Category: Embrace Stillness

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Finding Ground in Chaotic Times

Om

Each week I receive Heart Advice emails from Pema Chodron. Pema is wise, humble and quite funny in a dry Buddhist kind of way.  She is one of my all-time favorite spiritual teachers.  This week’s Heart Advice is so good that I wanted to share it with all of you.

Sometimes the most profound advice is quite simple:

A BRIEF PRACTICE FOR GROUNDING

“First, come into the present. Flash on what’s happening with you right now.
Be fully aware of your body, its energetic quality.
Be aware of your thoughts and emotions. 

Next, feel your heart, literally placing your hand on your chest if you find that helpful.
This is a way of accepting yourself just as you are in that moment,
a way of saying, “This is my experience right now, and it’s okay.” 

Then go into the next moment without any agenda.”

~Pema Chodron
Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change

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Rooted in Nature

Ancient Pine

“If we surrendered to earth’s intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees. ”

~Rainer Maria Rilke

Can we live joyfully in harmony with nature?

Most modern city dwellers are completely out of touch with the cycles of nature.  And we have created such a long path between natural cause and effect, that it is difficult to see what we are doing to ourselves.  It is far from obvious to a suburban family that the water coming from their tap started out as rain or snowmelt flowing into a nearby reservoir.  The water flowing from their tap seems endless no matter what the weather does.

Most of us have no idea where the wheat was grown that made our morning bagel, much less if it was a good year or bad for the wheat crop.  Did river water diverted to a low reservoir near Denver hurt the wheat crop in Garden City?  The trail from cause to effect is so long that the average person has no idea what effect their actions have on the natural environment. And this disconnect is at the root of many modern problems.

We have become blind, deaf and dumb to our role in the natural world.

No matter how much we try to tame and “civilize” this world with all of our technical wizardry – and no matter how smart we think we have become – we are still animals governed by the laws of nature. And I wonder what is truly civilized about dishonoring and destroying the planet that feeds us?

Insulating and removing mankind from nature is not the answer; it is the problem! From disastrous weather changes like the recent floods and typhoons to radioactive pollution so toxic it will haunt our grandchildren for generations, we end up hurting ourselves every single time we choose to ignore the laws of nature.

The answer is to reconnect with the natural world.
The answer is to shut up and listen to Mother Nature.

I want to embrace and understand my natural connections. And I want to honor the beautiful and gracious mother that provides for me;  I want to pause and be grateful for the snowfall that becomes the water I drink.  I want to spy the first shoots of pale green prairie grass pushing up out of the spring earth, and remember that the cattle herd on the hill will consume them and turn them into food for me.  And I want to take the time to honor the trees that stand silent in the meadow and offer the oxygen I breathe.

I want to pause each day to acknowledge the many gifts Mother Nature provides for me.

☾ ☽

Thank you, Mother

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Smoke and Stone

Smoke and Stone
Smoke and Stone

I sit

breathing out my worry

and my wonder

as I silently ask the Goddess

what exactly is compassion?

and can I offer it to myself?

I sit

breathing out my fear

am I brave enough

to love

like a Boddhisattva

without reason, without end?

I sit

watching the Goddess

smoke dances, we sit

suddenly, the stone of me cracks

there is nowhere to hide

I am love.

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Light Floats

Flatirons at Dawn

“There is a moment in every dawn when light floats,
there is the possibility of magic.
Creation holds its breath…”

~Douglas Adams,
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Image of Flatirons by Nancy L

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Be Still

Stillness
Coot Lake by Nancy L

Keeping Quiet

by Pablo Neruda

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.

This one time upon the earth,
let’s not speak any language,
let’s stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be a delicious moment,
without hurry, without locomotives,
all of us would be together
in a sudden uneasiness.

The fishermen in the cold sea
would do no harm to the whales
and the peasant gathering salt
would look at his torn hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars of gas, wars of fire,
victories without survivors,
would put on clean clothing
and would walk alongside their brothers
in the shade, without doing a thing.

What I want shouldn’t be confused
with final inactivity:
life alone is what matters,
I want nothing to do with death.

If we weren’t unanimous
about keeping our lives so much in motion,

if we could do nothing for once,
perhaps a great silence would
interrupt this sadness,
this never understanding ourselves
and threatening ourselves with death,
perhaps the earth is teaching us
when everything seems to be dead
and then everything is alive.

Now I will count to twelve
and you keep quiet and I’ll go.

 

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Shadows and Joy

Shadow Joy

“We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think.
When the mind is pure,  joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.”
~Buddha

Joy can seem as elusive and slippery as a soap bubble.

Yet once, years ago in meditation, I realized that joy and misery lie just a hair’s width apart within my mind. The image of joy and misery just micrometers apart within me, was so clear that I startled and came out of my reverie giggling. I remember that moment in vivid detail even now years later.  And I know that I choose whether I will feel joy or misery or something in between in this moment. And the next. And the next.

It only takes a tiny shift in the mind to move from misery into joy; a micron of a shift; just a slightly altered point of view.

Breathe. And breathe again. Deep, slow breaths that fill your lungs. And feel whatever body sensations are present now; feel the sensations that joy is hiding behind. Breathe and feel your body. Then allow joy to step out of the shadows and be here now.

Can it really be that simple? Yes. Yes!

“A human being is only breath and shadow.”
~Sophocles

☯

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Earth Body

Rocky Ground

“You carry Mother Earth within you. She is not outside of you. Mother Earth is not just your environment… 

… it is possible to have real communication with the Earth, which is the highest form of prayer. In that kind of relationship you have enough love, strength and awakening in order to change your life.

Changing is not just changing the things outside of us. First of all we need the right view that transcends all notions including of being and non-being, creator and creature, mind and spirit. That kind of insight is crucial for transformation and healing.

Fear, separation, hate and anger come from the wrong view that you and the earth are two separate entities, the Earth is only the environment. You are in the centre and you want to do something for the Earth in order for you to survive. That is a dualistic way of seeing.

So to breathe in and be aware of your body and look deeply into it and realise you are the Earth and your consciousness is also the consciousness of the earth.”

~Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist Monk