; anxious self-protectiveness, isolation, fear and shame."  Polly Young-Eisendrath