BODYPSALMS

Go back to your priorities.
Don’t focus on the resources you don’t have.
Focus on the creative unfolding.
Nourish this every day.
Tend it as a newly born child.
Sometimes you have to go back again and give your self
the milk of what lies within you – the heart of wider love.
Accessing this love is a continual exercise in daily compassion
And most of all – be gentle with all your decisions.
You have done the best you can with the limits you have had.
Now is the time to have grace towards all your limits.
This is the time to trust in the One
larger than yourself and more importantly –
than in your own circumstances that seem insurmountable.
They are just details, not larger than
what can be accomplished by you compared to the ant.
When you keep focusing on the problem you get the problem magnified.
It is time to focus on the wonder.
Wonder begets wonder.
You are rich in experience, friendships, and surrounded by love
not to mention the muted light caressing the ground beneath you
You might not have planted maples, oaks or cedars
but they are rising from the earth wherever you peek.
You don’t always have to plant the seed to savor its beauty.
You have planted other seeds –
nourishing others with the seeds of imagination.
Sprout outrageously
has been your method of teaching and it is contagious.
These wonders do not reveal themselves in monetary value
releasing you from financial worries.
You have planted joy and there is not a price on joy.
It reproduces as a wild orchid growing on the side of the road.
There are such flowers of wild untamed beauty
Remember this:
It is in the noticing where the extraordinary life lies.

Celeste Snowber
March 27, 2009

Let go of expectations
how life should unfold
or how many pounds is ideal
for your perfect weight,
footwear, friends, food, family, finances
all the shoulds rolled into one  BIG  s h o u l d

Throw all the shoulds out
put them in the recycling bin
transform into another object
and OBJECT as a verb
instead of count objects

This is the wisdom for gratitude
nothing ever turns out as you think
it is always different— worse & more magnificent
 than you might imagine

Live with VERBS
Gratitude is not a one time act, a date on the calendar
it is a way of living
that  gives life back to yourself
giving in thanks
thanks in giving
thinking as thanking

Stop and and smell, taste, see, and touch
what beauty lies
at the table within and before you

Find the outrageous love of being alive
NOW
without tasks or agendas done
open your sternum and chest
get ready for the mystery that awaits

Be in gratitude for what you seldom notice

Dance your way into the next step
which calls us to 
not give thanks
but  be thanks.

Pursue ease.
as a guiding principle
live with simplicity and clarity
cultivate more space in your life

Observe how you take such pleasure
in open expanse  –
geographies of sea and lakes
rocks and seaweed jetting out into low tide
the meeting of water and sky
the space between
what is solid and what is air

What you are drawn to outwardly
teaches you everything
about your inward leanings
the visual feast before your eyes
is a scent of the life you yearn for
rhythms of lapping waves are the rhythms of
your own life which nourish you
seasons of change are the canvas
of your emotional terrain
painting across your soul

You may be compressed on many sides
responsibilities can enhance and devour your life
Allow a horizon in your world
you need more than a slit of light
you require splashes everywhere
color infusing and interrupting
the rituals of daily activity
Bring on the oranges and yellows
in the midst of dark greens
reds in the midst of night black

Your love of the natural world
reveals your deepest longing
Honor all textures in the journey
The unexpected, the uninvited
each has its purpose:
nourishment, reflection, expanded living

Invoke spaces of reprieve
within acts of doing
rest in moments of pause
and know that each sip of beauty
in creation’s hand is
an invitation into ease.

You are being re-knitted from the inside out
the beauty of the threads within you
are invisible yet are luminescent
to the art of a soulful life

Honor all the textures of your years
the memories, losses, joys, forgotten secrets
which have shaped your innermost being
each color, hue and thread is knitted into your story
and formed the uniqueness of you

In this (w)holy place
there is an aesthetic of randomness
borne through the living place of creation
each child in the universe
is woven into the fabric of the larger story
the story whose name is
rewritten to
the place where we are known
and know

Embrace your doubts
as you do knots in the fabric
Caress your losses
as openings to honor the depths

Re-Knit your life
to the landscape of cherishing
each fragment you live through
this is the material for sweetness
your body-spirit made visible
in all the ways you honor
the fibers of the collective
story we knit together
into wonder.

Notice the texture
of your own yearning
listen for its tone
its shape, the circular
feel of how you are called
back again and again
to its mouth

The inner waters beckon you
they have as much expanse
as the open sea you adore
Be/loved in the breath
which holds you in an embrace
and waits as a patient lover

Rest you anxious one
and find home
in the elements within and without
wind, ocean, stone and sky
reach towards you
as your skin touches
the lip of creation

Listen for the stillness
in the gestures of your heart
and let your belly
usher you into the
crevices of your wisdom

Embrace shadow and light
both reside within you
they are partners in a dance
and form the constellations
of your inner landscape

Trust the salt of your own life
and know paradox is at your feet
and stars of wonder
release from your palms

Tread softly on the terrain
of this journey of being human
and return home
to the thirst within you
it is drawing you always
to the reservoir
where you can drink
oceans of love
and each small movement
is an invitation
to letting BE

Take these morsels
which are given
these are your wings
from which you stand
and which you rise.

Welcome back to the familiar
the land of the perplexed
where paradox reigns
and heart, mind, and body
are not in sync with
harmony, congruence or flow
and no matter how diligent
you are to reflect,
problem solve, brainstorm or bodystorm
it sits as a big mountain
in front of you
and cannot be climbed with bare feet

you are in the terrain of paradox
the geography of the unknown
where the brittleness of bone
lives amongst the stars
your task is to breathe deep
into the place you are perplexed

Take shoes for the journey
these aren’t any shoes
but these are your dancing shoes
the ones that look like sneakers
but have a support for your arch

Life holds continual
places of dissonance
it doesn’t matter the source:
disappointment or sorrows
with relationships, health or finances
Know this:  P A R A D O X
will always be there
singing at the door
waiting for you to

Put your dancing shoes on
give yourself the support you need
a bigger arch for life
and treat paradox as your partner
hold it tenderly
romance her and put your
arms around the dilemmas
soften your relationship
towards not knowing.

Breathe into uncertainty
knowing this is the
essence of life
and when it comes
know you are invited
once again into
the spirituality of practice:
loving-kindness towards
all that is not resolved
in your heart.

“Dancing on Top” by Dobee Snowber

Celebrate life as an artistic practice
live your life as if
you are strolling through a garden
treat weeds with compassion
prune what disturbs the vital from growing
Tend your life
as you tend seedlings.

You don’t chastise
the geraniums or poppies
for not growing fast enough
or having the right color –
they are the color they are

Embrace the colors of your own life
both past and present
Trust the ingredients which nourish

You do not need to force
the rain to come
it will announce its wetness on its own
your work is to remain
tender and spacious
turn over the soil of your heart
for the unknown to bloom.

Dory by Dobee Snowber

You are a juicy orange
papaya split in half
mango on fire
wrapped in the luxuriousness
of a wo/man with flesh and heart
tender and strong
waiting to be honored
by your own deep soul.

It is the life-force
energy of life itself – eros of day
the pulsing blood of vibrancy
running through your cells
enlivening the fabric of your being
which is the ground of your sexuality.

Here is the template
to embrace your own temple
the widening one of love
living in your solar plexus
connected to the creation of the universe.

It is not the breasts, chests,
vagina, penis that holds your sexuality
but what rises within you
and works in harmony
with your dear body

You can so easily confuse the
outer as the source of beauty
and the entrance to sexual aliveness
when you are being awakened
from a much deeper center
and your sensual knowledge
calls you home
to the delight of presence
the wind on your chest
the expanse in your back
the thrill of naked feet in sand
places of release
invite you to sense from the inside out

Belief by Dobee Snowber

now is the time
to love back your body to itself
live in a state of open
where the cords of fire
will rip through your body
and you will know
the deep gift of your own vitality
feeding the heart of sexuality
where all of life is a bedroom
to be awake to each moment
loving each breath

in this place  is an ancient shrine
located deep within your own crevices
calling you forth to your own juice
the desire is already within you
it only needs to be honored
for its pure nature
it is what calls you to the divine
to  yourself and to the other

and it is not your hips or pelvis
which is sexy, but how you let
the energy of life soar and dance
through your pelvis to say yes
to its own truth

here is your ground
here is your flight.

There is a vast universe
awaiting in the subtle
qualities of texture and hints
of an afternoon breeze
and the marks on your hand
the unfolding of an hour of silence
scents of wild roses in spring
morning shadows dancing on the wall
mist and fog become a welcome adagio
to the space between mountains
crossing your path with a slice of tenderness

Dare to take notice to the infinite
wrapped in the inconsequential
the tiny moments that emerge
let emptying be a spiritual practice
the listening of rain
an act of ecstatic hearing
a rush of fresh air in the lungs
a tango of breath

Meet the dried branch
with a new hospitality
every object has its wonder
in the essence of imperfection
Celebrate the natural order
the essence of things
and lie down in the meadow
of your own worries
and let the stillness of night
speak to your heart.

Know there is another way
working beneath the grand schemes of your life
uncontainable as the mist at sea
guiding you in a new season
where what is perceived as small
has capacity to move mountains