• clouds,  landscape,  quotes,  sunsets,  trees

    Sitting Quietly

    All of humanity’s difficulties stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

    Blaise Pascal

    This is a snapshot of Mike watching the sunset at Turquoise Lake, Colorado, while on our motorcycle camping trip in 2006. It was one of those moments to just sit quietly and soak it all in.

  • clouds,  landscape,  poetry,  quotes,  trees

    Storm Clouds

    Storm clouds May 2021

    Breathe in, breathe out,
    breathe until you feel your bigness,
    until the sun rises in your veins.
    Breathe until you stop needing
    anything to be different.

    Julia Fehrenbacher

    I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

  • fountain pens,  journaling,  quotes

    Embrace living…

    Life isn’t something you leave home to do. It’s what you accomplish within the walls of your haven. That’s what allows you to greet the world with an open heart and reach out and embrace living in all its richness, variety, and staggering wonder.

    Richard Wagamese, Embers

    One way for me to greet the world with an open heart, then reach out and embrace living in all its richness, is setting aside time to put pen to paper in my journals. I find it a great way to begin the new day, as well as end the day, while staying in this present moment. Hope you had a good day and I hope you stagger in wonder tomorrow!!

  • clouds,  landscape,  natural areas,  quotes,  reflections,  sunsets

    It is within each of us…

    Sunset at Running Deer Natural Area

    The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that its center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.

    Black Elk
  • bicycling,  clouds,  landscape,  quotes,  sunrises

    Growing through life’s challenges…

    Predawn light over campus on my bicycle ride to coffee

    You have countless opportunities to grow through life’s challenges—in other words, to become an ever more fully, deeply human human being. This is the meaning of the Yiddish word mensch. Someone whose humanity shines through the darkness of this world. Someone who believes in the fundamental goodness of life and embodies it. Not despite challenging experiences, but as the result of having practiced facing them with courage and kindness.

    Mirabai Starr, Ordinary Mysticism
  • coffee life,  latte art,  quotes

    The beginning of love…

    The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them.

    Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island