Lose Judgment

Pema Chodron
Pema Chodron

An idea to ponder today from one of my favorite authors and spiritual teachers…

“I can’t overestimate the importance of accepting ourselves
exactly as we are right now, not as we wish we were, or think we ought to be.
By cultivating nonjudgmental openness to ourselves and to whatever arises,
to our surprise and delight we will find ourselves genuinely welcoming
the never-pin-downable quality of life, experiencing it as a friend, a teacher,
and a support, and no longer as an enemy.”

~Pema Chodron in her book, Living Beautifully

 ✧

Stop judging and critiquing. Accept what is. 
 

In those moments when I can truly accept myself, I receive my own beauty and worth – to myself and to the world. Self-acceptance allows me to relax and open up to the magic of this moment.

Ac·cept

akˈsept/ verb

  1. consent to receive (a thing offered).

  2. believe or come to recognize (an opinion, explanation, etc.) as valid or correct.

Advice to Myself – Choose Wonder

Wonder of Nature

Each moment of life holds a choice; I can sleepwalk through my days or wake in wonder to this miraculous planet and all the beautiful beings I share it with.  Through my meditation practice, I’ve learned that focus and awareness shift everything. Whatever I focus on, increases.

How much richer can day to day reality become if awareness and joy became top priority?  Whenever I choose joy and wonder, the world seems to shower me with even more joyful and miraculous experiences. Learn more about being joyfully mindful here: Wake up to wonder.

I have a choice in every moment

I choose joy and wonder now!

The Soul of the World

Soul of St. Vrain River

This is What You Are For

What you stir
lovingly in your depths,
what you fiercely imagine,
will break through like a storm,
like a rapture,
simplifying,
revivifying?
This is what you are for.

To imagine the impossible is deeply human.
To muster the heart
to stretch for what beckons you
is your birthright.
Stretch.
Tear.
Explode
your heart.
This is what you are for.

Your cellular capacity to imagine
is a subversive technology.
It alters
every thing
through an evolutionary,
kaleidoscopic spin,
juicy with
elemental creativity.
Dangerous.
This is what you are for.

When you imagine with all your heart’s
brilliance
and meaty courage,
you will be claimed
by darkly-feathered hands
of unchained
angels who come to take you
hard, down into the deep caves
of what flushes your delicate skin,
dampens your palms.
Wakes you like a raging
dream
come to carry you by shimmering
forces
unknown.
Here, you will know
you have no choice.
Finally.
You are free.
This is what you are for.

If you’re ready
enough,
let this Trouble
take you
to your knees.
With your sweaty full attention,
imagine how you’d
kiss
the plump, pink lips
of your tender
soul.
But wait. Re-member:
This is not about you.
You are being used
by Every Thing.
This is what you are for.

Once re-membered,
you will draw into
your being
the throb
you came here to taste.
The one way of belonging
that is yours to make matter.
This is what you are for.

The broken-hearted,
glistening hum of
your taught, tangled
body will give
off a fragrant, unruly
intelligence beyond the Machine’s measure
of right, wrong, reason.
This is what you are for.

Have you come here to make Trouble
for Comfort and Security? For Greed and Convention?
For Routine and Predictability?
Good.
Those are the Killers of
what you are for.

The planet is very uncomfortable.
She is writhing in pain.
Feel her suffering in your blood, and
you will know what you are for.
Taste compassion for the slaughtered, and
you will love like the Milky Way.

Shatter your old ways, and
show me how your soul blushes
alive
with arousal.
This is what you are for.

Be an unpopular
harbinger,
a tender, sprouted
sentinel of
the rhizome of archaic revival.

Do not take a seat.
She is ready for you.
The soul of the world
will see you now.
What have you come to give her?

~Melissa La Flamme 
Shamanic Soulwork

A Bit of Perspective

Cold Beauty
Cold Beauty

I woke up to -4 degrees. Brr! Even the dog wants to stay inside today.
And yet it is so beautiful out there; a brilliant blue January sky, piles of new snow glistening in the sun… Mother nature is putting on quite a show.

A friend of mine shared a wonderful little video about this beautiful blue planet we call home that I want to share with you. It offers a stunning “big picture” view of our Earth that instantly widened my perspective. Amazing to see my home floating in the vastness of space! I hope you enjoy this short video as much as I did.

http://youtu.be/923jxZY2NPI

Let’s preserve and cherish this tiny blue planet we call home.