The Forge

The Forge

His soul was a blazing inferno with possibilities
To forge together with solidity
The pieces, the players, the potential
Of his life

Yet he yawned
Rolled over
And slept

As molten metal puddled inches deep
Congealing into shackles
Locking him into false imprisonment
Hindering lives

Hear the call
For awakening
Spirit passion

Put the bellows to the sparking connection
That zaps the heart and races the pulse
Ignite prospective fervors of love
Welding souls

Rise up stretching
Striking the forge
With precision

Love Lion~*
November 22,2007

Do all the good you can,

in all the ways you can,

to all the souls you can,

in every place you can,

at all the times you can,

With all the zeal you can,

as long as ever you can.

John Wesley

DOING
GOOD
WORKS!

Refuse to fall down.

If you cannot refuse to fall down,

refuse to stay down.

If you cannot refuse to stay down,

lift your heart toward heaven,

and like a hungry beggar,

ask that it be filled,

and it will be filled.

You may be pushed down.

You may be kept from rising.

But no one can keep you

from lifting your heart

toward heaven.
Clarissa Pinkola Estés

~

There truly is NO excuse for not fulfilling the potential of your human birthright! There is no lack of knowledge. There is no reason to shirk the needs of your soul... or those of others. Life is so precious and needs embraced fully! What good is crying over a pine box or ashes of urn.... with 'should've, would've, could've, when NOW is the day to Live and Live Well! When your days are done... let people rejoice that you filled life with LOVE... that you burned in zealous light and kindled fires everywhere you went!

Love

Integrity

Kindness

Respect

Wisdom

Reaching

Boldly

Enfolding

Building

!

No Excuse

Just Passion

~

Love Lion~*Go Forth And Be Who You Are Meant To Be... Unhindered

Kindness

In the midst of global crises such as pollution, wars and famine, kindness may be too easily dismissed as a 'soft' issue, or a luxury to be addressed after the urgent problems are solved. But kindness is the greatest need in all those areas -- kindness toward the environment, toward other nations, toward the needs of people who are suffering. Until we reflect basic kindness in everything we do, our political gestures will be fleeting and fragile.
~Bo Lozoff

Kindness means a great deal to me. Purposeful or random... it changes lives! We require a great deal of it to reach our full potential. To have a healthy image of ourself and to offer helpful truth to others. There often doesn't seem to be enough being doled out. Yet the payoff for all is beyond comprehension!

It requires less character to discover the faults of others than is does to tolerate them.
- J. Petit Senn

Faults... so often a person just isn't aware... hasn't had the life experience or understanding to know differently... or has wounds suffocating their own healing process...
How much better is a bandage of kindness than wrathful insult to injury ?

I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.
~ Booker T. Washington

Faults in rock are due to stress and a breaking open... I think it is much the same with us. Stressors make us crack in our soul also... the fissure needs filled with wisdom and only comes with kindnesses received!

People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy.
- Oliver Goldsmith

"Shall we make a new rule of life from tonight:
always to try to be a little kinder than is necessary?"
~James Barrie

Become even more of a hero in life ... be outrageously kind You could provoke an epidemic!!!!
Love Lion~*

Each small act of kindness reverberates across great distances and spans of time, affecting lives unknown to the one whose generous spirit was the source of the good echo, because kindness is passed on and grows each time it is passed, until simple courtesy becomes an act of selfless courage years later and far away.
-Dean Koontz,

Celebration!

I discovered a poem I wrote a year ago. Sometimes I feel absolutely dreadful about myself. Perhaps that is why this little poem was sitting on the shelf... waiting... to say, "See! Do you see what you have seen and been and are!!!!" It all goes so much deeper than flesh............

Celebration!

Beauty
Never before have the lines on her face been defined
Sparkles clear in forest green of eye perform above
Jump of nose in perfect exhale
Blossom of lip petals part is approval
Contours
Sweeping down curves and angles that make her woman
Standing with delicate strength and pristine determination
Before the world of mirror
Consuming the bountiful supply of air that fills her lungs
And she sings
Sings
In celebration!
Exalting in the melody of joy that escapes
The deep vault of truth
Spilling the secret
That was never told
~
How very enough

Yes

How very enough

Is

She

~.*.~ ~*
Lion~*
© November27,2006

Love Lion~*

I am letting my soul sing Why not!

Bulwark of My Soul

"The emotional virus lives

and thrives

in the gap between expectations and perceived reality."

Doc Childre and Bruce Cryer,

Chaos to Coherance

Now doesn't that give one much to think upon! I have had repeat infections of this virus. It is a hard one to shake and no medicine can be swallowed to alleviate the symptoms!

So I cling to the walls of truth where authenticity adheres untrammeled. It is getting past the rubbish that clogs one's brain which is no easy endeavor! That gap is filled with so much prattle! Words not intended to restrain our emotional growth, yet creating stagnate ponds of sensitivity. Even mere looks put constriction upon hearts inhibiting growth.

I hear my voices echoing back to that first cry. I hear everything in that gap filled cavern of mine. There wasn't love enough to inoculate me from the viral abyss. Though of course no one is immune! Time has provided a prescription for this malady... maturity infuses the soul with antibodies

If we had no gap... what would we be filled with!

Oh Indeed!

We would be filled with arousing wellbeing, but know not why it is so blissful.

So I shall be thankful for the infirmity that saturated my emotions.

For now I know to cling to the bulwark of my soul.

I tell you, deep inside you is a fountain of bliss, a fountain of joy. Deep inside your center core is truth, light, love, there is no guilt there, there is no fear there. Psychologists have never looked deep enough.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

I believe in the Peace that passes understanding. I am kissed by it daily.The Carpenter building my spirit's destiny lays fresh stones one upon the other mortaring them together firmly, squeezing that gap.

~~~~~

The photo is of Cathedral Mountain. I lived at the very base of it long ago! The picture doesn't do it justice. When you look up at it on a brilliant day... it looks just like a fortified castle! You can see the windows and doors... and the fairy angels flitting about if you really try! :) Fact is... the whole top inside of this mountain has been carved out by miners of old. It has an enormous cavern within, yet stands strong and magnificent by its strong walls. Just like you... just like me!

The Bulwark providing our security and truth... our value... these are not infected.

Love Lion~*

dark of night

dark of night
not to be feared
calm
eyes upturned to distant hope
frail light gently kissing her brow
sensing
the tremor in her bones
not from cold
anticipation
for the wind begins to blow

and certainly will dislodge
incense
of her prayers that got caught
on the edge of a star

Love Lion~* Oct 28 2007

And the world becomes kinder

I watched the movie created from the book, " Goodbye Mr Chips" , by James Hilton. It was a wonderful, terrible, excellent story about life and being a person of deep integrity and honor! One line in the show had me scrambling for paper and pen!

" When I stopped judging myself so harshly, the world became kinder. "

I must confess... I've gathered up my accuser's words since before I can remember. Where the tongues who spoke... also forgot. I held their words upon the precipice of my soul... allowing them... one by one to dive and splash into my emotional chamber and pump through me like poison.

I knew who I was. I knew I was not those cruel syllables. But hearing them caused confusion that I was somehow fautly. Someone had to pay penance... didn't they? So I took on the roll. I took on lies and lost myself in the forgotten rubbish tossed so carelessly.

"Love yourself! Take care of yourself! Self-respect, Dignity!" When these words started washing over me, I was at a loss! I did... didn't I? But alas, No! I judged myself very hard, very, very hard on the witness of unthinking individuals. I spent most of my life alone. Very meagre of friends. Locked in walls built to protect, but sheltering pain with no escape route! It was confusing to have duality of emotions. I cared so much for others, but couldn't allow anyone to know what lay so achingly within me.

When I took time to hear myself... I was agast! I got to work seeking out the burdens. While Hands much larger than I, crushed my walls to rubble and dust! I began to see me and not the hideous refuse that marred my soul's visage. I began to fall in love with who my Lord said I was. No other opinion mattered. Their reminice faded like fog when the Sun breaks through!

Some days I still have the residual effects of fresh floggings and I try to step back from their flashing whip... but I am not always quick enough and get scratched and gouged. I think it impossible to sidestep when being blindsided!!! sigh. But I know a great Healer when this happens.

I have been judged harshly and I have judged myself even harder because of it! When I stopped ( or at least became increasingly aware so I could stop) kindness came to me. Even more than this... where I had given my best to others... I suddenly had much better to give!

It is no cliche' to love others as you love yourself. If love for self is limited, then it goes for certain that your love for others is also bound to limited knowledge. Yet to love me, I had to first know I was loved by Another. God's love gave me truth no earthly vessel can.

When I stopped judging myself so unwisely with unedited bluther... I also learned to be much more gracious to others. To understand the cause of my 'effects'... made me seek a new perspective of those before me. Truly, this harsh world has gained a gentler edge!

Even ten years later I still feel quite lonely. Perhaps that is because I have SO much more space to be refilled!

Love Lion~*

"Our own heart, and not other men's opinions, forms our true honor." - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"If you accept the expectations of others, especially negative ones, then you never will change the outcome." - Michael Jordan

Re-examine all you have been told... dismiss what insults your soul." -Walt Whitman

Whosoever may torment you, harass you, confound you, or upset you, is a teacher. Not because they're wise, but because you seek to become so." -Mike Dooley

Gates

Gates, they keep in and keep out!

We all have emotional gates. We let some through to venture into our soulful garden. Others are barred at the outskirts only glimpsing what might lay beyond!


I believe that at the heart of all persons is the desire to be known... acknowledged! Those who hide behind the highest walls with solid gates... want to be found most of all. Our gardens are meant to be shared and seeds exchanged and grown. And we all need help with weeding every so often!


Proverbs 19:22 What a person desires is unfailing love ; better to be poor than a liar.


This world holds little real unconditional love. Yet it is the very Heart and Core of our Creator. I have faith in God's unfailing love. People, all people require love to be sucessful in this life. Yet lies corrupt our vital sustainance. We were born with the image of God imbedded in our spirit. To be loved and to love. To have relationships that empower one another to respect and honor all persons. To enable people to grow and mature in their talants and goals. We are meant to uphold one another... not lash out at those we love... or those we fear because they look, sound or simply live in a foreign land.


We don't have to 'like' what some people choose to do. Some willingly defy our purpose in life. They do not have love in their hearts. They have sought out dark shadows to reside in where the truth cannot shine upon them. Perhaps they were born into shadow. Hate the sin, not the sinner. Now there is a difficult truth to follow. Love is expressed in a great many ways. Sometimes the only thing you can see in another person is the fact that they are a 'person' who though vile, is to be pitied for how lost in lies and destruction they are steeped. I believe that pity is indeed a form of love that can can provoke words of prayer if nothing else for such individuals.

“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.” Jalal ad -Din Rumi


Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world. Etty Hillesum


We are not meant to judge one another. We are meant to strive to be love and to help lift one another up to this challenge. We all know right from wrong. What do I let in through my gate? What grows in me? What grows in you? One source... many outcomes... yet still... only one destiny meant for ALL.


As I pluck up my weeds, I will try very hard not to throw them over the wall to implant in your garden space. Please be so kind to those to the right and left encircling you also!


Love Lion~*