In the end, our greatest questions will end up being our greatest answers that we will live and light up our worlds with.
Ask the right ones.
Seek what’s beautiful.
Knock on the door of mystery.
It will be given.
You will find.
Doors will open.
Ashton.Gustafson
Pause by the orchid. Listen to the bluebird sing. Be love.
Category Archives: Change The World
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Location Services uses your heart, soul, passions, and purpose to determine your approximate location to the things that actually matter.
This is your friendly reminder to keep your settings on for joy, hope, peace, beauty, and love.
LTMP Podcast Episode 11: An Autumn Waltz
It’s been a while and it’s good to be back!
In this episode we talk about the beauty and the metaphors that can be found in the season of Autumn that is upon us.
You can also subscribe to the #LTMP podcast in iTunes by clicking here.
Find out more about the band, The War On Drugs, on this episode by clicking here. You can also purchase their record, Lost in the Dream, by clicking here in iTunes. Spotify users can find them by clicking here. Please support the artists you love…their work helps us make sense of it all!
Lastly, we discuss three great books in this episode. They can all be found below in the Amazon Store.
Falling Upward – Richard Rohr.
Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better – Pema Chodron.
Autumn – By Ashton Gustafson
Ego of the trees burning away,
green to gold to bourbon fade.
Night stays long – the candle’s friend,
a majestic unwind curls spring’s next grin.
So now we may waltz with what sheds in the fall
for there’s no other way to rise through it all.
Grounded in love and making room for the bloom,
Autumn, the first verse of what’s ‘to be continued’.
Joy Levers
People:
People can definitely usher and leverage joy into your life. The problem is when we confuse the what of someone with their who and expect more experienced joy from what they are over who they are. I believe who someone is always shines brighter than whatever position or label they may hold in our lives. There’s a woman in my life that is my wife and she is also my beloved. Which label do you think leverages more joy for me? Exactly.
Places:
There’s a little place that is 15 hours by car east of where I live that looks out over the ocean. Thought it’s hard for me to get to, it’s currently my favorite place on Earth that awakens the paint, the easel, and the artist in me. I’ve physically gone there twice this year. I also went there in my mind a few nights ago when I couldn’t sleep. Sometimes you just need to buy the plane ticket and go to that place of joy. Sometimes you need to get in the car and go. Sometimes you just need to close your eyes and go there. How beautiful that there are both physical and mental places of joy that can sing you to sleep and sing you awake?
Practices:
Stillness, pausing, quieting the mind, gaining awareness, and prayer. Most of us would rather look at our phones than look into what’s going on in our chest. Nevertheless, that jukebox powering the melodies of your heart is full of records tracked in and for the purpose of joy. Stillness may be our hardest practice to cultivate today. This is why we should leverage it all the more.
Possibility:
This is all in how you see your moment right now. If you don’t see the potential and the possibility for joy in the now, chances are you won’t find it in the moments, days, and years ahead. Right there – in that last breath you took – was an inhale and an exhale given to you for your joy. Did you take it? Or did you pass?
This is big if we’re ready for it. But these joy levers will never do the leveraging until we touch them.
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” Albert Einstein
Autumn
Ego of the trees burning away,
green to gold to bourbon fade.
Night stays long – the candle’s friend,
a majestic unwind curls spring’s next grin.
So now we may waltz with what sheds in the fall
for there’s no other way to rise through it all.
Grounded in love and making room for the bloom,
Autumn, the first verse of what’s ‘to be continued’…
Ashton.Gustafson 