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Sunday, June 30 2013
A Love Experiment
In the culture I grew up in, self-love was equated with the sin of pride. Thinking highly of oneself was clearly not ok, while being rough on oneself, physically and emotionally, was considered virtuous.
So, it's not surprising that, just two weeks ago while I was sitting with someone in my office, the idea for this experiment first came to me. Acting on the inspiration, I suggested to my client that, once a day, she set aside time to face herself in a mirror and say the words, "I love you".
I've done – and written about – other mirror meditations, but not this one, so I decided to try it.
The results have been revealing – and healing. I encountered resistance – even cheated a few times, saying the words, but skipping the mirror part. Early on, the words felt foreign, a bit hollow, but I determined to stick with them, as an act of faith. Sometimes, the experience felt neutral. At other times, a gentle peace came over me. Once, there were tears.
I'm feeling a shift – a loosening, a freeing. I'm going to stay with this experiment for a while, to see how what unfolds.
Maybe you'd like to try it.
Saturday, June 22 2013
I need to face it: Lately, Weekly Wisdoms have become Bi-Weekly Wisdoms. After 4-plus years and over 150 postings, my energy is shifting. As the practical parts of life have grabbed more time and attention, as I've pushed myself to keep producing on several fronts and as I find myself sometimes running on fumes, something in me is pushing back, resisting, not flowing so freely. I want to honor that push back. And I want to honor the commitment I made to share something weekly.
A win-win solution that feels right to me is to post something most weeks, even if it is just a short quote that's come my way or a re-cycling of something I've posted before that still feels fresh to me.
So, here's one of the first pieces I posted – clearly relevant to my experience lately.
An Antidote for Exhaustion
Poet, David Whyte, once asked his friend, Brother David Steindl-Rast, about a cure for exhaustion. The reply was something like this:
The antidote for exhaustion is not necessarily rest, though in some cases that may be true. The antidote for exhaustion is whole heartedness.
Originally posted on May 16, 2009.
When I honor my heart, it blossoms and energizes me.
Sunday, June 09 2013
I've been noticing lately the choices I've been making. Not so much the big decisions about life. Rather, the small, moment-by-moment choices – to stay attuned in my body, to see beauty, to connect appreciatively with what is. Presence is such an attractive alternative to the imaginary stories and interior dramas that so automatically claim center stage.
Here's something I posted a couple years ago that recently caught my attention. Hope you don't mind the re-run.
New Now
Feeling bored?
Life a bit stale?
Try opening
Eyes and ears
Skin and
Taste buds
To novelty
And mystery
In this moment
Unfolding now.
Ego ho-hums,
"Same old, same old."
Not true,
Not true.
Spacious hearts
And intimate eyes
Greet and treat
Each life-moment
As unlike
Any other.
Want aliveness?
Adventures new?
All yours –
Right now.
Monday, May 27 2013
Looking out the front window, I notice that the crab apple tree, in full bloom just days ago, is dropping her petals and decorating our driveway's dark asphalt in a blanket of white. I'm reminded about the temporary nature of life's beauties and that, often, one beauty is replaced by another. I'm called toward deeper appreciation.
Memorial Day, celebrated today in the U.S.A., invites us to remember those to whom we're connected – which is another way to remind us about who we are. We're asked to re-member, re-mind and re-orient to the passages of life and to the beauty of the temporary.
Here's a poem by William Stafford – circulated in group on Thursday evening when the crab apple blossoms were in full glory, sharing their beauty and sweet fragrance with group members as they approached our front porch.
Our Story
remind me again – together we
trace our strange journey, find
each other, come on laughing.
some time we'll cross where life
ends. we'll both look back
as far as forever, that first day.
i'll touch you – a new world then.
stars will move a different way.
we'll both end. we'll both begin.
remind me again.
Wednesday, May 15 2013
Mirror Meditation
At a recent retreat with Richard Moss and a special group of sojourners, I focused on inhabiting the body – appreciating its wisdom, attending to its physical sensations and feelings, interrupting ingrained patterns where I disregard my senses and move automatically to analysis and stories – a movement away from what's real to thoughts about what's real. During the retreat, I realized, once again, that connection "in here" is the basis for all connection "out there".
One difficult morning, as I sat in meditation at a desk facing a mirror on the wall, some affirmations arrived. I wrote them down, faced myself in the mirror, looked directly into my eyes, and spoke each affirmation out loud.
I invite you to try this practice. Breathe, relax gently into the body, and let the affirmations emerge from quiet connection within. Take your time. Wait until you feel connected before speaking. Let each message resonate in the body, before moving on.
Here are the affirmations I used. The last one is a quote from Richard Moss. You can use these or create your own version of a mirror meditation. Enjoy.
You are a unique expression of infinite vastness.
You dwell in a body that's intimate with the universe. Listen to this body. Trust its wisdom. It is your pathway to the infinite.
The vastness within is larger than any feeling or story or problem you can have. Let it hold you.
Soften to this vastness. It loves you completely.
You are, already, that which you seek.
Wednesday, May 01 2013
Home Body
Inhabit the body
Let it be home
Sensation and feeling
Ground and guide us
At home in body
We connect to self
Connecting with self
We connect to other
Humans and critters
Planets and plants
All one playing in the Field
The Big Body we all inhabit
Little body nestled in Big Body
Home within HOME
Wednesday, April 17 2013
Universe and Us
Once upon a time, at the very, very beginning (about 13.7 billion years ago) before there even was time, there was a mysterious emptiness, a profound and fertile quiet. We're not sure exactly how this happened, but in a trillion-trillion-trillionth of a second (an unimaginably small amount of time), the universe appeared on the scene. It was about the size of an atom and it was very, very, very hot. Cosmologists called this event a "singularity" - a oneness that contains everything. All the energy that would ever exist in the universe was in that tiny speck.
Over the next one billion-trillion-trillionth of a second, in what we now call the "big bang", the universe expanded to the size of a galaxy. Nothing before or since, not even light, has ever moved that fast. And it moved at exactly the right speed. If it had been one trillion-trillion-trillionth of a percent faster or slower, the universe would never have been more than a big bunch of atoms.
There's an amazing elegance and intelligence in the unfolding of the universe – so many critical moments when the universe had to get it just right. There's a messiness too. It wasn't always pretty. For example, in the firestorm just after the big bang, most of what was created was immediately annihilated. And yet a vastness remains.
At the moment, there are about one trillion galaxies in the universe, with an average of 100 million stars in each galaxy. That adds up to 100 million-trillion stars. That's a 1 with 20 zeros after it – a very big number. Each star is unique and one of a kind – just like every planet, every person and every blade of grass. And all that uniqueness, richness and diversity originated in oneness. It's all interconnected. Every bit of it is kin to us.
I believe the story of the universe is a story of love. And, because we are inseparable from it, it's our story too. There is a vastness in us that mirrors the vastness of the universe. There is a richness and diversity in here that mirrors the richness and diversity out there. There is a messiness and elegance in humans that mirrors the messiness and elegance of all creation.
We live in a universe imbued with intelligence, creativity and love. Where we live is who we are.
Saturday, April 06 2013
Reflecting You
Disciple of life
Widens eyes
Opens heart
Softens spirit
Suffers, learns
Listens, loves
Master of journey
Eyes clear
Gently flows
Partners with life
Embraces, celebrates
Junior partnership
Eyes in the mirror
Reflect you
Disciple
Master
Partner
Eyes - smiling hello
Friday, March 29 2013
Easter Sequence
Age before Beauty
Peace before Joy
Death before Life
Fog before Clarity
Dark before Dawn
Winter before Spring
Silence before Wisdom
Emptiness before Fullness
Stillness before Big Bang
Chrysalis before Butterfly
Surrender before Transformation
Crucifixion before Resurrection
Good Friday before Easter
Remembering Rhythms
Softening to Sequence
Saturday, March 16 2013
Orienting to Beauty
Part of a delightful group of 16 travelers, Joanie and I just returned from a two-week immersion in beauty. The ecosystems of Costa Rica are rich in variety and vibrancy – teaming with extravagantly diverse and colorful plant and animal life. From tropical beaches – where we walked on warm sand, swam in the balmy blue-green Pacific surf and were entertained by colonies of white-face monkeys romping in a jungle of trees at the edge of the beach – to the lush, mile-high cloud forests – shrouded in perpetual mists which caressed our faces as we zip-lined through the tree tops – beauty was unavoidable.
Interestingly, home now for a few days, I find that I'm still seeing beauty. It's as if a fortnight in Eden has shifted something, at least temporarily, in my way of experiencing the world. I'm reminded that seeing beauty is as much about an inner orientation, an inner aesthetic, as it is about the aesthetics of out there.
Costa Rica was a jump start – a reminder, perhaps, that we can orient to beauty any time. Why not now?
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