“When the mind is festering with trouble or the heart torn, we can find healing among the silence of mountains or fields, or listen to the simple, steadying rhythm of waves. The slowness and stillness gradually takes us over. Our breathing deepens and our hearts calm and our hungers relent. When serenity is restored, new perspectives open to us and difficulty can begin to seem like an invitation to new growth.
This invitation to friendship with nature does of course entail a willingness to be alone out there. Yet this aloneness is anything but lonely. Solitude gradually clarifies the heart until a true tranquility is reached. The irony is that at the heart of that aloneness you feel intimately connected with the world. Indeed, the beauty of nature is often the wisest balm for it gently relieves and releases the caged mind.”
“I want to stand by the river in my finest dress. I want to sing, strong and hard, and stomp my feet with a hundred others so that the waters hum with our happiness. I want to dance for the renewal of the world.”
The teaching of 2020 has closed its last chapter, a year of learning and of letting go. Letting go of plans, expectations, attachments, jobs, in person visits…
But too, a letting go of busyness, of being over-scheduled, of consuming and shopping, of scrolling, and of not being able to say no…
And That Allowed Room for:
Reflection
Deep Sleep
Writing
Contemplating
Time by the Fire
Meditation
Walks in Nature
Long Zoom Chats Across Many Miles
Old Fashioned Letters and Cards
Chats by Text
Photography
Baths with Sumptuous Salts
Communing with Little Bear
A Long Book List to Savor
Healthy Cooking
Growing Herbs
Awareness
Ingesting Positive Media
Editing Photos
Shedding Excess Everything
Finding Value in the Simple
Learning About Trees
Time Spent in Silence with Craig (and in meaningful conversations)
Working Toward Optimal Well Being
And that evolved into:
A Deepening of Being
and
of
Peace
Happy New Year to All!
“She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.
She let go of fear. She let go of judgments.
She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head.
She let go of the committee of indecision within her.
She let go of all the “right” reasons. Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.
She didn’t ask anyone for advice. She didn’t read a book on how to let go….She didn’t search the scriptures.
She just let go.
She let go of all the memories that held her back.
She let go of all the anxiety that kept her from moving forward.
She let go of all the planning and all the calculations about how to do it just right.
She didn’t promise to let go.
She didn’t journal about it.
She didn’t write the projected date in her day-timer.
She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper.
She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope.
She just let go.
She didn’t analyze whether she should let go.
She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter.
She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment.
She didn’t call the prayer line.
She didn’t utter one word. She just let go.
No one was around when it happened.
There was no applause or congratulations
No one thanked her or praised her.
No one noticed a thing.
Like a leaf falling from a tree, she let go.
There was no effort. There was no struggle.
It wasn’t good, and it wasn’t bad.
In the space of letting go, she let it be.
A small smile came over her face.
A light breeze blew through her.
And the sun and the moon shone forevermore.
Here’s to giving ourselves the gift of letting go….
“…In the century-some since, scientists have begun uncovering what poets have always known — that spirit is woven of sinew and mind of marrow. The body is the place, the only place, where we live — it is where we experience time, it is where we heal from emotional trauma, it is the seat of consciousness, without which there is nothing. And yet we spend our lives turning away from this elemental fact — with distraction, with addiction, with the trance of busyness — until suddenly something beyond our control — a diagnosis, a heartbreak, a pandemic — staggers us awake. We remember the body, this sole and solitary arena of being. The instant we remember to reverence it we also remember to mourn it, for we remember that this living miracle is a temporary miracle — a borrowed constellation of atoms bound to return to the stardust that made it.”
“
-Michael Traveler from “morning song”
“The doors to the world of the wild Self are few
