Peace is an active process, not a static one. I offer pieces of material that allowed me entrance into a state of calm centeredness. May they act as touch stones back into your own heart as well.
Collected Quotes
until we are
We’ve been here a long long time, soaking the sun into us there are some who say the truth is the truth is the truth and if it’s not, you’ll know but a blind man’s never seen the sun nor have we truly seen the Light so we balance ourselves before mirrors seeking light and…
where is the splendor?
“Yes, Yes You out on a morning jaunt Tell me, what do you see?” the ruffles of new leaves flirting us on toward summer a gossip of poppies, such a loud and vivid crowd a bold deer, undeterred from her breakfast by you or me So sweet these seasons each ushering us in and away…
my beloved
When I am the wind in the trees I am everywhere and nowhere I am with you Always I am carrying a birds call to your ears And the sweet sage to your nose And the suns rays to your eyes I make the aspen tremble and bow before you I am the wind…
it’s all just measuring light
I set out to learn about photography so I read about the speed of a shutter, the opening aperature, and touched all these buttons and dials but when it all came down to it its all just measuring light and isn’t that what we are all doing? I make art, some take photos, others are…
to be now
I know what i want to be now A god. And not like my Ego’s God. But like the soft caress of wind on a sweltering day or the calm a lake returns to after the stones are thrown and the strength of a mountain even as it slowly degrades I want to be permanent…
intermittently
A light we can all run to flickers on and off guiding the way, intermittently each step seen and unseen the way sure the way in shadow and yet forward we go even in darkness even in despair just when we think we are lost it beckons again and so we all stumble onward…
messages
I write to parse out my truth to find illusions and dismantle them there is so much love here and time eternal, yet I want it all now and see I must remove my desire and control And rest in the pulpit of my uncertainty and watch what sermon spins from my lips Are they…
missed
I missed your mouth today I missed the way it purses and withholds the way you touch your throat like it aches to open up and allow some truth to come out and yet we remain in silence Me trying to find the words, that i can’t even utter to my own reflection let alone…
eagle and frog
it is not time no, i sit at the edge of a still pond peering through myself into the depths below and i try to bring up with my heart and then my hands the truth but just as I grab it, it slips back below the surface unknowable, unexamined. I want to hold…
Come Out, Come Out
“Come out, Come Out!” she sings, Temperance and her scales The sad days are far away the time for love is today let down the walls of stone around your heart bleed the moat dry and let the bridge fall open Now, come see what’s been waiting for you all this time outside your…
one white wall
The bees are buzzing telling me spring’s flowers have come alive But you aren’t. We disagreed about white walls…now I concede. It makes everything else the source. so now the teal pot, and there the red bread canister Holds a welling feeling of aliveness, of a certainty of existence. the white wall We traded places…
always
sometimes at dusk the suns gentle light cuts through the tender heart I harbor and the loss of you flutters before me as a gossamer moth… luminous tissue too delicate to last in this world And I was an owl in the day to your truth that bounce in your step a thin veneer and…
a puzzle
I visited you once in summer’s press all fabric stuck or sticking my humid mind fog or forgettin’ a puzzle of squirrels and a hidden nut you’d said was but lost the trees spoke in the wind was only one place where green life did not go near the ponds edge and the catwillows…
all that remained
I wanted to teach the world to you so i bought you a globe it was not that old some of the borders had since moved and the names of the places inside those lines had changed too and i wondered if anyone made a globe without lines or names for things which no one…
and life began
We talked of watching rain fall but we did not know of it nor feel how old it truly is ferried here and there through time it has been on us and in us it has been us These tiny drops, this fierce flow rain is made of me and you. Without we are a…
Heart Wind
There was a brief moment of turning away from the heart wind But a turn is the beginning of a revolution and the earth revolves making the sun go Up and down Up and down And a birds wings go Up and down And up and down And so my heart goes up and down…
My hands
You were the gap in the curtains that let the light come in But it was my hands that pushed the fabric aside to let the love all the way in and now i am the light that fills a room. -Paige Stewart Photo by Cecile Hournau
Sit inside
Do you sit inside you, like i sit inside me? I am forever looking out to the otherness I see bridges linking this to that Cars going here and there. I see so much, and do so little. I could really use a bridge right now, even if it were invisible just to bring the…
my words aren’t words
maybe my poems and words aren’t for you maybe you find them lacking maybe you throw yourself against them maybe you have no time for such things maybe my poems and words aren’t for you they aren’t for you maybe i’m not even speaking or asking or attempting anything at all maybe that bothers you…
sudden and shuddering
The window shade is breathing in and out A wave of stillness and then a sudden and shuddering inhale. A GASP. As though the outside were holding it’s breath TOO. -Paige Stewart Photo Credit – Anna Jones Photography
rise to meet the rhythm
shake, shake, shudder You just stood up to realize the dance has been forever Take your hair down now let your feet rise to meet the rhythm Forget yourself in the falling down steps Drop yourself into your heart and be not your head Ah… see how the music goes and goes each step and…
crickets
even the crickets hold their breath as the sun goes down as the last rays stream out. as i let my dark heart set. soon a single star will roam freely -Paige Stewart
cairn
From the river they came born from bigger things and worn smooth by time as we all are They felt perfect, when held all true and simple nothing garish about them as we once were together they balanced and did not fall so unique each shape as we all are left like this they…
solace
-Art David Hayward Solace lingers in pine trees along a ridge swaying to the music the moonlight makes as it enters the atmosphere -Paige Stewart
expansion is our birthright
Watercolor by Allison Kunath If I could give the whole world the gift of this, this moment when all goes still When the breath goes deeper and deeper towards our truth. a Truth that at the bottom of every well is an endless Spring, draw up from that well expansion is our birthright ~Paige Stewart
Is Enough
Watercolor by Allison Kunath A single flower blossoming is enough to start a spring A single drop of rain is enough to start and ocean a single speck of dirt is enough to start a pearl A single sentence written is enough to start a story a single note sung is enough to start a…
the Beloved has sent me a gift
The Beloved has sent me a gift so that I may know love more fully sometimes that gift is you, and sometimes it is a mirror held up to my eyes asking me to love myself. the Beloved has sent me a gift it is the bird’s song calling up the dawn it is the snow…
for the highest good of all
We talk and press our hands together at our hearts. We see the light… We open. Again and Again. We say. Again and Again. We love. Again and Again. We do nothing. Again and Again. We say for the highest good of all… I hope its not just humanity we speak of I hope the…
This moment is every moment
I want you to be here and in the farthest tomorrows because this moment is every moment. I want you to see that future is but a single choosing and yet it is metered out in every choice we make. I want you to feel you are complete, full and heal from within. I…
First Day of Fall
It was the first day of fall with no difference in seasons at all one languishing into another, blurry seams where the grass only knew the shades of lost dreams. We passed this way too. Saw the dying bougainvillea in final bloom. Dried out trees too thirsty to go on, laid down at the…
I am here…and then I am gone.
I am not building I am not chasing I am not hiding I am not erasing I see the waves rising. I feel the leaves falling. I smell the rains of spring. I know the world is turning. I am tightening I am expanding I am here and then I am gone. photo credit: @annajon.es
We create our own magic
We create our own magic. We CREATE our own magic. We create our own MAGIC. WE CREATE OUR OWN MAGIC. We are all the creators of our own unique lives. Each moment unfolding before us is ours to respond to, to be inside of and shape the outcome by how we choose to be…
time’s pressed flowers
As Time’s pressed flowers we were bound in her layers of sediment a kind of kept memory the earth wanted forever so that one day as she opened up her secret love affairs slipped out from between the pages of her diary. this one and that… as she heals her history of love is revealed…
we were wild once
I dreamt we were wild once I saw us running the steeps We felt the wind, the way it only feels to the free things We knew it’s secret name, and how to call it to us how it came outpacing us and lifting us up and up. We were flying then, the wind pulling…
The Unspoken Truth
I have bouts of depression. I suffer from depression. I am depressed. I don’t even know how to phrase it anymore. Tonight it bites at my heels, alcohol could sometimes shake it… change it. Now even when drinking I am completely lucid and upset that there is no reprieve from this state. I would never…
Off Note
Today is a struggle to write. Normally it just flows out but I feel everything clashing around inside like a broken piano notes plunking off in a sad beat lacking the coordinated effort that is music this piano is out of tune and jostling so many notes at once in time maybe it would sound…
An opening
In a house in the desert, there is a window out to the world. Everyday we press ourselves against it. Drunkenly smelling the scents carried by the arid air. Exalting in the sights this small vantage gives us. Shedding our skin on the wall, in a ritual exfoliation that may jettison us to transcendence. The physical pressing,…
Transparency
Our ability to be seen through is, perhaps, our greatest goal. That we have nothing to hide, nor anything to hide behind. All the grand illusions will have faded away… Shadowless, the light that pours in, pours through us to illuminate everything. Nothing is left in the dark and yet there is no shame, no…
Because I told you…
Every post, every word set down is a spell I am casting to root out my fears, the demons that have held me. The demon within. The stones that sunk me into a suicidal depression. That everyday and every word is a gift and a choice to remain.. to never let go. To stay.…
Stars
If you captured all the light in a day, it would not be there. If your hearing was lost, it would matter very little because you will never hear it. If you burned all the trees trying to root it out, it would not be found. The memories of stars, Long darkness bursts of new…
Winds
An ache comes with the chill on the wind a bitter truth is blowing in through the one window left the others were taken down, or blown out by winds I make at night I called up all my gales, truth’s stripped on the force of their winds we made a big mess, trying to…
Love is a Verb
In love there are valleys and peaks… in order to get to the peaks you must climb out of the valleys together Because love is a verb. It is an action you take together. Paige Stewart Photo Cred: Anna Jones
Falling Together
“If I fall, will you catch me?” asked the earth. “Yes,” resounded the sky. “I will hold you forever and kiss every part of you and we may fall but always together.” That is how we will heal the world, the salve of time has always been love. Paige Stewart Photo Cred: Anna Jones
I am holy whole.
I see myself looking out It is the moon in me, outshining the brightest city I bathe myself in shades of light, even my darkest aspects glow I turn myself around, space is spinning I wane into utter darkness, then no one sees me. Hidden in the earths blind spot, I forget that I shine.…
Perched on a Season
Seek for me at dawn find me perched on a season I am spruce needles, coarse bark and the copper scent of rain drenched red clay I am the silence in which all of this unfolds Paige Stewart Photo Credit: Anna Jones
Outer Traffic directs us to Inner Road Blocks
In LA people’s favorite hate fest is traffic, as if traffic where in fact the very thing that was limiting them from ever accomplishing anything. “I’m not on time!” “People are terrible drives!” “Why is everyone driving like such assholes today?!” It’s totally bad… Except traffic is always like this… How you are is different.…
Seek for Love
Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. ~Rumi~ Photo Credit: Anna Jones
Easily Captured
My beauty is not easily captured for it resides in me and I carry it with me everywhere I go. photo credit: Anna Jones Photography
Needs Reminding
“Do you see me?” asked the Sky. “You are all I see.” replied the Mountain Cause even the Sky forgets its greatness and needs to be reminded how vast it really is. Photo credit: Anna Jones Photography
Because I never told you…
Because I never told you Because I never told anyone. Because in between that space lies the sorrow of my silence. A thing heavy and sodden with age, grown denser over time weighted by darkness alone as if dark matter where really the weight of silence itself… which is heavy and burdensome and amplified by…
It is just a place I laid my soul
Can’t you see the beauty in everyone? The beauty in the way people wear their skins, some skins are worn loose and fluid like a summer shift, the soul is alight within and the skin barely a vessel and more a sail by which the sun and wind blow it across the sea. Some people wear their…
To the Spiders, who hold the world together
There are spider webs that hold the world together. In the corners of every home, in every city, you’ll find them weaving on winter days as stories spill from ruby lips, each word strung together into a tall tale but one so true you must go now and look. At mid day beneath the avocado…
Take thousands of years off my shoulders?
. Take a thousand years off my shoulders Up, out and off of my soul so that I can do and be exactly who I want and am. Peel back the paint, the layers of a million odd moments so that I too can be free. If freedom is to choose without guilt or…
To fade or to bloom
It is at the in between stages that we are most vulnerable. Unable to distinguish if we are ripe to bloom or fading with each day.
Transplant: A heart that loves on
There once was a hole in a heart it made the heart weak and leak powerless to the hole it kept missing the beat One day a new heart came, it was fierce and beautiful the body it belonged to was quite deceased So I took the heart in, and gave up the hole in…
A life without walls
If walls could speak, what would they say? I was built out of fear. Fear made the bricks. Fear mixed in and baked ’til it was stubborn, solid, immobile. Fear made the mortar, mixed and smeared over every last brick, ’til no space remained. Fear made a wall, and everything inside the walls became fearful,…
Ruins
Ruins spacious, oblique a chamber of chasms the dreamless wonders cast about a sirens last note eyes open hard light a fighters first punch fractured moments slip beneath consciousness, over bright spaces disabused, returned from stone corners knocked hard mantis of destiny alive anew long dead dilatory emergence sweet tremblings sung low shuck the casings,…
Dilettante
The Dilettante: A stone cut path the curve and cut of epochs weighed by their destiny to final surrender lay now trembling, whispering their stories dripping ideas down, down through capsules of time the stories collapse single words drop fragments of the past come surfacing back Vapors released knees folding epochs enfolding whispers of one…
It Cuts Deep
In caverns we hear our endless refrain, that which we put out comes back to us. Is it no wonder we seek to hear it… shouting as we come, singing as we are. The universe is proffering the truth at every moment! Everything comes back, an endless echo of action and reaction, of beliefs held…
I Dream of Mountains
For months now, I dream of mountains. I see their majesty and quiet charm when I close my eyes day or night. Their magnificence is burned into my mind… shadow images standing firm and powerful. I image someday something else will haunt the inner contours of my retina. But I draw from these images, with…
The Illusion of Pines
In the space between two pines I find a legacy of my own illusions In the space between two pines Lives a lifetime’s pungency of desire Sticky limbs heavy and weighted against the winds tender encouragements Endlessly bowing to the great space Decades of this dance, days of dreaming Only a stone between as each…
The Calm & The Current 