Category: General Learning

Thanks Toke for this recent photo post. Yes to the inspirations.

I’ve had teachers in my life that have long encouraged such notions. Sometimes they’ve been about persistence. And perseverance. Sometimes they’ve been about imagination. And creativity. Sometimes they’ve been about encouragement. And trust.

Today, it’s the irrepressible expression of life that calls to me. It’s the way that life energy can’t not flow. Inspiring when seen in nature. And inspiring when seen in human beings doing the day to day, finding way.

A bow.

I was in one of Salt Lake City’s downtown hotels Sunday morning. It offered a rather delicious view of the Oquirrh Mountain range on the west side of the Salt Lake Valley.

At just the right time, when the sun was rising, bringing blue sky with snowy mountain horizon into light of a day.

I was writing. Yet, the sunrise sequence teased my gaze. First only to the wide skies, pink with anticipation. Then a minute later to the tips of the Oquirrhs. Then a minute later to the full height of the Oquirrhs. Then a couple of minutes later, light to half of the valley.

What delight.

And then into a day, delighted by such view, I wrote further, surrendered to beauty. So simple, yet so monumental, the returning of the sun to a new day.

I’m theming this year’s Human to Human podcast episodes. Each will hone in a bit on “Practicing For Peace.”

It has heart calling in it for me. It has inspiration from a few of my most beloved mentors. It has potent invitation to the smallest of personal self care peace moves, and to the biggest of global orientations and peace actions. 

This episode with Cory — what a treat. For the unique insight he brings. For the playground that we get to share and explore together. For the invitation to prioritize both inner being and outer steps.

Enjoy listening. Sharing. As Cory encouraged, “loving gigantically.”

I appreciate the invitation to see thresholds. I think of them as the significant changes in our lives. The outer that is sometimes things like, the move. Or the new job. Or the new goal. The inner that is the psyche and soul doing what it does. Choosing one small step. Insisting one small celebration. Thresholds signal bigger movements. From one world to another. Or from one neighborhood within a world to another.

I also appreciate these words below from John O’Donohue (thx Katharine Weinmann for recently reminding me of this passage).

“At any time you can ask yourself: At which threshold am I now standing? At this time in my life, what am I leaving? Where am I about to enter? What is preventing me from crossing my next threshold? What gift would enable me to do it?

A threshold is not a simple boundary; it is a frontier that divides two different territories, rhythms, and atmospheres. Indeed, it is a lovely testimony to the fullness and integrity of an experience or a stage of life that intensifies toward the end into a real frontier that cannot be crossed without the heart being passionately engaged and woken up. At this threshold, a great complexity of emotion comes alive: confusion, fear, excitement, sadness, hope. This is one of the reasons such vital crossings were always clothed in ritual.

It is wise in your own life to be able to recognize and acknowledge the key thresholds: to take your time; to feel all the varieties of presence that accrue there; to listen inward with complete attention until you hear the inner voice calling you forward. The time has come to cross.”

John O’Donohue
To Bless the Space Between Us

Here’s to the invitation that threshold brings, and the deepening of relationship that can carry big moves in our lives.