Healing Reflections

 

We Look to the Light

To find the True Reflection

of Our Own Wholeness.

~Noelle Renee

4/22/11 (Good Friday)

(subject: “Fergus”  and his mirrored reflection with kind permission )

For More Reflective and Fascinating Haikus, Please visit my dear friend Rebecca at Recuerda mi Corazon. You will feel that you belong at once and know that it is worth the journey!

Postcards From Paradise: What Has Fallen Soon Must Rise: Love Offerings for Japan In Her Time Of Great Need

Last Light by Ursula I Abresch

Why did you vanish
into empty sky?
Even the fragile snow,
when it falls,
falls in this world.

Izumi Shikibu

“The Fallen” by Ursula I Abresch

Which is the least unreliable
among fickle things—
the swift rapids,
a flowing river,
or this human world

Izumi Shikibu

974-1034

In My Garden III by Ursula I Abresch

This body
grown fragile floating,
a reed cut from its roots . . .
If a stream would ask me
to follow, I'd go, I think.
~Ono no Komachi,9th century

“Signs of Spring” by Ursula I Abresch with Kind Permission

This life of ours would not cause you sorrow
if you thought of it as like
the mountain cherry blossoms
which bloom and fade in a day.

MURASAKI SHIKIBU

(974-1031)

Mission To Help Bring AID and Comfort To Japan:
 The Aquatic Angels  is a fundraising team that has formed online in an effort to help the wonderful and deserving people of Japan who need our mercy, compassion and care.  We are giving you the opportunity to Join Us in Offering the Japanese People, who have faced the disaster of both Earthquake and Tsunami ~ Shelter, Comfort, Warmth and a Chance at Human Dignity in the Face of True Disaster. If you would like to help  our team, Aquatic Angels,~ simply Sponsor us, by clicking on any one of the  colored links in the poems  above or the team name link in this paragraph or any of the “shelter colored links.  In addition, there is a ShelterBoxUSA Logo at the bottom of my blogsite page. It says “ShelterBoxUSA” and Aquatic Angels Team. You may click on the Logo as well.

Clicking will take you to a page for ShelterBoxusa.org where you may donate whatever you can afford to help us in our goal to purchase A Second Shelterbox for $1,000 dollars (the cost of one box is $1,000 for contents and deployment). We are deeply grateful to those who have helped us reach our first goal to send one box off to Japan. Many Thanks to You Compassionate Friends!  Arigatou gozaimasu! Each ShelterBox can provide Shelter, comfort, warmth, survival and dignity for an extended family of 10 people! We want to continue to offer hope to children and families who currently do not see a brighter tomorrow! Thank you for your kindness and compassion. May the One who loves us and cares for all our needs watch over you and your family.
Blessings and Light,
Noelle Renee ~ Team Captain ~ Aquatic Angels
Here is a short and very informative film on Shelterbox and what they do. (a little over 5 min.) You may enlarge it.
Here is the facebook link for ShelterBox as well: http://www.facebook.com/shelterboxusa?ref=ts
Here is a great article by Gizmodo about what is in the box
http://gizmodo.com/#!5781768/whats-inside-the-shelter-boxes-going-to-japan

ShelterBox A Decade of Disaster Relief

 

~Jane Hirshfield and Mariko Arantani - The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Ono No Komachi and Izumi Shikibu

~Murasaki Shikibu’s poem is taken from Kenneth Rexroth’s Translations from Japanese
~All Photographs are used with the Generous Permission of Ursula I Abresch who wishes to offer, “maybe, just a little bit of beauty and comfort to the devastation in Japan.” We are blessed by her work and Thank her!
~Arigatou gozaimasu, Ursula!

~Ursula I Abresch ~Photographer

~For More Postcards from Paradise, Please Sojourn to Recuerda mi Corazon where you will find beautiful images and messages to think about and ponder.

“The Bright Home in Which I Live”

 Bahamian Cloud Break by Chris the Fuzzy 

THE HOUSE OF BELONGING

I awoke
this morning
in the gold light
turning this way
and that

thinking for
a moment
it was one
day
like any other.

But
the veil had gone
from my
darkened heart
and
I thought

it must have been the quiet
candlelight
that filled my room,

it must have been
the first
easy rhythm
with which I breathed
myself to sleep,

it must have been
the prayer I said
speaking to the otherness
of the night.

And
I thought
this is the good day
you could
meet your love,

this is the black day
someone close
to you could die.

This is the day
you realize
how easily the thread
is broken
between this world
and the next

and I found myself
sitting up
in the quiet pathway
of light,

the tawny
close grained cedar
burning round
me like fire
and all the angels of this housely
heaven ascending
through the first
roof of light
the sun has made.

This is the bright home
in which I live,
this is where
I ask
my friends
to come,
this is where I want
to love all the things
it has taken me so long
to learn to love.

This is the temple
of my adult aloneness
and I belong
to that aloneness
as I belong to my life.

There is no house
like the house of belonging.

--David Whyte

From The House of Belonging 1992

David Whyte on Belonging and Coming Home 2 minutes long

Forgive me if this is a Redux of one of my favorite David Whyte Video,  but as Pat Conroy once said, “David Whyte makes the reading of poetry a matter of life and death. His writings have moved me and changed me.” –Pat Conroy, author of The Prince of Tides.

Progress

Preparing to Dive  Post by JChip8

Progress
And once again the depths of my life rush onward,
as if they were moving in wider channels now.
Things are becoming more close to me
and all images more thoroughly looked upon.
I feel more comfortable with that which is nameless,:
With my senses, as with birds, I reach up
into the windy heavens out of the oak,
and in those pools broken off from the day,
my feeling, as if standing on fishes, descends.

Rainer Maria Rilke  from The Book of Images tr. Crego

http://picture-poems.com/rilke/images.html#Entrance

 

Piano Concert by Robert Schumann

Open to Available Light

Red Poppy--Georgia O'Keefe

To be open to available light

in gesture, in affection, in spirit, in action;

to allow others to see the core of your

being--hearty, rich and filled 

with the seeds of compassionate grace--

is to be truly alive, fully present in the world 

and fully engaged with the divine.

--Noelle Renee 

David Whyte Incarnation Part I (1:34)

David Whyte Incarnation Part 2 (:43)

Gesture Toward the Light

Ballet Dancer : Pixdaus posted by Eibar/http://pixdaus.com/pics/1240883229aNEXvEK.jpg




Dream within a dream

Arms outstretched toward the light

Whirling, joyful dance.


--Noelle Renee

Song of Joy/Angel Voices/St. Philip's Boys Choir

Seeds of Love

The Sower by Vincent Van Gogh

To sew seeds of love

Requires a steadfast spirit

Tender shoots spring slow.

-Noelle Renee

Aster shoot

Seeds of Love by Loreena McKennitt

Prayers for the Human Spirit

Eagle Poem

To pray you open your whole self

To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon

To one whole voice that is you.

And know there is more

That you can't see, can't hear

Can't know except in moments

Steadily growing, and in languages

That aren't always sound but other

Circles of motion.

Like eagle that Sunday morning

Over Salt River.  Circles in blue sky

In wind, swept our hearts clean

With sacred wings.

We see you, see ourselves and know

That we must take the utmost care

And kindness in all things.

Breathe in, knowing we are made of

All this, and breathe, knowing

We are truly blessed because we

Were born, and die soon, within a

True circle of motion,

Like eagle rounding out the morning

Inside us.

We pray that it will be done

In beauty.

In beauty.

~ Joy Harjo ~

Wash Your Spirit Clean by Walela in English and Cherokee

Joy Harjo was born in Oklahoma. She is a Native American poet of the Muskogee Nation. Her poem is sacred. Wash Your Spirit Clean, by Walela, is a Cherokee song. Both of these are Prayers for the Human Spirit. I offer them to you in Love, Kindness and Peace. May your spirit be restored and Refreshed for what lies ahead of you.

Namaste,

Noelle Renee