An online journal sharing my interests in photography, nature, coffee life, journaling, fountain pens, spirituality and asking deep questions.
Do you have what it takes to explore what your life might look like if you made the change, made the art, or made the difference your heart is calling you to make, in full view of the risks (which might be very real or only perceived but form a terrifying barrier nonetheless) over which you’ll have to climb to find out?
David duChemin
I believe answering this question by taking action is life changing. Have a wonderful week!
To live a truly creative life, we always need to cast the critical look at where we presently are, attempting always to discern where we have become stagnant and where new beginning might be a ripening. There can be no growth if we do not remain open and vulnerable to what is new and different. I have never seen anyone take a risk for growth that was not rewarded a thousand times over.
John O’Donohue
“The longer we listen to one another – with real attention – the more commonality we will find in all our lives. That is, if we are careful to exchange with one another life stories and not simply opinions.”
Barbara Deming
I love when people share stories. Opinions? Well, not so much. Opinions seem to always build walls. Ever wonder what our world would look like if we were learning to listen to each other’s stories with real attention? Congress, churches and our neighbors would look radically different to one another. Strangers would become neighbors. Gratefully, I am blessed in my life to have people who share their life stories with me, those life changing experiences that have altered the course of their lives. And by sharing their stories, they risk letting me know more about them. I consider that a gift. While they share those stories with me they may teach me something about myself. If they have the courage to risk sharing then I need to take the risk to really listen. They were all strangers before becoming wonderful friends. I have found they are also the ones who will listen to what I have to share about my experiences in life, allowing me to be at risk. We find our commonality.
Writing makes a person vulnerable. It opens you to public criticism, to ridicule, to rejection. But it also opens conversation and thought. It stirs minds, and touches hearts. It brings us into contact with our souls. So how can it possibly be a waste of time, an idle act, a mistake, a betrayal of truth? Who can possibly tell us not to do it?
Joan Chittister
I have two outlets for writing, my journal and this blog. Reflecting back, I believe journaling was a way to ask questions in hopes of understanding my confused life. I journal about my deepest fears, secrets, dreams, my spiritual journey, ask questions and use it as a way to put into words how I see and experience this beautiful world. Over time my journals have evolved into more of a letter/prayer addressed to myself, the Divine within me and my children. It has become an enjoyable daily habit.
I also use this blog as a place of vulnerable writing. It is here I express my feelings and thoughts, use it as conversation to keep in touch with those who read my blog, and also attempt to put into words how I experience this world. I place myself in a vulnerable place when I post in both my words and images. I enjoy the risk.
But, I also hear those voices telling me I can’t write, I have nothing important to say and only certain gifted people are writers. But, the truth is no one can tell us we are not writers. Today, I can say I’m grateful for these outlets on writing and the adventure of finding questions that lead to more questions. And so I agree with Chittister, writing makes a person vulnerable.
“You can only appreciate nature by feeling and seeing it with the heart and the eyes of a child.”
Michael Bassey Johnson
I would not be able to look myself in the mirror if I visited Yellowstone National Park without a photograph of the lower and upper falls of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. I got both! Crowds were small at Artists Point due to the time of year. Without crowds I was able to just stand there watching, listening, experiencing the awe and wonder of it all. I took this photograph about 2:00 pm and that’s why the lighting is flat, but I also know any image would fail to express the experience. You had to be there!!! The waterfall captures most people’s attention but the canyon with those precipitous jagged cliffs and that yellow rock cause me stand speechless while listening to the sound of the waterfalls power echo in the canyon. I already wanna go back.
The Journey
Mary Oliver, from Dream Work
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do –
determined to save
the only life you could save.
I usually read one or two of Mary Oliver’s poems when I go to bed. This poem called The Journey, kept me awake the other night so maybe I need to rethink that routine. Anyway, the poem rocked me because it’s asking questions that I’m still asking myself at 72 years of age. It’s about transformation of an inner journey. So, it is asking if I’m willing to take all the risks involved, if I dare listen to the voice within, to face a death of some kind, to let go to something I’ve outgrown and the birth of a new self. It’s about learning to trust myself, about leaving the bad advice and demands of other people behind and even the voice of my own insecure egoic self, and to follow my own instincts, my own path in life. What does it say to you?
Today is my 72 birthday. I will most likely spend some time with my feathered friends at one of the natural areas, have a mocha or chai, get in some reading and journaling time. Basically, I’ll continue to spoil myself, even at this age.