love and magic

Found this via Elephant Love's Facebook page

Destiny

This is from the Hay House Meditation Facebook page.  I really love it and try keep it forefront in my mind and life.

52 Week Photo Project: Week 18

My life has been full of ups and downs. I have tumbled so many times. I made the wrong move and tried to find my way back, but never got there. The mountains in my path made it seem too hard.  I finally had to accept myself as I was and move forward from where I was at that time.  It was hard. I almost gave up again.  Unfortunately the things I needed then - I didn't have. I didn't understand them in myself and I didn't understand what I even needed or who I was really.  My climb felt impossible and I felt like I was doing it alone even though looking back - I don't believe I was as we all make the climb together. We all struggle. We all stumble. We all are trying to find the way.

I have been working on the piece for a while now. It is triangles cut out of paper to represent mountains. The little graphic connected triangles are clouds about to fall on the mountains making the climb worse. There is all quote a love by Ram Dass, “We're all just walking each other home.”  Patience and trust are needed to make that walk. 

52 Week Photo Project: Week 17

No camera still so no week 17 for me.  Hoping the light my camera brings me comes back soon.

"Light is the most efficient force in the universe. And it's your very core. Your true nature is luminous. Through the chaos, through the darkness, the broken heartedness, we will always circle back to light."

- Danielle LaPorte

Breathe It All In

Photo by me and quote added by me.

Believe in Yourself

Photo by me and quote added by me.

52 Week Photo Project: Week 10

"We all have a beautiful light within...We just sometimes forget it is there". - John Holland

Using the Diana Photo App. It blends 2 photos together.

Strange

"I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me too. Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it’s true I’m here, and I’m just as strange as you." Frida Kahlo in The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait

Nobody is perfect

"Drifting off to sleep, I thought about her. How nobody is perfect. How you just have to close your eyes and breathe out and let the puzzle of the human heart be what it is". - Sue Monk Kidd in The Secret Life of Bees

A Single Sunbeam

Last night some friends were gathering to have an evening creating art. I was packing up a bag of supplies to take. This little card fell out of a sketch book. Last night some shadows were chased away by creating in a safe and fun environment.

52 Lists - Week 15

I have collected quotes for as long as I can remember. Just picking a handful for this list was really hard on me.  In this photo there are 3 journals from high school to college that are full of quotes I collected. Some I read now and shake my head why I put that in there and others I forgot about and thankful to find again.  I have a lot of quotes on my On the Inside board on Pinterest and also My Map board. I also have a tag on here for quotes I post to the blog.

Week 15 - Favorite Quotes

"He knew one of the women well, and had shared his universe with her. They had seen the same mountains, and the same trees, although each of them had seem them differently. She knew his weaknesses, his moments of hatred, of despair. Yet she was there at his side. They shared the same universe."   - Paulo Coelho, The Valkyries

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” - - Rumi

“Try to find pleasure in the speed that you're not used to. Changing the way you do routine things allows a new person to grow inside of you. But when all is said and done, you're the one who must decide how you handle it." - From Paulo Coelho's book The Pilgrimage

“When you open your heart and mind to new perceptions you are shown a whole new way to view your life. - Gabrielle Bernstein - Spirit Junkie

"Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love." ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

"You're imperfect, and you're wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging." ~Brené Brown

“A path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you . . .Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself alone, one question - Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't it is of no  use."  -- Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings
of Don Juan

“We have to choose joy and keep choosing it.” - Henri JM Nouwen

“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy-the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.” - Brene Brown


Challenge: I will live out one of my quotes by....
“Talk to yourself like you would to someone you love.” - Brene Brown

One thing I am trying to focus on is accepting myself as I am.  Often I think I do give others more kindness than I give myself.  So this year I am trying to be gentle, kind and encouraging to myself as well as others.

A Good Relationship

From TinyBuddha's FB status today: 
"Good relationships don't just happen. They take time, patience, and two people who truly want to be together." ~Unknown

A good life lesson and one I have learned over the years - good relationships just don't happen. I think we like to think that when you love someone - the relationship will just be magically connected together by love and make it a good relationship, but it takes more than love. It does need love - a lot of it, but time, patience and wanting to be together is really key too. I love spending time with Michael. He works from home so a lot of our time is spent together and when we aren't together - I miss him fiercely!  

Words

I love words so the quotes board on my pinterest is fairly large.  Just posting a few that caught my attention recently....

Source: piccsy.com via Darby on Pinterest

Source: blacklullaby.tumblr.com via Darby on Pinterest

Source: amarodriguezs.blogspot.it via Darby on Pinterest

Impact

"Consider the importance of becoming aware of the impact you have on others, and remind yourself that by raising your own energy level to a place where you’re in harmony with Source, you become an instrument, or a channel, of peace. This works everywhere, so be a part of the counterbalance to the human negativity you encounter in your life. As Mahatma Gandhi said: “We must be the change we wish to see in the world.” Dr. Wayne W. Dyer from Do You Make a Difference?

Taking a Leap

The on-the-spot practice of being fully present, feeling your heart, and greeting the next moment with an open mind can be done at any time: when you wake up in the morning, before a difficult conversation, whenever fear or discomfort arises. This practice is a beautiful way to claim your warriorship, your spiritual warriorship. In other words, it is a way to claim your courage, your kindness, your strength. Whenever it occurs to you, you can pause briefly, touch in with how you're feeling both physically and mentally, and then connect with your heart-even putting your hand on your heart, if you want to. This is a way of extending warmth and acceptance to whatever is going on for you right now. You might have an aching back, an upset stomach, panic, rage, impatience, calmness, joy-whatever it is, you can let it be there just as it is, without labeling it good or bad, without telling yourself you should or shouldn't be feeling that way. Having connected with what is, with love and acceptance, you can go forward with curiosity and courage. I call this step "taking a leap." From Pema Chodron's book "Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change"

Inner Peace

me holding leaves

"When we have inner peace, we can be at peace with those around us. When our community is in a state of peace, it can share that peace with neighboring communities and so on. When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to de­velop inner happiness and peace." - Dalai Lama

The Key

"I learned that sometimes stopping is the key to going. Letting go is the key to becoming. Breathing is the key to living. (Literally and metaphorically.) And, celebrating where you are right now is the key to happiness." From Tiny Buddha - The Difference Between Fulfillment and Achievement

Living in Pain

"If we spent one third of the energy that we spend on chasing happiness…on getting better at being in pain…our experience of being alive would dramatically expand." Chela Davison from a blog post on Pain: A Love Story

Right Now

fall leaves in GJ

I collected this quote recently that I really need to read often....

"The point is that our true nature is not some ideal that we have to live up to. It's who we are right now, and that's what we can make friends with and celebrate."  Pema Chordon

 

Walking Each Other Home

I always enjoy Kelly Rae Roberts blog and her art of course too!   But I really liked this entry from the other day....

"..that the people we choose to live significant parts of our lives with are the exact people that can help us heal something in ourselves - old wounds, new wounds, all of it. In this sense, we really are just walking each other home. Home 

as in healing. Home as in the best versions of ourselves. Home as in wholeness. Home as in our divinity." Kelly Rae Roberts