You went straight to the heart of my essay, PQP, and I'm so grateful! Love is always the answer and you model this beautifully every day. Thank you for the many ways you actualize and embody love and for being my ever-faithful first reader from the very beginning. ❤
Thank you for reading and commenting Grace, it always touches me. I have adored that turtle video for so many years, it was a joy to bring that child's pure love of beauty into people's hearts and inboxes. ❤
Wow! Stephanie, I was completely enraptured by your words ... each image, each reflection, felt like a musical note lifted from the quiet, inviting us to remember what we love and who we are beneath the noise.
Your weaving of Rumi, Frost, cicadas and face-painted wonder cracked something open in me, especially today, on Mabon, under the New Moon and eclipse ... a threshold moment if ever there was one!
I can’t help but wonder if your post is part of that turning: a call to reclaim the wide road, to listen for the music in unexpected places, and to ask, with reverence and curiosity ... “What do you love?”
Thanks so much you for this beautiful, soulful offering ... it feels like a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground with our whole selves. 🙏💖✨
Thank you for always reading, and listening as you do, with your acutely observant rabbit ears Deborah. I truly appreciate your tender awareness of the nuances that feed what I am writing, sometimes in ways I don't always even understand myself until the words are on the page and I have hit "publish."
Comments like yours nourish my writing journey immeasurably.
We are indeed at such a threshold moment right now...this first day of Autumn under a new moon AND eclipse. So many powerful forces. It's no wonder the wide road calls to so many of us as it never has before.
May love guide us as we find the hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground. ❤
Aww, what a wonderful, heartfelt reply! Thank you so much, dear Stephanie ... your words truly warmed me. What a blessing to have met here in this garden of light and delight. One of my friends has just reminded me that today is also The International Day of Peace. So yes, what an incredibly sacred time and such a beautiful moment to be connecting with kindred spirits. 🙏💖🍂✨🕊️🌑
This made me chuckle Brian! Great goal and a genuine challenge for all of us. Animals model the balance so wonderfully, I look forward to seeing more of your photos capturing that essence.
Your daydream about the impromptu library musical interlude tells me you love the unexpected moments in life, as I do, too. What a beautiful reminder for us to share our "loves" and to ask others about theirs!
The wordless language of the body…..music, passions, kneeling to kiss the ground. The Rumí quote with such timeless wisdom. All the words written in the library are of the mind. I love that Rumí says to first do the embodied action. When we can express and become present through the body, then our words become beacons of clarity and deep meaning. As your words have done. Exquisite and necessary for our time and all time. Thank you
This comment really moved me and meant a lot, Susan. Gorgeously expressed and I loved how you honed in on the embodied action Rumi was driving at. Yes! And I couldn't agree more that this clarity of presence has never been more necessary than it is now, and for all time.❤
How remarkable that Rumi’s words echo through the centuries and that we can imagine and share ideas sparked by images penned so long ago. I imagine a river of inspiration that connects us all. And who inspired Rumi? To think that they are part of this conversation too, a living thing, is a wonder.
Yes to every word you wrote Susan! And what a question to ask about Rumi. It gave me the same sense of looking at the stars. A living wonder indeed. Thank you for being here. <3
As are yours for mine Tammie. Infinitely grateful and thank you for the deep belly laugh over the "I love turtles" video. It is pure and priceless, just like you. ❤
Thank you Marisol, not only for always "pausing to ponder" but also for celebrating the hundred (and more) ways to kneel and kiss the ground in the myriad ways that you do. Thank you for sharing the serendipity of Carrie's post, which I hadn't seen! Wow, just wow. Magic is alive and well, and thank goodness for it. <3
Dear Stephanie, today I literally took a portion of Rumi's quote that you shared in your post: "Let the beauty we love be what we do" and hiked and climbed Mount Towrong... it truly was the best thing I could have done. Thank you for sharing your harmonious words and gorgeous photographs... this post, 'A Hundred Ways to Kiss the Ground' really struck a magical chord with me.
This comment made my week Leanda! I looked up images of Mount Towrong (what a gorgeous name for such a striking landscape) and enjoyed thinking of you out there with the birds, trees, and clouds...kissing the ground. Thank you so very much for being here, it means a lot.
I am so heartfully pleased, Stephanie that my comment made your week ☀️ I look forward to sharing my photographs and videos from Mount Towrong next week. It sure is full of vast beauty! 💫🌱
Inspiring text friend, I like to read, what a wonderful and special feeling. From the beginning when entering the library, the musical moment is a very beautiful narrative. Congratulations 🎊 🎊
I enjoy your work equally may you know (thank you!) and I truly appreciate your willingness to pause quietly in that library with me, surprised by the music. Thank you for reading and commenting, and resonating with the small details. It means the world!
If it's a real library, you don't have a library, you have a very refined playground. Since I breathe art, I was a musician, I love jazz and other styles, I love cooking, I've been doing it since I was 9 years old. I've been practicing karate since I was 18 and I was in the Fire Department 🚒, today I'm a writer, inherited from my grandfather... That's it 🙏🏾😁🌹
Ah, Stephanie, you began your beautiful piece with one of my all time favorite pieces of writing. I absolutely love the imagery you conjured from it - I was totally drawn into that world and experienced the awe of the joyful and free musical expression. Thank you so much for sharing yourself with us - it comforts me that you are in this world. 💚
Oh my goodness, Stephanie! This is beautifully written with such tenderness. A hundred ways to kiss the precious ground. Magic surrounds us if we choose to see. <3 <3
Amen to the magic that surrounds us and how it is a choice whether or not to see it. So grateful you do and for all the ways you bring it to life, Rea. Thank you for reading and commenting, it touches me every time. <3
Library bursting with sound introduces the unexpected! Especially fabulous! "When we grow ourselves up" "Let the beauty we love be what we do. And who we are becoming" ... Also, purchased a two-book Rumi set!... You make the Trees Proud!!!
This joyful comment brought such a smile to my face today! Thank you for joining me in that library full of surprises and for appreciating Rumi's wisdom. Also, for loving trees--they give us so much! Grateful for you and your voice Georgena. <3
“What do I love”—-What an incredible question to guide us through an increasingly frightening world. Thank you for this!
You went straight to the heart of my essay, PQP, and I'm so grateful! Love is always the answer and you model this beautifully every day. Thank you for the many ways you actualize and embody love and for being my ever-faithful first reader from the very beginning. ❤
Leave it to Rumi and the children to always guide us towards truth. Thank you for this reflection!
Thank you for reading and commenting Grace, it always touches me. I have adored that turtle video for so many years, it was a joy to bring that child's pure love of beauty into people's hearts and inboxes. ❤
Wow! Stephanie, I was completely enraptured by your words ... each image, each reflection, felt like a musical note lifted from the quiet, inviting us to remember what we love and who we are beneath the noise.
Your weaving of Rumi, Frost, cicadas and face-painted wonder cracked something open in me, especially today, on Mabon, under the New Moon and eclipse ... a threshold moment if ever there was one!
I can’t help but wonder if your post is part of that turning: a call to reclaim the wide road, to listen for the music in unexpected places, and to ask, with reverence and curiosity ... “What do you love?”
Thanks so much you for this beautiful, soulful offering ... it feels like a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground with our whole selves. 🙏💖✨
Thank you for always reading, and listening as you do, with your acutely observant rabbit ears Deborah. I truly appreciate your tender awareness of the nuances that feed what I am writing, sometimes in ways I don't always even understand myself until the words are on the page and I have hit "publish."
Comments like yours nourish my writing journey immeasurably.
We are indeed at such a threshold moment right now...this first day of Autumn under a new moon AND eclipse. So many powerful forces. It's no wonder the wide road calls to so many of us as it never has before.
May love guide us as we find the hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground. ❤
Aww, what a wonderful, heartfelt reply! Thank you so much, dear Stephanie ... your words truly warmed me. What a blessing to have met here in this garden of light and delight. One of my friends has just reminded me that today is also The International Day of Peace. So yes, what an incredibly sacred time and such a beautiful moment to be connecting with kindred spirits. 🙏💖🍂✨🕊️🌑
Stephanie, a great piece, thank you. My goal has always to remain child-like but not childish - although I'm not always successful.
This made me chuckle Brian! Great goal and a genuine challenge for all of us. Animals model the balance so wonderfully, I look forward to seeing more of your photos capturing that essence.
Your daydream about the impromptu library musical interlude tells me you love the unexpected moments in life, as I do, too. What a beautiful reminder for us to share our "loves" and to ask others about theirs!
Oh what we might learn.
Yes dear Auntie yes!!!!!!!!!!!
The wordless language of the body…..music, passions, kneeling to kiss the ground. The Rumí quote with such timeless wisdom. All the words written in the library are of the mind. I love that Rumí says to first do the embodied action. When we can express and become present through the body, then our words become beacons of clarity and deep meaning. As your words have done. Exquisite and necessary for our time and all time. Thank you
This comment really moved me and meant a lot, Susan. Gorgeously expressed and I loved how you honed in on the embodied action Rumi was driving at. Yes! And I couldn't agree more that this clarity of presence has never been more necessary than it is now, and for all time.❤
How remarkable that Rumi’s words echo through the centuries and that we can imagine and share ideas sparked by images penned so long ago. I imagine a river of inspiration that connects us all. And who inspired Rumi? To think that they are part of this conversation too, a living thing, is a wonder.
Yes to every word you wrote Susan! And what a question to ask about Rumi. It gave me the same sense of looking at the stars. A living wonder indeed. Thank you for being here. <3
Loved this post Stephanie.
All of it.
The part that jumped out for me, is about listening to children.
I love conversations with children, because there are no filters and I often ask them questions because great wisdom comes through them.💜
Truly Vivienne. Which puts our own filters into perspective, doesn't it? Grateful to have you here. ❤
Absolutely Stephanie!
Learning to release all my filters so the Divine Child can shine into the world💜
Dearest Stephanie,
As always, your words are a salve for my heart and for a wounded world. 🩷
As are yours for mine Tammie. Infinitely grateful and thank you for the deep belly laugh over the "I love turtles" video. It is pure and priceless, just like you. ❤
You’ve given me a bounty of beautiful wisdom to think on and embody. I like turtles too, in fact, I love them! What do I love? Such a lovely prompt 💜✨
“What do you love?” ask
takes us to wide roads, high skies.
Up-rising surprise!
...
Flash mob concert feast*
Passion-driven kids are us~
Kneel, kiss ground. Or not!
...
Read this twice, watch vid,
contemplate each photograph.
What’s here not to love?
Stephanie, had you seen that this Carrie Newcomer’s post played on the same date as yours? https://carrienewcomer.substack.com/p/what-do-i-love-start-from-there
Thank you Marisol, not only for always "pausing to ponder" but also for celebrating the hundred (and more) ways to kneel and kiss the ground in the myriad ways that you do. Thank you for sharing the serendipity of Carrie's post, which I hadn't seen! Wow, just wow. Magic is alive and well, and thank goodness for it. <3
Magic, alive, well!
Call it grace, or what you may~
“Thank goodness for it.”
...
When I respond to Carrie’s post, will reference yours.
Really wonderful Stephanie..much wisdom in Rumi and in you...
Dear Stephanie, today I literally took a portion of Rumi's quote that you shared in your post: "Let the beauty we love be what we do" and hiked and climbed Mount Towrong... it truly was the best thing I could have done. Thank you for sharing your harmonious words and gorgeous photographs... this post, 'A Hundred Ways to Kiss the Ground' really struck a magical chord with me.
This comment made my week Leanda! I looked up images of Mount Towrong (what a gorgeous name for such a striking landscape) and enjoyed thinking of you out there with the birds, trees, and clouds...kissing the ground. Thank you so very much for being here, it means a lot.
I am so heartfully pleased, Stephanie that my comment made your week ☀️ I look forward to sharing my photographs and videos from Mount Towrong next week. It sure is full of vast beauty! 💫🌱
Inspiring text friend, I like to read, what a wonderful and special feeling. From the beginning when entering the library, the musical moment is a very beautiful narrative. Congratulations 🎊 🎊
I enjoy your work equally may you know (thank you!) and I truly appreciate your willingness to pause quietly in that library with me, surprised by the music. Thank you for reading and commenting, and resonating with the small details. It means the world!
If it's a real library, you don't have a library, you have a very refined playground. Since I breathe art, I was a musician, I love jazz and other styles, I love cooking, I've been doing it since I was 9 years old. I've been practicing karate since I was 18 and I was in the Fire Department 🚒, today I'm a writer, inherited from my grandfather... That's it 🙏🏾😁🌹
Ah, Stephanie, you began your beautiful piece with one of my all time favorite pieces of writing. I absolutely love the imagery you conjured from it - I was totally drawn into that world and experienced the awe of the joyful and free musical expression. Thank you so much for sharing yourself with us - it comforts me that you are in this world. 💚
This touched my heart so much WilM. And the comfort I find having you in this sphere is reciprocal, may you know! 💚
Oh my goodness, Stephanie! This is beautifully written with such tenderness. A hundred ways to kiss the precious ground. Magic surrounds us if we choose to see. <3 <3
Amen to the magic that surrounds us and how it is a choice whether or not to see it. So grateful you do and for all the ways you bring it to life, Rea. Thank you for reading and commenting, it touches me every time. <3
Library bursting with sound introduces the unexpected! Especially fabulous! "When we grow ourselves up" "Let the beauty we love be what we do. And who we are becoming" ... Also, purchased a two-book Rumi set!... You make the Trees Proud!!!
This joyful comment brought such a smile to my face today! Thank you for joining me in that library full of surprises and for appreciating Rumi's wisdom. Also, for loving trees--they give us so much! Grateful for you and your voice Georgena. <3