Posted in Aging, Air, Autumn, Blogging, Change, Eastern Shore, Exploring, Gifts, Gratitude, Heartfulness, How to love the world, In these strange times, Life, Love, Maryland, Nature, Photography, Portals & Pathways, Quotes, Sky, Spirit, Spiritual practices, Thresholds, Walking & Wandering, Water, Wonder

A Monday meander: Not the last

Posted on by Robin
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A December sunset from the dock.

This is my prayer: May we forgive ourselves and each other when we fall short, and may we all have the courage, faith and resolve to get up again and keep going, to once again ask the deeper questions and dare to touch that vulnerable place inside, to open the heart. May we have the courage to feel the human pain we all share. At the very heart of that pain is a jewel beyond all price. It is the bottomless presence at the heart of everything and the boundless awareness beholding it all, and it is the love that is trying to come forth even in the most broken and unskillful ways. Once we have discovered this jewel, this unconditional love, our work is in opening to it again and again, cultivating a growing faith in it and a faithfulness to it, and forgiving ourselves and others when we fail.

~ Joan Tollifson

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Posted in Air, Autumn, Blogging, Change, Earth, Endings, Exploring, Gifts, Gratitude, Heartfulness, Hiking, How to love the world, In these strange times, Life, Love, Luminous, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Photography, Portals & Pathways, Quotes, Spirit, Thresholds, Walking & Wandering, Water, Wonder, Woods

All good things…

Posted on by Robin
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Somewhere along the way in October.

There are no privileged locations. If you stay put, your place may become a holy center, not because it gives you special access to the divine, but because in your stillness you hear what might be heard anywhere. All there is to see can be seen from anywhere in the universe, if you know how to look.

—Scott Russell Sanders, Staying Put

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Posted in Air, Alchemy, Autumn, Earth, Eastern Shore, Gifts, Gratitude, How to love the world, In these strange times, Listening, Photography, Portals & Pathways, Quotes, Simplicity, Spirit, Spiritual practices, Thresholds, Walking & Wandering, Water, Weather

A Monday meander: My joy is heavy

Posted on by Robin
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Reflections of another time, another place.

To journey without being changed is to be a nomad. To change without journeying is to be a chameleon. To journey and be transformed by the journey is to be a pilgrim.

— Mark Nepo

Let change be a marker of possibility instead of something to be afraid of. Let change be the vehicle for getting closer to your truest self, to the kind of world you want to see, to all that has been asking to be released from your grip. Trust change can be a tool of alchemy, a doorway to more truth, more love, more presence.

— Lisa Olivera

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Posted in Autumn, Blast From the Past, Earth, Gratitude, Heartfulness, Hiking, How to love the world, In these strange times, Spirit, Thresholds, Walking & Wandering, Walktober

A different kind of Walktober

Posted on by Robin
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Pond reflections. (2007)

“The body is mountains and waters. The hardness of the teeth and bones. The softness of the lips and tongue. The living flowing of the blood, that circulates round and round throughout the sky and space.

The body sitting is a mountain. The body in motion is water. The body constantly sits and constantly moves. The earth sits within the body. The sky sits within the mind: the sanity, the wisdom, the truthfulness. The totality of virtue and delight sits within this stillness and movement, that is always murmuring its sound, its song crying out fully into all the distances. The message devoid of graspable content – of love, of belonging, of total inclusion. That is in the mountain’s stone; in the waters splashing; in the heart’s desire; the laughter of the tongue; the eyes’ tears.

~ Norman Fischer, an introduction to Dogen’s Mountain and Waters Sutra

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Posted in Air, Change, Earth, Family, Gifts, Grandparenthood, Gratitude, Heartfulness, How to love the world, In these strange times, Love, Nature, Photography, Portals & Pathways, Quotes, Spirit, Summer, The Bogs, Thresholds, Walking & Wandering, Walktober

A Monday meander: Walktober and a walk around two ponds

Posted on by Robin
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Into the woods for the first time.

Bless the poets, the workers for justice,
the dancers of ceremony, the singers of heartache,
the visionaries, all makers and carriers of fresh
meaning—We will all make it through,
despite politics and wars, despite failures
and misunderstandings. There is only love.

~ Joy Harjo

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Posted in Air, Change, Eastern Shore, Gifts, Gratitude, Heartfulness, Home, How to love the world, In these strange times, Love, Maryland, Photography, Pond, Portals & Pathways, Quotes, Spirit, Summer, The Bogs, Thresholds, Walking & Wandering, Walktober

The space between

Posted on by Robin
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“Dusk is a settling of the sky.” (Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao) The pond in the Bogs (NE Ohio) at sunset, April 2013, not too long before we moved to Maryland.

When Sun leaves at dusk, it makes a doorway. We have access to ancestors, to eternity. Breathe out. Ask for forgiveness. Let all hurts and failures go. Let them go.
― Joy Harjo, Crazy Brave: A Memoir

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Posted in Earth, Eastern Shore, Exploring, Garden, Gifts, Gratitude, Heartfulness, How to love the world, Life, Photography, Quotes, Spirit, Spiritual practices, Summer, Walking & Wandering, Water, Weather, Wonder

What the cards say

Posted on by Robin
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Standing out on a rainy day.

What you encounter, recognize or discover depends to a large degree on the quality of your approach. Many of the ancient cultures practiced careful rituals of approach. An encounter of depth and spirit was preceded by careful preparation.

When we approach with reverence, great things decide to approach us. Our real life comes to the surface and its light awakens the concealed beauty in things. When we walk on the earth with reverence, beauty will decide to trust us. The rushed heart and arrogant mind lack the gentleness and patience to enter that embrace.

― John O’Donohue, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace

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