Photo by In Her Image Photography
Some of the things I’ve created in the quest to spark the Creative Spirit include day-long and weekend retreats, e-courses, Zoom art classes, and a radio show that ran for three years titled “Creative Spirit,” a weekly, hourlong look at different aspects of creativity that featured well- known guests including Matthew Fox, Lucia Capacchione, Eric Maisel, Christina Baldwin, and more. If you’d like to know about my latest offerings, please join my Facebook group, “Creating as a Spiritual Practice,” my Creative Spirit Sanctuary Meet-up group at https://www.meetup.com/creative-spirit-sanctuary/, and sign up for other notifications below:
In the meantime, here are some of my favorite poems and prayers (along with a few of my paintings) to provide immediate inspiration…
Poems
“Quietness” ~ Rumi
Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now…
“I Thank You God” ~ E.E. Cummings
I thank You God for most this
amazing day: for the leaping
greenly spirits of trees and a blue
true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is
infinite which is yes
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the
no of all nothing–human merely
being doubt unimaginable You?
Prayers
Navaho prayer
With your feet I walk
I walk with your limbs
I carry forth your body
For me your mind thinks
Your voice speaks for me
Beauty is before me
And beauty is behind me
Above and below me hovers the beautiful
I am surrounded by it
I am immersed in it
In my youth I am aware of it
And in old age I shall walk quietly
The beautiful trail.
Sanskrit proverb
Look to this day,
For it is life,
The very life of life.
In its brief course lie all
The realities and verities of existence,
The bliss of growth,
The splendor of action,
The glory of power—
For yesterday is but a dream,
And tomorrow is only a vision,
But today, well lived,
Makes every yesterday a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
St Francis of Assisi
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love,
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.
O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much
Seek to be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Buddhist prayer
If anyone has hurt me or harmed me
Knowingly or unknowingly
In thought, word, or deed,
I freely forgive them.
And I too ask forgiveness
If I have hurt anyone or harmed anyone
Knowingly or unknowingly
In thought, word, or deed.
May I be happy
May I be peaceful
May I be free
May my friends be happy
May my friends be peaceful
May my friends be free
May my enemies be happy
May my enemies be peaceful
May my enemies be free
May all things be happy
May all things be peaceful
May all things be free.
Quotes
“The kingdom of God is within you.”
~ Luke 17:21
“All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“In the time we have it is surely our duty to do all the good we can to all the people we can in all the ways we can.”
~ William Barclay
“Many persons have the wrong idea about what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.”
~ Helen Keller
“Give us thankful hearts….Let us seize the day and the opportunity and strive for that Greatness of spirit that measures life not by its disappointments but by its possibilities, and let us ever remember that true gratitude and appreciation shows itself neither in independence nor satisfaction but passes the gift joyfully on in larger and better form.”
~ W.E.B. DuBois
