Each day is a gift! Make sure you share it with joy and happiness!
Source: Each Day Is A Gift
This is a beautiful thought that we can each take action on and bring to life.
Category Archives: Community
Merry Christmas
I grew up in Northern Alberta and Christmas was a special time of the year. I recall cold winter nights. I mean they were cold–almost minus 40 at night. Our windows upstairs were partly frosted over and on moonlit nights the light kept me awake or that is what I told others.
During Advent, my mom and older brothers walked across the street for evening Mass. The younger ones, including me, went to bed. I did not fall asleep right away and would watch out the window for them to come home. I thought no one saw me, but my Mom would come up and tell me to go to bed.
The other experience I recall is the Northern Lights and how you could hear them as they lit up the sky. We don’t see them very often in Edmonton with the urban light. When we spent time at the farm at Christmas, we heard and saw them there. Again, on cold nights we heard the train (about a mile away) and it sounded like it was coming right through the house.
I wrote this poem several years ago about the magic provided by the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) and Christmas. What message was in those celestial colours and sounds? As a child, I thought the sky talked to me and told me a creation story.
Small children–
Breathlessly wait,
Peer through frosted window
Soak it in.
Heavens ripple–
Lights undulate;
A celebratory fury
An indisputable guide.
This old house speaks;
Nature answers–
The heavens crackle
Sweet symphonic sounds shimmer.
Earth’s floor–
Blanketed in white
Celestial colours speak to me
Captures young senses.
A vivid winter scene,
A sensual, sensory palette,
Reminds me–
Christ’s Mass is here.
The Angels and the Furies
May Sarton used the questions about the light and dark sides we each possess, but often go unnoticed. They inhabit our souls, which she calls premier danseur–first dancer. The angels and furies of our personalities are always with us, dancing with each other to gain our attention.
When I read this poem some time ago, I jotted down that to notice the furies sometimes they have to dance furiously to gain our attention. We prefer not to acknowledge their presence, but they are there and real along with our angels.
It is the mindful inner work that helps us understand the paradox of living in a world with both our angels and furies. It is not a choice between them. They exist with each other and both need our time and attention.
Have you not wounded yourself
And battered those you love
By sudden motions of evil,
Black rage in the blood
When the soul, premier danseur,
Springs toward a murderous fall?
The furies possess you.
2
Have you not surprised yourself
Sometimes by sudden motions
Or intimations of goodness,
When the soul, premier danseur,
Perfectly poised,
Could shower blessings
With a graceful turn of the head?
The angels are there.
3
The angels, the furies
Are never far away
While we dance, we dance,
Trying to keep a balance
To be perfectly human
(Not perfect, never perfect,
Never an end to growth and peril),
Able to bless and forgive
Ourselves.
This is what is asked of us.
4
It is light that matters,
The light of understanding.
Who has ever reached it
Who has not met the furies again and again?
Who has reached it without
Those sudden acts of grace?
The world offers itself to your imagination ~ Mary Oliver
“You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me a…
Source: The world offers itself to your imagination ~ Mary Oliver
Mary Oliver is one of my many favorite poets. The poem Wild Geese, which is the poem these lines are from, comes from Poetry Showcase.
In the poem, Mary Oliver reminds us that we are part of a larger family and are being called home. When we are mindful, we can hear who and what calls us and we can imagine what that means to each of us. Even in the busyness of our living, there is something calling us to awaken and listen more closely.
Look deep…
**Images found on Pinterest
Source: Look deep…
Natalie shared an Einstein quote about looking deep into nature if we want to understand the world and people better. It does not mean we will understand them completely, just better and that is not a given.
Better is an incomplete process. There is always something to be experienced and learned about nature. It keeps telling us its story in ways that we cannot completely understand.
When we experience nature, it is about being mindful and attentive to it. We experience it more fully when we understand we are part of nature, as opposed to outside of it.
ivonprefontaine
Teacher as Transformer 