“Then as you get distracted by everyday life, you begin to forget this new perspective and your focus slips from your Person Dream to the Dream of the Planet. Your harmony is shaken as you give in to the illusion. But before long, you have another moment of clarity, and you start the process again—-this time with a little more resolve and a little more experience.”
—-Don Miguel Ruiz, Jr., Living a Life of Awareness, p.196
focus
Morning Trip (209)
“Awareness, or the practice of being in communion with this moment and my present environment, is the key.”
–Don Miguel Ruiz Jr.
Enthusiasm, Examination, and a Thank You to Kathy
“The worst bankrupt in the world is the man who has lost his enthusiasm. Let a man lose everything else in the world but his enthusiasm and he will come through again to success.”
–H. W. Arnold
Morning Trip (75)
“There it is; the light across the water. Your story. Mine. His. It has to be seen to be believed. And it has to be heard. In the endless babble of narrative, in spite of the daily noise, the story waits to be heard.
Some people say that the best stories have no words. It is true that words drop away, and that the important things are often left unsaid. The important things are learned in faces, in gestures, not in our locked tongues. The true things are too big or too small, or in any case always the wrong size to fit in the template called language.”
– Jeanette Winterson
Right in Your Face, Or Winter at The Tree Place Series, December 7th
Right in Your Face (Winter at The Tree Place Series---7)
Images are the property of Elisabeth Connelley and Purple Shoe Photography. They are offered in limited numbered prints.
Please send inquiries to: elisa58t2sugarless@yahoo.com with Purple Shoe Photography in the subject line.
I have agonized all day about this one. I do not feel right. I am telling myself that no one cares. Just to post. But, I care. My intent on this project, I think–to the best of my abilities, is and was to get me out of the house and to The Tree Place. My intent was to attempt to move my personal tastes, perhaps to see and to view beauty in what was not. I thought to go out daily and get at least one image. The first day was amazing. I hadn’t gone for a bit. I was very pleased with the images and had a bit of trouble choosing just one. I was grateful for all of the visions granted to me to experience. I did not wish to diminish any of them. I felt some wonder while taking them. Wonderment that I could feel grounded and joyful just stopping along and taking images on purpose. For any who know me, energy strikes me, and I shoot. No energy, or no camera available, missed shot! I was excited that I went out on purpose looking for pictures and I actually got some.
I stopped, mid shoot, and I prayed and happy tears came, and I felt silly and glad. I held up the camera for a last amazing shot….and the battery light came on! I cursed and then I burst our laughing.
I cannot afford new ones for now. That part is fine. What bothers me is my own rules of commitment. I feel like I am cheating if I post shots from that glorious first day. I tried to convince me that it is all fine and that a shot a day is what I promised. But, I can’t lie to me. I’m glad for that. Though, it’s not good for a daily Winter at The Tree Place series.
In order to ‘fix’ this, I have decided to continue the Winter at The Tree Place series, doing my best. If my car is broken and I need to go out into the yard, I’ll tell you where I got the shot. I certainly can limit myself even by my own expectations. (facial expression that says I am aghast at this repeated ah ha moment)
PS. While choosing the image for today’s post, I was looking at it and noting that no matter how even when right in my face, I couldn’t get all of the object into focus all at the same time. Maybe the lesson might stick now? (ha!giggles)
Morning Trip (37)
“There is no secret Truth, only Truths we refuse to acknowledge.
Truth undermines the self to which we so desperately cling.
The Truth is not hidden from us. We are hiding from it.”
– Rebbe Yerachmeil Ben Yisrael
Morning Trip (36)
“It’s similar to the process one undergoes when learning to play a musical instrument. We sit down, take a few lessons, and are given certain exercises. We begin to practice, and at first the fingers don’t move very easily; they hit a lot of wrong notes and it sounds terrible. But every day we practice, and gradually the fingers start to move more easily, the music starts to sound more beautiful. After a certain period of time, a proficiency develops so that the playing becomes effortless. At that time there is no difference between playing and practice; the playing itself is the practice.
In just the same way, as we practice awareness, we start out very slowly, aware of the movement of each step, “lifting,” “moving,” “placing,” aware of the breath, “rising, falling,” or “in, out.” In the beginning great effort is required. There are many gaps in the mindfulness. There are a lot of struggles and hindrances. But as the mind becomes trained in being aware, in being mindful, it becomes increasingly natural. There is a certain point in the practice when the momentum of mindfulness is so strong that it starts working by itself, and we begin to do things with an ease and simplicity and naturalness which is born out of this effortless awareness.”
– Joseph Goldstein
The Experience of Insight
Morning Trip (33) Butterfly, Bread, and Rumi
“A Year With Rumi by Coleman Barks
A Basket of Fresh Bread (2)
There is a basket of fresh bread on your head,
yet you go door to door asking for crusts.
Knock on the inner door. No other.
Sloshing knee-deep in clear streamwater,
you keep wanting a drink from other poeple’s waterbags.
Water is everywhere around you,
but you see only barriers that keep you from water.
A horse is moving beneath the rider’s thighs,
yet still he asks, Where is my horse?
Right there, under you. Yes, this is a horse,
but where’s the horse? Can’t you see? Yes,
I can see, but whoever saw such a horse?
Mad with thirst, he cannot drink from the stream
running so close by his face.
He is like a pearl on the deep bottom
wondering, inside the shell, Where is the ocean?
His mental questionings form the barrier.
HIs physical eyesight bandages his knowing.
Self-consciousness plugs his ears.
Stay bewildered in God and only that.”
Elisa's Spot 