This Precious Life

This Precious Life

There is no greater blessing

than to simply be alive,

to awaken once more

within the quiet miracle

of breath.

To witness the beauty

woven into each and every day,

whether it arrives

wrapped in sunlight,

or hidden

beneath storm clouds.

No matter the circumstances,

I choose to meet this moment

with an open heart.

For every experience

is a teacher.

Every breath

an invitation.

Every step

a homecoming.

I do not wait

for life to become perfect

before I give thanks.

For this precious life

is already enough

to fill my heart

with wonder.

I find grace

in the ordinary,

the warmth of morning light,

the song of distant birds,

the rhythm of rain,

the silence between thoughts,

the smile of a stranger,

the steady beating

of my own heart.

I belong

to this living world,

and this living world

belongs within me.

Today

I release resistance

and rest

in simple presence.

I welcome joy

without grasping,

sorrow

without fear,

change

without clinging,

and love

without condition.

This moment

is enough.

This breath

is enough.

This life

is enough.

Simply happy to be alive,

I bow

to the beauty

that reveals itself

again

and again,

in each and every day,

no matter the circumstances.

And in that quiet knowing,

I discover

that gratitude

is not a destination,

it is the way

I walk

through the world.

~ 'This Precious Life' by Spirit of a Hippie
~ Mary Anne Byrne
~ Art By BinaS.Art

Source: Spirit of a Hippie on Facebook

How many things in this world hold a part of your soul?

 

Have you ever thought about how many things in this world hold a part of your soul? About all of the ways in which you have altered the way other people see and feel things?

Have you ever thought about how quickly you can be summoned into someone’s mind – their consciousness – because something seemingly insignificant has sparked a memory of you?

Because there are whispers of you in certain songs and special places.
Your smile is folded into specific words and particular phrases.
There are echoes of you wrapped up in certain clothes and random objects and your light lingers around you everywhere you go,
in ways you could never imagine.

And if you ever doubt it,
look back to all the times that anyone has ever sent you a letter or a message or a photograph, accompanied by the phrase

“this reminded me of you”.

It means your soul has left a mark on theirs. 

And it means that their life and their soul and their heart,
are all a little fuller,
simply because
they’ve known you.

*****

Becky Hemsley 2024
Artwork by Steve Henderson
This poem is from the collection, Words to Remember by Becky Hemsley

Source: Becky Hemsley Poetry on Facebook

Frank Zappa knew it.

𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐘 𝐒𝐀𝐈𝐃 𝐊𝐄𝐄𝐏 𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐑𝐈𝐀𝐑𝐒 𝐎𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐎𝐆 𝐃𝐀𝐘𝐒 𝐒𝐄𝐓 𝐈𝐍

 

𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐘 𝐒𝐀𝐈𝐃 𝐊𝐄𝐄𝐏 𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐑𝐈𝐀𝐑𝐒 𝐎𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐎𝐆 𝐃𝐀𝐘𝐒 𝐒𝐄𝐓 𝐈𝐍

Granny always said to keep out of the briars and high weeds once the Dog Days set in. She’d lean her elbow on the porch rail, squint toward the treeline, and say the world got touchy this time of year. Said the air turned heavy enough to press on your chest, and the creeks went still like they were holding their breath.

Old‑timers believed the heat made things go wrong in quiet ways. Wounds wouldn’t heal clean. Dogs lost their good sense. And the snakes, Lord help us, the snakes went blind. A copperhead that can’t see will strike at the sound of a footstep, a breath, even the brush of your shirt against a leaf.

So when Dog Days settled over the holler, folks minded themselves. You stayed close to the porch where the boards knew your weight. You walked the same worn paths your people walked before you. You didn’t go rustling through weeds taller than your knees, and you sure didn’t go poking around in briar patches where the heat pooled thick.

Granny said caution was its own kind of ritual. A way of showing respect when the world got unsettled. Keep your eyes sharp. Keep your steps light. Keep your ears open for that dry whisper in the grass.

Because once the Dog Days take hold, even the shadows get short‑tempered. And a blind copperhead don’t care who you are. It’ll strike at anything that stirs the stillness.

Source: Appalachian Root & Ritual on Facebook

Act of Friendship

 

At precisely 3:15 p.m. on May 14, 1965, a Rolls-Royce carrying Queen Elizabeth II rolled to a stop on the damp grass of Runnymede, and waiting beside the temporary platform, dressed in a dark suit and holding the hands of her two children, stood Jacqueline Kennedy, the woman who had crossed the Atlantic not to receive condolences but to accept a gift no American president had ever been given before.

The acre of meadowland stretching behind her, the very ground where King John had affixed his seal to Magna Carta in 1215, had been permanently transferred by an act of the British Parliament to the people of the United States, and in less than an hour the Queen would speak words that turned that legal document into a living memorial.

John, Jr just four years old, tugged at his mother's sleeve while Caroline, seven, stared silently at the rows of dignitaries, and the Queen, upon stepping from her car, walked directly to the small family without ceremony, her first gesture a quiet word spoken close enough that only Jackie could hear.

The memorial itself, a simple Portland stone tablet designed by Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe, sat at the edge of the sloping field, chiseled with the inscription from the inaugural address of the president whose voice had been silenced seventeen months earlier in Dallas.

When the Queen rose to deliver her dedication, her voice carried across the assembled crowd of statesmen and citizens, and she declared that this acre of English soil was given in perpetual memory, a phrase that carried the full weight of sovereignty, because what she was actually doing was ceding a tiny pocket of her realm to a foreign nation in an act of friendship that had no modern precedent.

The Union Jack was lowered, the Stars and Stripes rose on a freshly planted pole, and for a single suspended moment a corner of England became, legally and irrevocably, American territory. Jackie did not speak publicly that afternoon, but a British newsreel camera captured her fingers brushing the stone after the ceremony had ended, tracing the carved letters with the same deliberate tenderness she had shown when editing her husband's speeches in the White House solarium.

The crowd dispersed slowly, and the children were permitted to run across the grass, their footsteps crossing back and forth over the invisible boundary line that now separated two allied nations, a border drawn not by conflict but by collective sorrow.

The stone still stands, weathered now by more than fifty winters, and the National Park Service maintains it as American soil to this day, a quiet patch of English countryside where the simple act of passing through a wicket gate carries a traveler into the jurisdiction of the United States.

Source: US History on Facebook

Overthink the Best

 

Source: Learning and Exploring Through Play on Facebook

All My Tears Be Washed Away Mark Bishop