Reflections

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  1. D
    Deborah Baynes

    Aliveness is a feeling of freshnes and renewal. Everything in my body is working and I’m in flow.
    Usually I have had enough sleep, and usually I am breathing fresh air. Aliveness is also the effect of new inspiration helping you to fee;
    that anything is possible.
    Liveliness is pure delight and the body’s animation of that when you are having a conversation that particularly interests you, or sharing jokes and laughing, or dancing to music that really moves you. Liveliness is hope’s current running through your body and affecting you posture, body movements and facial expressions. Watch a colt happily playing in a field and the closest word I can come to it is an expression of joy in the moment.

    2 months ago
  2. O.Christina

    Aliveness in my experience would feel like being involved in deep connection on heart´s level, which allows all qualities to be included, even stillness, in a way just being fully there, while liveliness to me would mean it is more about situations, in which to be involved vivaciously and joyfully with things life has to offer. Still, to look at them separately feels a bit artificial, as to my understanding, they belong together, as some friends here have mentioned already.

    2 months ago
  3. Don Jones

    What does it mean to be truly alive? For me it is a practice of returning to my Source – the giver of this life. It is one of relationship that with focus and attention, is a merging with what is. It is a gentle yielding and accepting. It is a trusting and faith that flowers. It seems like a solitary journey, but in fact it is far from it as awareness flowers as to the all-inclusive nature of this happening.

    Liveliness is like the foam from the surf. It is what plays out on the surface. For the unwary, can also be a trap. Because the speed of Love is walking pace. I have found it is not helpful to try to get ahead of the unfolding. The result can be going into dry gullies and the occasional snake pit.

    2 months ago
    1. Joseph McCann

      Thank you, Don. I liked that very well.

      2 months ago
  4. Barb C

    I think of liveliness as a characteristic of personality and physicality. If I’m lively, I’m upbeat, I walk with a bounce in my step.
    Aliveness is presence: being grounded in here and now, feeling all that’s around me.
    I’m looking out the window at bare branches with clumps of lichen, gray skies and falling rain, sipping hot coffee with my husband nearby, and I am alive. I’m on the sofa icing my sprained knee, sore from walking quite a bit more yesterday than I have since I fell two weeks ago, and am not the least bit lively.

    2 months ago
  5. Carol

    I’m enjoying others comments and giving thanks for Be-ing alive if not extremely lively in this moment. Also, is any one else missing Kevin as much as I am???

    2 months ago
    1. Nannette

      Yes, I miss Kevin as well as I think many of us do. I have been wondering and not voiced it. I hope he is well and just maybe taking a few days to himself. But boy is he missed!

      2 months ago
    2. Joseph McCann

      Same here. Always a thoughtful reflection.

      2 months ago
    3. Charlie T

      Yes, I’m going to assume he’s just
      taking a break. I hope. 🤞

      2 months ago
    4. Barb C

      Yes! Where is he?

      2 months ago
  6. Charlie T

    I think of aliveness as awareness. Being
    aware and open to what’s around me.
    Being in touch with my senses. Feeling
    things, both physically and emotionally.
    The inner and the outer world.
    I think of liveliness, as how I, or
    someone, acts.
    As Bob Marley sang:
    “Lively up yourself and don’t be no drag
    Lively up yourself, oh, Reggae is another bag
    Lively up yourself and don’t say no
    Lively up yourself, ’cause I said so”

    2 months ago
  7. Nannette

    This question makes me pause and try to find the words to explain…how I see aliveness and liveliness. Aliveness- is how I see who we are…we are here on this planet doing what we do. Taking up space, contributing to the world in our own way, being who we are and doing what we do…loving and caring. Liveliness is what blossoms from inside us…our energy, our joy….coming to the world, sharing our zest for life with others. I may now be more confused than I was before ! and perhaps I took you with me!! Blessings for a wonderful day. Here in Alabama it is pouring rain…it has rained here for the last 5 of our 6 days here….On Monday we head to La. I think we may encounter the same there. Hoping for some sunshine.

    2 months ago
    1. Joseph McCann

      May some sunshine break through the clouds for you and yours Nannette.

      2 months ago
    2. Carol

      Nannette, Are you headed to Louisiana? I spent most of my adult life there. When health issues necessitated my move to KS, I was living in Natchitoches and I really miss that historically rich and tourist oriented town. It is so culturally rich with the events at the university, the plantation tours, the annual Christmas festival, etc., etc. Right now it is Mardi Gras season.

      2 months ago
  8. Avril

    I had to resist reading the other answers preemptively. This is a good and new question. I use the word aliveness when I’m teaching my yoga classes to describe the healing of the chi moving through the body especially after qi gong exercises or pranayama. Aliveness is the essence of sentience. Liveliness is more like vivacity. I would say liveliness is more of a a personality trait or attribute like zest and an aliveness is consciousness. But I do think liveliness is a sign of aliveness..

    2 months ago
  9. Laura

    Aliveness generates from within, beyond my ability to summon it. It comes from Source. Liveliness feels more like a choice.

    2 months ago
  10. Michele

    aliveness = listening to some awesome heavy metal music
    liveliness = kittens/puppies/animals playing

    https://nationaltoday.com/national-chocolate-cake-day/

    2 months ago
    1. Joseph McCann

      My wife is finishing up an upside-down strawberry (frozen berries…….no pineapple in the pantry) cake at this moment.

      2 months ago
    2. Avril

      Lolololol

      2 months ago
  11. sunnypatti

    If you look up the definition of being alive, it’s kind of a downer since it says “not dead” or “continuing in existence.” While that’s the truth, I think aliveness is a blessing. We are ALIVE! Liveliness, on the other hand, is more of a personality thing to me. It’s an active excitement for something or for just life in general. I can be a lively person, but I’m not always. Sometimes I’m tired. hahaha! One thing is, for now at least, I am alive, and I am grateful!

    2 months ago
  12. Joseph McCann

    A person with ants in their pants scurrying to and fro, creating dust wherever they go and boisterous in talk could be considered full of liveliness. A person holding a kitten and softly stoking it, observing a single flower up close, quietly contemplating the clouds in the sky could be considered full of aliveness.

    2 months ago
    1. Carol

      Beautifully said, Joseph. Also, Joseph, I found copies of Kahlil Gibran’s book “The Prophet” for sale on line at Abe’s Books for under $5. I really do think you would relate to and find validation from that book. It is a gem that made its way into my life in the 1970’s.

      2 months ago
  13. Journey

    I define aliveness as the fact that we are alive, breathing, woken up to another day. And I define liveliness as the joy we feel for being alive. For me aliveness is a fact and given to us, liveliness is a feeling that is self created.

    2 months ago
  14. EJP

    There is no difference as they are both the same….given the moment, the passion and the purpose.

    2 months ago
  15. Antoinette

    Uniformity is not nature’s way; diversity is nature’s way.
    VANDANA SHIVA
    I think this question is a bit unnecessary- so I took the quote of the day to remind myself that natures flow is everything and that I personally do not define anything.
    Natures flow is letting go of my notions, ideas, dogma, philosophical beliefs. When “i “ want to nail something down or decide what should be I become stressed. By letting go and allowing I become one and I feel freedom. My definitions don’t allow diversity in fact the opposite occurs due to- me standing in the way.

    2 months ago
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