Category Archives: Uncategorized

Types of Rose Flower by Color – Red Rose Bud

Hold fast to dreams For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly. Dreams by Langston Hughes

Source: Types of Rose Flower by Color – Red Rose Bud

When I taught, I used this poem and Mother to Son written by Langston Hughes. The two poems carry deep thematic meanings about living life, having dreams to follow, and not making excuses when we come up short. I found that for junior high students these themes were important and helped them focus on how they were becoming adults.

Dreams give us a way to imagine we can figuratively fly in life. Mother to Son reminded us that it was not always easy to follow those dreams.

The red rose buds in the pictures add to the imagery about how fragile dreams are in real-time. We need to nurture them and bring them to life as we feed them.

Hold fast to dreams

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams

For when dreams go

Life is a barren field

Frozen with snow.

Status Report

This is a lot of fun to consider.

Harlon's avatarA Patient Voice

IMG_4029

Sometimes I feel like a nut.

Sometimes I don’t.

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A Great Proverb About Food

When I read this, I was struck by the importance of the message for politicians. What does it mean to be rich? It is not about material wealth. I know people who have few material possessions and are happy to share what they have with me.

A Pondering Mind's avatarA Pondering Mind

the-rich-would-have-to-eat-money-if-the-poor-did-not-provide-food-quote-1

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Live

Notes: Full poem here: a blind flaneur. Poem Source: quotes from books

Source: Live

David posted this wonderful Mary Oliver quote. We can embrace the world as a place that amazes us and not merely one we visit in passing. I love the paradox of simultaneously being bride and bridegroom embracing and being amazed.

When we live fully, we engage in a conversation full of questions that can never be fully answered, but that guide us in our journey. This life is not about a planned legacy, but one that emerges in the memories we leave for others.

 

Today Is Your Day

Today is your day! Don’t let anything or anyone get in your way!

Source: Today Is Your Day

I love Dr. Seuss. I bought several of his books to take out next time and read to Jackson. We still have some at home for when he comes to visit us.

The words and how he used them always gave me pause to stop and think. Someone told me that he wrote these books to help children learn kindness to others. He was a social justice advocate who believed we had a role in helping others. That is a wonderful message for children to learn early in life.

Delight in the preciousness of every single moment

Source: Delight in the preciousness of every single moment

Pema Chodron reminds us that when we are given lemons make lemonade (in this case strawberries) and savour it by being fully present to the task. Thich Nhat Hanh describes sipping tea, doing dishes, and listening to another person while giving the task and person one’s fullest attention.

Leaders who remain attentive and sensitive to their actions and speech, as well as to their employees, invite followers into a safe space.

Every mom has a gallery

This will be a busy day. I am in Spokane to defend my research proposal and head home, hopfully to begin research shortly.
Kathy and I recently lost our mothers. They were much different ladies and their galleries would be so different. My mother would have a rosary, a religious image with prayer, and her prayer book. Kathy’s mom would have knickknacks she found on the farm, berry picking, or while camping. Her gallery might include small stones, pine and spruce cones, and shells.

nimi naren's avatarSimple Moments of Life

Every mom has an art gallery or a collection box. The walls of the gallery could be a refrigerator or steel cupboard, or a pin-up cork board. Then again, the collection box could be a humble plastic bag  or a small box, both of which have pride of place in her wardrobe or cupboard.

Every mom carefully preserves her own gallery and collection box. Why? Because they contain works of art and gifts from her children –  cards for her birthday, mom’s day cards, doodles and squiggles, thank you notes or stick figure drawings.  The collection boxes probably contain sea shells, pebbles from the road,  hand-made earrings, a paper rocket, a sweet poem, an old photo and many, many such wonderful things.

image

These are rare treasures indeed that bring back snapshots of the children’s growing up years, and the crazy passage of time.

Where did that child go, who drew…

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Give Much, Much More Than We Take, says Hill

A great way to close the week off and head into Sabbath. I can feel myself sink into the images of filled with water, trees, and sky. When we are in the presence of someone or something, big and small, it is proper to be attentive and mindful. To be present and attentive demonstrates kindness and love for people and things that show themselves to us.

smilecalm's avatarsmilecalm

Kindness in words creates confidence
Kindness in thinking creates profoundness
Kindness in giving creates love. ~Lao Tzu

Who’s Confused? ~d nelson

Sitting quietly with a perfect
view of hilltop
I was looking for a sign
of confusion.
But no matter how hard
I looked there
was no sign
of Hill being confused.

sunset clouded hill sunset clouded hill

Stable as a mountain
firm as the earth
Hill confidently
conveyed that
it’s not the one
confused.

bridge across the Eel

In hundreds of millions of years
I’ve witnesses many beings come & go.
While most  primates scurry
around digging things up,
hoarding to themselves,
disheveling the earth,
it’s refreshing to experience
expressions of a burgeoning wisdom
which conveys the oneness of all,
softly said ancient Hill.

biggest trees of the forest

See how tree’s do nothing
but give; beauty, oxygen,
shelter, food, and more.
Rivers & streams seem to rush
but look deeper and see
how they…

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Photo Challenge # 98: February 2, 2016

The picture drew me first. I read the caption, “Mate” and recognized its double-meaning. The poem is rich and speaks to the life-long committment we make to each other. Part way through the line, “The only geometry worth the commute

is the human heart,” catches my eye. It captures the give and take in strong relationships that exist because they can and have the right geometry.

mindlovemisery's avatarmindlovemisery

Chess
“Mate” by Anne Worner CC BY-SA 2.0

In the inconstant ravages of midday

I drink of your succulent greys,

of your endless repetitions.

Winning accounts for only a fraction

of our experiences, we lose everyday.

I stand here challenging my failures,

the pawn of my genius watered down.

I will not be made palatable.

I will not be made to adhere.

The only geometry worth the commute

is the human heart. Those slovenly angles

really get me going, even now

in this wrangling heat, the muse seizes hold

shaking me free of my rumpled dress.

We were young once, too young

to appreciate the distress of bones

huddled beneath orgasmic flesh.

Too young to know the intimacy

imposed by silence. I love you

in ways both innocuous and forbidden.

I’d kill for you, an oath not undertaken lightly.

We only seem casual, ordinary

but on the inside we are…

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Observing life differently….

In any given moment I have two options:  to step forward into growth, or to step back into safety  –  Abraham Maslow

Source: Observing life differently….

Being mindful assumes an awareness that growth comes with potential risk. We live in a world that is often described in technical ways, and not as one filled with other humans, animals, plants, and objects that we have relationships with When we construct a technical world, we strip the world and us of potential relationships which allow us to grow. Part of mindfulness is to be aware playing it safe includes risk. What did I miss? Who did I miss? Even in playing it safe, there are no guarantees. There are inherent risks.