Category Archives: Life Inspiration

Earth has Her Moods

For many years I have practiced daily walking outdoors. These quiet, meditative times allow me to relax and escape my monkey mind cage.

Daily walking requires a certain self-discipline, because realistically every day does not offer “perfect weather”. (We all have our own definition of that. If we didn’t, people wouldn’t talk about the weather so much!) I have walked in cold, rain, snow, and gloom as much as I have enjoyed sunshine and bright, shiny walks. I have come to love all of it.

Here’s the thing: I love sunshine as much as the next person, and when we’re feeling down, the sun can be a real mood lifter. But depending on what I’m dealing with in my day, sunshine can feel like a good friend trying to jolly me out of my problems, rather than allowing space for my mood.

My observation over the years is that those moody, rainy, snowy, cloudy days also have their own merit for solitude and introspection. They are the perfect back drop to quiet my conscious mind. There I inevitably find the space for the true answers to come through from my subconscious.

Rain or shine, nature is my therapy. Without fail, I find the beauty, grace, quiet and solitude I need to transcend the rat race.

Moods

Sky dons her mood face,
sulking clouds mirror my mind,
silent I reflect.

Rejuvenate

When city voids me,
I flee to garden refuge.
Hummingbird dances.

“Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.” ~ Bob Marley

“Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.” ~ John Ruskin

“As long as this exists, this sunshine and this cloudless sky, and as long as I can enjoy it, how can I be sad?” ~ Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

“I am a tiny seashell that has secretly drifted ashore and carries the sound of the ocean surging through its body.” ~ Edward Hirsch

The haiku Rejuvenate is from Soul Journey: The Poetry of Life

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Grow Your Soul

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We have all experienced discouragement, sometimes to despair. These feelings are part of life. Without obstacles and disappointments, our souls would not learn and grow. When I look back on my own difficult challenges, I would not want to do them over. But when I evaluate the growth in myself, it is tremendous. I am grateful for those soul lessons, not just because of the wisdom gained, but I also became a stronger person.

When we are struggling in darkness, it can be difficult to see light. Other people can extend a loving hand, either with a different perspective, or, hands-on assistance. But in the end, we must own our inner journey. It is ours, and it is we who develop the fortitude and mindset to deal with whatever life throws at us.

During one particularly tough time many years ago, focusing on gratitude helped me not only to get through it, and but also to develop a different perspective about myself and life. That’s right! Really seeing and acknowledging all of the blessings, big and small, that surrounded me. Going forward, I built on that. It created a positive mindset in which I could then conceive of hope and possibilities and solutions.

Light begets light, and that which we focus on expands.

Here is a good article about how seemingly small, simple actions can bring us closer to happiness: 10 Simple Ways to Find Happiness

Inspirational Quotes:

“A quick way to overcome your despair… is to go out and help someone else overcome theirs!” ~ Timothy Pina

“Be thankful for everything that happens in your life; it’s all an experience.” ~ Roy T. Bennett

There Are Moments

There are these moments
that will haunt me forever,
distant, but distinct,

the same lessons learned
again, they won’t be denied,
important imprints,

but the regrets are
indelible too, embedded
in bittersweet light,

born out of moments
that will haunt me forever,
distant, but distinct.

Poem There are Moments is from Soul Journey: The Poetry of Life.

Save or Savor?

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“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world, and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” ~ E.B. White

I know exactly what E.B. White means…

Must it be a choice? Perhaps the answer to E.B. White’s dilemma is to savor the world every day, while we save it. Or maybe savoring it, in actual fact, saves it? (Gratitude and reverence.)

It’s a very delicate balance. I believe we are here to do both.

What do artists and writers have to say about the world? Speaking as both, I think they fall into two main categories. They either want you to see the beauty, so you’ll savor it. Or, they want you to see the ugliness and pain, so that you’ll help to make it better. I think there is value in both approaches. My art (drawings and paintings) have always been about the beauty. In my writing, I try to walk a line of showing both sides of the coin, because life is hugely complex, and we cannot truly appreciate anything without tasting its opposite.

On days when the state of the world gets me a little bit down, I come back to thoughts of purpose. This is a very beautiful world (the Earth and we humans who inhabit it), one to be savored (life is a gift), and therefore one worth saving from that which craves to destroy it. Part of my personal journey has been one of finding the correct balance of save and savor, because if one is not careful, “save” can begin to overtake.

I hope you have a beautiful Sunday, however you spend it. For me, Sunday is purely a savor day, one of rest and to focus on the beauty.

Inspirational Quotes

“We’re not on our journey to save the world but to save ourselves. But in doing that you save the world. The influence of a vital person vitalizes.”
~ Joseph Campbell

“What I’ve come to learn is that the world is never saved in grand messianic gestures, but in the simple accumulation of gentle, soft, almost invisible acts of compassion.”
~ Chris Abani

“Books are letters in bottles, cast into the waves of time, from one person trying to save the world to another.” ~ Amal El-Mohta

Life Is a Gift

It’s a blue-sky day,
one of those
beauteous blue-full,
joyously jocular,
splendidly splashy,
exceptional days –
I long to shout
LIFE IS A GIFT
in unmistakable
letters across the
blue shiny yonder,
to imprint them
indelibly on your
mind, so you’ll –

Remember when
the dark clouds roll
in, on a day when
life feels pissy and
oh so problematic,
to take a deep breath,
and close your eyes,
and gently pull the
gray gloom aside,
to see those big
oh so true words
I etched on blue
for you, so that
you’d never forget –

Life is a gift.

A World of Grace

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There are several definitions of grace, an obvious one being elegance or refinement in the physical state, particularly in movement. Another is an internal state exhibited by one’s behavior, which we may call “courteous goodwill.”

Courteous goodwill. This state of grace seems to be sadly falling by the wayside, as various factions in society bicker, squabble, and attack each other. Sometimes the behavior reminds me of children when they don’t get their way. In the past few years it seems that there has been a rise in bullying, shaming and coercing others psychologically. Where is the grace?

Those who bully others to get their way are not service to others, even though they may use narrative to paint themselves as such. They are service to self. They simply want the world to be “their way”, because they believe they have all the answers. Well, in a world of 8 billion people, how can that be true? There are many viewpoints on this planet.

A state of grace comes from a place of allowance, that others might have another way of being. It also is rooted in a true caring about other people. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, grace flows from love. Achieving a state of grace in one’s self moves us to a real place of service to others.

Inspirational Quote:

Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.
~ Martin Luther King Jr.

By Your Grace

Dear Pachamama,
it’s unnerving when
you rant and roll,
rattling your saber –
An empty threat?
I feel Earth slide,
my life tenuous
beneath my feet.

Tornados & floods,
hail & hurricanes,
this earthquake
another reminder
that we live always
by your grace, so
live today, death’s
a tremor away.

Grace-full

May Grace shine on you,
smiling like the sun, lifting
your heavy heart light.

Poems are from Soul Journey.

My Gifts from the Sea

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One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. One can collect only a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

The quote by Anne Morrow Lindbergh reminds me of one of the first Christmases away from my family whilst traveling. Heart sick in Australia, I was missing them terribly, so I went for a walk on a beach at Glenelg, Adelaide to center myself.

I had walked that beach quite a few times before, but there were never more than a sparse few shells. That Christmas Day the beach was covered with them. I’m a huge lover of the ocean, and I walked in bliss for a long time, soaking up the sunshine, immersed in the beauty, and collecting a few shells to takeaway. I felt that some angel had heard my prayers and laid these gifts on the beach to soothe my soul.

My family’s heritage includes Scottish, and I love the stirring sound of the bagpipes. From a balcony high up on one of the apartment buildings overlooking the beach, a lone sentinel dressed formally in kilt, played them for me as I walked under a cloudless azure sky. I can still see and feel all of it.

What were the chances? I suddenly did not feel so bereft; I was clearly cradled by energies watching out over me.

Everything is part of One. Never doubt it for a second…

“The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach—waiting for a gift from the sea.” ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

I Am Ocean

Snowflakes
falling softly
tentatively
pure, white
innocent
new life.

I Am one.

Earth
cold hard
dormant
I land here.
I am ice, I am lost.
I wait.

Spring comes
warm sun,
I melt into
playing, trickling
tiny Rivulet.

I am born.

Playful riffles
gently learning
to flow
to maneuver
to be Stream.

Time passing,
stream is good
but I want more,
then suddenly –
rushing, roaring,
swirling, foaming

I become River.

Sometimes sunlight
flowing smoothly,
other times storms,
rocks, gashing
hard, struggling.

Learning
to be with rocks,
trees, sky,
other rivulets,
and streams.

I Am more.

Time passing,
waiting and
wanting,
with a deep
hunger inside
for vast.

And finally,
I let go
of myself
and transform,
to endless, infinite
water ocean.

I die.
I am born.
I Am One.

The poem I Am Ocean is from Soul Journey: The Poetry of Life. It’s free to read or download here.