Stephen Levine

Expect the Unexpected

by Shanti Natania Grace

September 5, 2024

Poetry & More

The reason children are excited to see what comes next is because they don’t assume they already know. They don’t...

It Won’t Be the Way You Think

by Shanti Natania Grace

May 5, 2022

Poetry & More

The reason children are excited to see what comes next is because they don’t assume they already know. They don’t...

▼Poetry & More (522)
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  - Expect the Unexpected
  - It Won’t Be the Way You Think
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- A Clear Midnight
- A Dark Wine So Potent
- A Heart Is Given
- A Note from Vincent van Gogh
- A Walk
- After Robert Bly's "The Third Body"
- Allegro
- An Abyss of Light
- An Infinite Connection
- An Inner Richness
- Another Unity
- April 2022 Readings
- April 2023 Readings
- April 2024 Readings
- Are You Omnipresent?
- Asymmetry Moves the World
- At the Shore of Silence
- August 2021 Readings
- August 2022 Readings
- August 2023 Readings
- August 2024 Readings
- Be Ahead of All Parting
- Be Melting Snow
- Beannacht / Blessing
- Behind All Words, the Unsayable Stands
- Behind the Lines: The Portal of Poetry
- Beloved Is Where We Begin
- Blessing at the Burning Bush
- Blessing for the Place Between
- Blessing the Body
- Blessing the Way
- Blessings
- Buddha in Glory
- Building Your Ship
- Buoyancy
- Bursts of Kindness and Compassion
- Bursts of Light and Fire
- Bursts of Resilience
- Bursts of Zen and Tao
- Cargo
- Celebrating Lunar New Year
- Clarity
- Come With Us
- Coming Home to Yourself
- Continue
- December 2021 Readings
- December 2022 Readings
- December 2023 Readings
- Demonstrations
- Diamonds Are Borne
- Drink as Deep as You Can
- Each of Us Limitless
- Eagle Poem
- Eternity
- Expect the Unexpected
- Facing the Moon, There Is No End
- February 2022 Readings
- February 2023 Readings
- February 2024 Readings
- For When People Ask
- From the Mountain
- Gather the Fringes of Your Garment
- Giving Life to All Life
- Happy
- Having Come This Far
- Here, Always Here
- Hold Everything Dear
- How Long Does It Take to Make the Woods?
- I Call to You From Time
- I Dreamed I Lived in Austin
- I Have Roads in Me
- I Live Now in a Sky-House
- I Love You
- I Need the Sea
- I Would Like to Describe
- Impermanence
- Important
- In Gratitude
- In the Point of Rest
- Inside This Clay Jug
- It Makes Sense to Me Now
- It Won’t Be the Way You Think
- January 2022 Readings
- January 2023 Readings
- January 2024 Readings
- January 2025 Readings
- July 2021 Readings
- July 2022 Readings
- July 2023 Readings
- July 2024 Readings
- June 2022 Readings
- June 2023 Readings
- June 2024 Readings
- Kindness
- Lakol Wicoun
- Lantern - Some Evening
- Late Feast
- Laundromat
- Leap Before You Look
- Leave Childhood
- Let Us Meet at the True Source
- Light and Fire
- Listen
- Magic
- Magritte, Hegel, and Where Do We Go From Here?
- March 2022 Readings
- March 2023 Readings
- March 2024 Readings
- May 2022 Readings
- May 2023 Readings
- May 2024 Readings
- Meditation in Wyatt’s
- Much to Be Learned from a Rainstorm
- My Life Is Not This Steeply Sloping Hour
- My Secret Heart
- No Expectations, No Plans
- Nobodies and Somebodies: "Dishwashers and Other Forgotten Angels" by Albert Huffstickler
- November 2021 Readings
- November 2022 Readings
- November 2023 Readings
- November 2024 Readings
- October 2021 Readings
- October 2023 Readings
- October 2024 Readings
- oh what is that beautiful thing that just happened?
- One Whisper of The Beloved
- Only When I Am Quiet and Do Not Speak
- Ordinary Beautiful
- Our Courageous Life
- Packing Up for Paradise
- Passing Through a Doorway
- Passover Remembered
- Presiding Over an Eclipse
- Primary Wonder
- Quiet
- Quite Beautiful Myself
- Readings from Bursts of Light and Fire Pop-Up Spiritual Poetry Meetup, July 30, 2022
- Readings from Special Thich Nhat Hanh Spiritual Poetry Meetup January 29, 2022
- Remember
- Rest Note
- Romanesque Arches
- September 2021 Readings
- September 2022 Readings
- September 2023 Readings
- September 2024 Readings
- Shoulders
- Silence
- Sing, Sing, Sing
- Solstice
- Some Say You're Lucky
- Song of a Man Who Has Come Through
- Sunday Morning
- Sunset
- Sweet Is the Oneness
- Sweetness, Always
- Table
- Takuhatsu - A Poem by Ryokan
- Thanks
- The Astonishing Reality of Things
- The Avowal
- The Beginning of Real Time
- The Birds Keep Saying I Love You
- The Bottom Is Pebbly With Stars
- The Cure
- The Fall
- The Flame That Burns Forever
- The Flowers Are Leaning In
- The Flute of Interior Time
- The Glass Between
- The Good News
- The Ground at Our Feet
- The Intrinsic Way
- The Lost Poem
- The Middle Way, Wherever We Are
- The Moon Shows the Way
- The Opening of Eyes
- The Platform of Tai Chi
- The Question
- The Sacred Mystery
- The Sea
- The Second Music
- The Seven of Pentacles
- The Spring Is Flowing Even Now
- The Unbroken
- The Visit of Love
- The Way
- The Way It Is
- The Whole Existence Consists of Light
- The Widening Sky
- The Winged Energy of Delight
- There But for the Grace
- There Is No Word for Goodbye
- Things I Didn't Know I Loved
- This Ball in My Pocket, Can You See How Priceless It Is?
- This Embodied Life - The Spirit Likes to Dress Up (with a poem by Mary Oliver)
- This Rain
- To Go Into a Forest Alone
- To Look at Any Thing
- Too Many Names
- Turning
- Two Poems by Lynn Ungar
- Two Poems by Rumi
- Two Poems for the New Year
- Under Ideal Conditions
- Underwater Excavation
- Unending Love
- Unison Benediction
- View from a Mountain
- Water's Prayer - A little rain, a little snow, love, trust, and beauty
- We Don't Know
- We Grow Accustomed to the Dark
- What Do Poems Do? And Is That Your Real Nose? And The Best Poem Ever.
- What I Must Tell Myself
- What They Did Yesterday Afternoon
- What Time Is It? It Is By Every Star
- When I Am Among the Trees
- When I Am Among the Trees
- When Poetry Came to Me
- When You See Water
- Where Eternity Flows
- Where We Fail, Catch Hold Again, and Climb
- Who Says Words With My Mouth
- Who Understands Me But Me
- Why I Stay Up Late
- Would You Bow?
- You Are That Freshness - Praise to the Emptiness
►Bursts of Beauty and Meaning (5)
►Intrinsic Heart (62)
►Spiritual Poetry Meetup Readings (52)

There is meaning, intrinsic meaning, in every moment.

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Stephen Levine

Expect the Unexpected

It Won’t Be the Way You Think

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