love

Soul Stretching

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“So let us look for beauty and grace, for love and friendship, for that which is creative and birth-giving and soul-stretching. Let us dare to laugh at ourselves, healthy, affirmative laughter. Only when we take ourselves lightly can we take ourselves seriously.” – Madeleine L’Engle from her lecture Dare to Be Creative

Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

 

Nature of the week:

Shadow of the Week:

If you want me to send these thoughts to your email each Sunday, simply sign up on the right.

Text and photos © 2023 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.

Taking Ourselves Lightly

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“So let us look for beauty and grace, for love and friendship, for that which is creative and birth-giving and soul-stretching. Let us dare to laugh at ourselves, healthy, affirmative laughter. Only when we take ourselves lightly can we take ourselves seriously, so that we are given the courage to say, ‘Yes! I dare disturb the universe.’” – Madeleine L’Engle

Nurture peace, cultivate kindness and carry the calm.

 

Nature of the week:

Shadow of the Week:

If you want me to send these thoughts to your email each Sunday, simply sign up on the right.

Text and photos © 2022 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.

Beneath Birdsong

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I’ve started a practice of trying to listen beyond or underneath the shouts and clangs and alerts and clashes that demand attention. I’m trying to rediscover soft sounds, the hums, the sighs, the whispers. It’s like trying to pick out one instrument’s musical line while listening to a symphony. Right now, underneath the birdsong, there’s a soft whispering whoosh. I think it’s the sound of wind in the trees. It ebbs and flows and reminds me to listen for the constant, soft undertones of wonder, joy, peace, and hope in each day, the life-giving grace of love’s whispers. – kh, Linger: 365 Days of Peaceful Pauses

Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

 

Nature of the week:

Shadow of the Week:

If you want me to send these thoughts to your email each Sunday, simply sign up on the right.

Text and photos © 2022 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.

One Way to Know It’s Love

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“Love always creates, it never destroys.”

– Leo Buscaglia –

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Love.

Create.

Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

 

Nature of the week – ice at the edge of a pond:

Shadow of the Week – a lantern:

If you want me to send these thoughts to your email each Sunday, simply sign up on the right.

Text and photos © 2022 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.

A Place of Inner Peace

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Here’s a riddle for you:

What’s so fragile that you can break it by just saying its name?

(The answer follows this next quote.)

 

“In a world of noise, confusion and conflict,

it is necessary that there is a place of inner silence and peace,

not the peace of mere relaxation

but the peace of inner clarity and love.”

– Thomas Merton –

 

The answer to the riddle is:

Silence.

 

Wishing you the inner silence of peace, clarity, and love.

 

Nature of the week:

Shadow of the Week:

If you want me to send these thoughts to your email each Sunday, simply sign up on the right.

Text and photos © 2021 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.

When the Year Laughs

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“Then laughs the year; with flowers the meads are bright;

The bursting branches are tipped with flames of light:

The landscape is light; the dark clouds flee above,

And the shades of the land are a blue that is deep as love.”

– Robert Bridges, “April” –

Nature of the week:

Shadow of the Week:

If you want me to send these thoughts to your email each Sunday, simply sign up on the right.

Text and photos © 2021 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.

Illuminating Life

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“Hatred paralyzes life;

Love releases it.

Hatred confuses life.

Love harmonizes it.

Hatred darkens life;

Love illuminates it.”

– Martin Luther King, Jr., A Testament of Hope –

 

Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

 

Nature of the week:

Shadow of the Week – shamrocks and Dala horse:

If you want me to send these thoughts to your email each Sunday, simply sign up on the right.

Text and photos © 2021 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.

Courage, Gaiety, and the Quiet Mind

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Happy New Year!

“Give us grace and strength to persevere. Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind. Spare to us our friends and soften to us our enemies. Give us the strength to encounter that which is to come, that we may be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath and in all changes of fortune, and down to the gates of death loyal and loving to one another.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

 

Nature of the week:

Shadow of the Week—a rope fence at the zoo:

If you want me to send these thoughts to your email each Sunday, simply sign up on the right.

Text and photos © 2021 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.

Easing Change, Quieting Fear

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“Kindness eases change.

Love quiets fear.”

– Octavia F. Butler, Parable of the Talents –

 

Nurture peace. Cultivate kindness. Carry the calm.

Just to clarify, I’m not talking about the peace of ignorance or the kindness of platitudes or the calmness of inaction. I’m talking about a reservoir of inner peace, kindness, and calm that strengthens, balances, and guides our thoughts, our words, our actions.

Nature of the week:

Shadow of the Week:

If you want me to send these thoughts to your email each Sunday, simply sign up on the right.

Text and photos © 2020 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.