Tag Archives: inspiration

Our Divine Nature

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When we really tune into nature, we hook into the divine energy (whatever we each believe that to be) that breathes in all living things. We feel connected. Our souls transcend the mundane and we remember our infinite essence.

The divine is evident in the tiny dragonfly, but sometimes it takes a mighty mountain to awaken our souls. When we gaze upward at that magnificent rock face, we feel small and big, all at the same time.

The sublime grandeur within and without is undeniable. If such a thing exists in the world, then surely anything must be possible. And yes, it is.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”  (Henry David Thoreau)

“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.”

~  Lord Byron, from Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage

The indigenous peoples of the world believe that Nature is not only our provider, but she is also our teacher.

What has been your most profound experience with Nature? What has been the most important lesson Nature has taught you?  Please comment.

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Susan L Hart 2022 / HartInspirations.com

Agape, Love for Humanity

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Love is the force that draws us inexorably together, the glue that will not allow us to give up on each other. It is our greatest challenge and biggest source of miracles. Infinite love already exists in everything that is alive, including you and me. Our love lessons are about removing the obstacles to love. They teach us out how to access, express, and live it. That is, if we choose to learn.

This can sometimes feel difficult in a world that is expressing so much dissension and “un-love”, but each of us is a potential key to healing humanity. Fear, anger, and prejudice – we employ a myriad of padlocks to hold our love hostage. Every experience around love is an opportunity for self-examination, and for us to grow.

Do you realize? Your love gives you immense personal power to change the world. The mass media news is too often rife with division, hate, and fear. Some people just wait and hope for an external power or institution to cure the big problems of the world, because the events feel too big and out of their control. They will have a very long wait.

Consider that perhaps the high tension in the world right now is a challenge to each of us to work on unlocking our love. Together we could collectively unleash a world of love that has never been seen before.

If we don’t care enough to personally get in the game, the world we desire will slip through our fingers like quicksand. It begins with each of us, with one random act of kindness, a single word of compassion, a step upward on the stairway of understanding.

It’s one bit of love at a time. It ripples outward and builds. It comes from you, and me, and anyone else who chooses to participate, instead of just complaining about how bad things are. It’s what the ancient Greeks called “agape”, a selfless love for humanity, and the world sorely needs more of it.

Adopt a global consciousness. Choose to be a living example of love, compassion, and understanding. Work to bridge the divides you encounter. As Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

That which you give to the world, you ultimately give to yourself.

Susan L Hart 2022 / HartInspirations.com

Living Your Passion

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Claude Monet’s driving passion in his later years was creating his garden at Giverny. He captured that passion on canvas, creating what was later recognized as a monumental collection of work, his Water Lilies Series.

Have you ever considered what kind of world would we live in if we all followed our soul’s passion? Do most of us even know how to hear our soul’s messages? Too often we manage to muffle them to the faintest whisper, burying our desire for deep fulfillment in some back drawer of our minds. Maybe later… And then later never comes.

Tuning into your soul’s passion

A quote from Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes:

“…One of the most important discriminations we can make in this [life] is the difference between things that beckon to us and things that call from our souls…
…When we are connected to the instinctual self,…which is natural and wild, then instead of looking over whatever happens to be on display, we say to ourselves, ‘What am I hungry for?’

Creative people tend to be naturally tapped into their soul’s passion and are driven by a need to speak it to the world. It may be about any number of subjects; for Monet it was his water lilies and the beauty of nature.

But, living passionately is not reserved for the creative ones only. Deep within each of us lies a deep yearning, a need to experience certain things, to feed our souls, and to express our passion to others.

The shift towards living your passion

What dormant passion lies within you, perhaps still untapped and unspoken? Humanity is experiencing a major shift right now, and it is taking place within each of us. Society as it stands says more often than not that we cannot live our passion and practically speaking make a living at it. But what if that’s not true? What if that is an old message, one we can make antiquated, right now?

What is your passion, that thing that makes your soul sing? Use the questions Clarissa Pinkola Estes suggests above, and jot the answer(s) on a paper.

Then start dreaming. Dream big. Claude Monet’s passion for water lilies could not be contained on small canvases, and later his art captured the imagination of the world. Anything is possible within the realm of imagination. Anything.

As the great author Maya Angelou said, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

Dare to tell your deepest story to the world, starting now.

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Susan L Hart 2022 / HartInspirations.com

I Am Ocean

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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 ego
and transform,
to endless, infinite
water ocean.

I die.
I am born.
I am One.

This poem is an excerpt from my ebook Our Beautiful Earth.

© Susan L Hart | My ebooks

Susan L Hart 2022 / HartInspirations.com

A Little Love Story

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Sometimes we discover love in the most unexpected places. So it was on that scorching April day along a dusty trail on North Seymour Island, Galapagos. It was not my first visit to the Galapagos, and it surely will not be my last. I love the untamed ancient beauty of the islands. On this particular outing I had joined a group to hike and primarily bird watch.

There was also other wildlife to enjoy, such as majestic giant sea lions basking in the sun on the giant shore rocks. Sea lion pups nestled in nearby crevices, and I was able to get within several feet of them. The amazing thing about the birds and animals on the Galapagos Islands is that they have no fear of humans. Close encounters with the wildlife are very usual. I was in my heaven that April day!

It was mating season on North Seymour, and love was definitely in the air. Magnificent male frigate birds crouched in barren bushes, with red breasts puffed out to attract the females. Several times I saw females approach the males, and a somewhat awkward tango with gangly flailing limbs would inevitably ensue atop the low lying shrubbery.

The other avian species profuse on the island were the quirky blue-footed boobies. The booby males exhibited their elaborate courting dance, lifting one bright blue webbed foot, and then the other, while proudly strutting around their potential mates. Their distinctive whistling enhanced the exuberant posturing. Our guide pointed out that the brighter blue the male’s feet, the more desirable he is to the duller females. Brightness is apparently an attractive sign of youthful male virility.

Boobies breed and nest only when conditions are right, and they scout out several nesting sites to choose the one most perfect just before the eggs are laid. In other words, boobies are not at all careless where they put their progeny. Some of the females had already laid eggs in nests under bushes along the edge of the trail, and crouching birds watched us carefully as we passed by.

As we curved around the far side of the island, I became somewhat separated from the group. I lingered near one large nesting area, as I found the bird population to be extremely colorful and interesting. I had just circled back to take a few last photographs, when I heard a little grunt from the ground near my feet.

I looked down, and to my surprise discovered that I had almost tripped over a female blue-footed booby right in my path. I was focused on taking photos, and she was squatting in a most unusual open area. As startled as she likely was, she did not budge an inch from her spot. I crouched down right in front of her and spoke softly.

“I did not see you there little one. I’m sorry if I scared you.”

She calmly looked me in the eye, and then slowly stood up. Looking down at the ground between her feet, she revealed to me a large beautiful egg. There was no nest built around her or her treasure. It was as though she’d been walking along the path and got caught by surprise, much as human ladies sometimes have babies in improbable places. What are you going to do? Babies wait for no one once they decide.

The blue-footed booby moved her gaze from her prized egg back to my face, just for an instant. Then she looked back down and a second time back at me, transmitting great pride. The moment was frozen in time. She clearly was saying, “Look at the lovely thing I have made. Isn’t it wonderful?”

I exclaimed over the beauty of her egg, adding that soon she would have a cute little chick to protect. I was awestruck in this simple encounter, so pure in its innocent love. In that moment two females of very different species acknowledged between them the magic of all creation. I was acutely aware of the web of love that connects all of life here on Earth.

Sometimes the infiniteness of the ocean can be seen in a single drop of water. The encounter between the blue-footed booby and I was one brief small exchange, and yet it had immense depth.

As unpredictable as love between humans may sometimes feel, in actual fact it is a universal law as constant as gravity. This invisible, powerful force draws us magically and inexorably together into the One. We are bound and challenged by it.

Ultimately that is why we came here, to learn and get better at love.

A Little Love Story © Susan L Hart 2017-2022

This story is an excerpt from my ebook called Our Beautiful Earth, and was first published in 2017 in an anthology called Seven Degrees of Wisdom: Welcome to Our Circle.

A Little Love Story © Susan L Hart 2017-2022 | HartInspirations.com