“When I say it’s you I like, I’m talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see or hear or touch. That deep part of you that allows you to stand for those things without which humankind cannot survive. Love that conquers hate, peace that rises triumphant over war, and justice that proves more powerful than greed.”
~Fred Rogers
💗
Image: Artist Unknown
And if you are to love,
love like the moon loves.
It doesn’t steal the night.
It only unveils the beauty of the dark
~Isra Al-Thibeh
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Moon Photo by Maggie
“One by one the women step up
and commit the forbidden act
of biting into patriarchal thought
refuting it, smashing it,
discarding it and beginning again
in the very beginning when women
loved their bodies
named their gods
authored their lives
when women refused to surrender
except to life as it pulsated through them.
Women reminding us
there is nothing wrong
there never has been anything wrong
there never will be anything wrong
with woman.”
~ Patricia Lynn Reilly
❤️
Art: Mary Magdalene of Growth
by Tanya Torres
The deer say
be gentle with you
It is a time to be courageous
in gentler ways
People cannot bully their way into creating magic
It is the gentle heart that will find the way forward
It is the gentle hearted who will find strength in the journey
who know that their gentle ways are forged with love
There IS nothing stronger.
~Jude Downes
judedownes.com
🌙
Photo by Carly Rae Hobbins, Unsplash
Our Mother, who art within us,
We celebrate your many names.
Your wisdom come. Your will be done,
Unfolding from the depths within us.
Each day you give us all that we need.
You remind us of our limits and we let go.
You support us in our power and we act with courage.
For you are the dwelling place within us,
the empowerment around us, and the celebration among us.
As it was in the very beginning, may it be now.
-Sister Miriam Therese Winter
🌀
Sculpture by Avian Shinrei Thibault,
Sacred Tablets
This morning as I walked along the lakeshore,
I fell in love with a wren
and later in the day with a mouse
the cat had dropped under the dining room table.
In the shadows of an autumn evening,
I fell for a seamstress
still at her machine in the tailor’s window,
and later for a bowl of broth,
steam rising like smoke from a naval battle.
This is the best kind of love, I thought,
without recompense, without gifts,
or unkind words, without suspicion,
or silence on the telephone.
The love of the chestnut,
the jazz cap and one hand on the wheel.
No lust, no slam of the door –
the love of the miniature orange tree,
the clean white shirt, the hot evening shower,
the highway that cuts across Florida.
No waiting, no huffiness, or rancor –
just a twinge every now and then
for the wren who had built her nest
on a low branch overhanging the water
and for the dead mouse,
still dressed in its light brown suit.
But my heart is always propped up
in a field on its tripod,
ready for the next arrow.
After I carried the mouse by the tail
to a pile of leaves in the woods,
I found myself standing at the bathroom sink
gazing down affectionately at the soap,
so patient and soluble,
so at home in its pale green soap dish.
I could feel myself falling again
as I felt its turning in my wet hands
and caught the scent of lavender and stone.
~Billy Collins, Aimless Love
❤️
Image by Nancy Lankston
Blessed are you
who bear the light
in unbearable times,
who testify
to its endurance
amid the unendurable,
who bear witness
to its persistence
when everything seems
in shadow
and grief.
Blessed are you
in whom
the light lives,
in whom
the brightness blazes –
your heart
a chapel,
an altar where
in the deepest night
can be seen
the fire that
shines forth in you
in unaccountable faith,
in stubborn hope,
in love that illumines
every broken thing
it finds.
~ Jan Richardson
♾
Image: Tree Sculpture by Debra Bernier
