Go forward with a good heart and the way will open up. Sometimes the right path isn’t the easiest or most comfortable but it is worth it. I believe this with all my heart and soul. The ego tempts a defensive posture and pride leads to dead-ends. What is right is fortified not so much in righteousness as it is strengthened through forgiveness - to forgive yourself through the gift of a price that has already been paid.

The picture on the bottom left was drawn by my daughter Emma when she was about three or four years old. Today she turns 14. Despite all my fears and failures I like to think - I believe - that I’m showing her and her sister how to follow what is true within their own hearts and to not be discouraged when misled into the traps of pain that is the untruth of blame, desire and ego. And it’s going to happen. They just need to know there will always be a way out through love and forgiveness.

Arise and let love reach to the other side. There is so much more. O.E.W.

“Wherever your treasure is stored, your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:21

Only in and through forgiveness is the way forward. Rise in a posture of heart. There is so much more.

Hold on to hope. Release all regrets. Be thankful for the those who hold true and see your potential. Let go of the ones who’ve inventoried and measured your every failing and misstep. Life is too short. I pray for the patience of an open and kind heart to always be such a friend and not a keeper of ledgers over others. Life is not business. Life is living and in the end there will only be love. Hold on, and let go.

I think I prefer to linger in the light of forgiveness and stay out of the darkness of judgement and regret. Besides, it’s where my favorite photographs just seem to “happen.”

Summer Nightfall at Highland Lake Inn 1 on Flickr.

“Nothing in life is trivial. Life is whole, wherever and whenever we touch it, and one moment or event is not less Sacred than another.” - Vimala Thakar

Crashing Through A Thousand Fears

Suddenly a single flame reignites from beneath the layers of ashen, wrecked remnants of so many signal fires.

To come to life again when all was nearly lost, hope arrives in the newfound strength coaxed forward by the promise of the eternal.

“Try again, try again. Rise.”

Where so many have long receded in the dust of earthly ages, prone and broken in their dispirited mourning of lost youth and passion. But here - here on this mountain and here upon the drowning waves of the dark sea - the whisper of a single heart, aged and damaged, responds. “I still believe and what can be.”

When the heart wants to run, let it race. When it wants to fly, let it soar.

To crash through decades of a thousand fears. Icarus with new wings and now wisdom gracefully follows the lead of a tracking sun, this time going above and beyond all those previous flights that were aimed at the fire center. 

The canyon walls bellow are lined with a million ghosts of failed attempts. Echoes from the shadows call from behind, “no, no … you will fall too.” 

But fins become wings. Feet break clay. Lift is gained on the rising breath that is the promise of dawn. A forgotten dance is once again performed amongst the clouds of the midday sun. And then the drifting waltz on the edges of golden light retreating below the horizon.

Stars, a million or more lead the way now. The arms of Orion bid Aquila to follow as he leads the way along a Milky Way path of shimmering dust. 

“Keep flying. Keep flying. No fear. No fear.” 

Soon all the wrecked remnants below are lost to shadow. The calls of warning fall to silence. Now nothing but a single voice from above, and from within.

In quiet and stillness, grace of forgiveness. Fears become distant memories. And on the wings of renewed courage peace arrives.

“I am home.”

Despite all the noise, a prayer to self in moments of grace on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
Today more than ever it seems as if guilt and fear are the driving forces in how we make decisions in our daily lives and what we are being told in messages from both near and far. But I believe there is another power on the rise - grace and forgiveness. Despite all the pressures and the overwhelming noise there is something else calling, within us as well as the subtle and quiet scenes and signs that although may not be as obsvious, still seem to arrive just at those perfect moments when we need them the most.

The pressure to act out of guilt and fear is constant. To react to it - to amplify it and to pass it on - is all too easy. At first it may feel as if it is the natural and safe thing to do, but wait it out and begin to look for the gift of grace to arrive. All God asks of us is to just open our doors and meet him him part way. He’ll do the rest.

It is in those daily moments that are gifts of grace and forgiveness that all the futile efforts in managing, controlling and manipulating - and running away - are completly blown away and we are humbled.

Forgive others. Forgive yourself. The debt was paid-off long ago. Don’t let your fears become your reality. More importantly don’t be so full of guilt and self-importance that your fears become someone else’s reality.

Let go. Give it to God. Meet him part way in the daily gifts of grace. Wait and look and it will be there.

My prayer to self.