Tag Archives: spirituality

Little Gem: Joy and Sorrow

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From flood to drought: Photo by Noelle

From flood to drought: Photo by Noelle

“Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”

― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Rain

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Image re-posted from The Mind Unleashed Facebook page

Image re-posted from The Mind Unleashed Facebook page

Rain falls hard drains tick and rattle
Branches whip the window so bold
A frenetic heart beat, steady
In the closeness of the house
The sound is a chaotic symphony
That does not grace within
Tick and rattle, pitter patter

Cracking thunder
Light washes a dark field
Water rushes the stones
My chest fires back an adrenaline shot
Deep into my vessels it flows
Who is a storm now
My belly creaks
My breath shutters
Tick and rattle, pitter patter

Shadows dance
Trees sway, not lovers
More women thrashing wheat
In fields of silver rivers and
Matted grass
Leaves stick to the pane
While rivulets swing around them
Wild Celtic women
Dancing around a leaf alter
Tick and rattle, pitter patter

I am the rolling thunder
I am the relentless rain
I am the mad lightening that strikes the heart
And jolts my spirit awake in the
Wildness of an eternal dark
A mighty storm
Tick and rattle, pitter patter

Spiritual Practice: Little Gem

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Mystical autumn: Photography by Noelle

Mystical autumn: Photography by Noelle

“The spiritual practice of love builds community, as do kindness and gratitude, and prayer. Try saying this silently to everyone and everything you see for thirty days and see what happens to your own soul: “I wish you happiness now and whatever will bring happiness to you in the future.” If we said it to the sky, we would have to stop polluting; if we said it when we see the ponds and lakes and streams, we would have to stop using them as garbage dumps and sewers; if we said it to small children we would have to stop abusing them, even in the name of training; if we said it to people, we would have to stop stoking the fires of enmity around us. Beauty and human warmth would take root in us like a clear, hot June day. We would change.”

Joan Chittister Taken from Spiritual Literacy, Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life by Frederick and Mary Ann Brussat

Explosion of Life

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Image re-posted from The Mind Unleashed Facebook page

Image re-posted from The Mind Unleashed Facebook page

I am an explosion of life
A quasar in a inky, black Universe
Demanding my light ignite the night
I give forth the cool spring fed spot in a warm summer lake
As the trout leaps to the dancing of the gnat
I am pregnant with the pregnant pause
Spinning wildly the eye of the storm turning as a dreidel
The gush of air on the inhalation before the soprano’s note
And the loud guffaw of the homeless man careening on the curb
I am a butterfly clawing out of the chrysalis
And the caterpillar spinning my cocoon
Dew drips from my leaves
Sparkling diamonds on spider’s web
As headlights flood the interstate
Sucking out silence, an undertow with no bottom
I am a hungry belly starving for sustenance
Through the eyes of the desperate man who sees the oasis
While the tigress drinks unafraid at the edge of the silent pool
The hand before it plucks the cord
The vibration of the piano key struck
Rose petals fall
As coffin lid clicks
Lifting up my eagle’s wings as I dash into the air current of love
Cracking like thunder with nothing but silence in my wake
I stretch beyond the hairs on the skin
My force felt as a blast from the great furnaces
Roaring into now
I am an explosion of life

Coming Winter

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Re-posted from Enchanted Nature's Facebook page

Re-posted from Enchanted Nature’s Facebook page

COMING WINTER

The rain is steady across the field
And cold lays heavy on the pane
I welcome the turn inward
As fall drifts to winter’s mane

Fires are stoked without
And within a blaze burns, too
A warmth bathes my thoughts
As the blanket wraps the limbs, cocooned

Incubation brings reflection
In the way the clouds mirror on the lake
Real, rich and yet, transparent
To be remembered even as they fade

Gold leaves fall, wet and dark
In the growing wind
So I let my thoughts fall, too
Damp upon the skin

Winter lurks amongst the vines
Of the pumpkin patch, now bare
And I grow empty of a year’s losses
Floating lighter on this eve’s air

The fields are empty of there harvest
Apples are long to their bins
All things must sleep to be fertile
And I am now free to sleep in

Sunrise

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Re-posted from Enchanted Nature's Facebook page

Photo Re-posted from Enchanted Nature’s Facebook page

At first the light is soft
More a grayish change from a deeper night
Then the gray takes shape, as light causes
The bark to darken to the west
I am steady as the trunk
Eyes, too, are soft upon the grain

We are objects in a photographic negative

Gray seems to move into the deepest purple
Red
Almost without my noticing
It is the great prelude
The rich, earthy drumming that heightens
The senses to the light
To come

Orange like fire streaks the trunk
And lifts the eastern bows up into
Arms praising the Sun God
Who has yet to grace the
Horizon
The purple red drifts into the color
Of shadow and now even the
Nightshade is no longer night

I breathe it all into my inner sanctum
Quiet in my meditation
The thunder of the rise a crescendo
Seen only at the pulse

Such be the morning drama of it all
And it would be
Too much
If I were not already weeping

Security

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Algae: Photo collage by Noelle

Algae: Photo collage by Noelle

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power. – Alan Cohen

Sacred Geometry: Photo Poem 10

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Sacred Geometry: Photo collage by Noelle

Sacred Geometry: Photo collage by Noelle

What I love about this piece is its a cesspool. I’m sure the people who saw me crawl down to the sewer drain must have thought me mad, but I love the texture of this. Stone against cement, pouring out water that is so stagnant algae has grown upon the surface. Play with it and arrange the shapes and add color and you suddenly have a piece of sacred geometry that is erupting beautifully out of its history of waste, stagnation and eye sore. To me this is the power of photography and images. We can see beauty in what, at first glance was ugliness. Do this in your environment daily and you have developed a very powerful mindfulness practice. You are engaging in a form of meditation. You are freeing yourself from seeing only the rational world and opening yourself to the drive of creation and life itself. Namaste.