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.

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

It’s the Little Things

It's the Little Things

Last month, I took part in a class called “Getting Naked” that Julia Fehrenbacher offered online. Every day for 40 days, Julia gave us food for thought and creative writing assignments.  It was amazing how much I learned about myself just from getting naked every day for 40 days. I highly recommend the class if Julia runs it again.

One of the first Getting Naked assignments that Julia gave us was to log 25 things we were grateful for each and every day.  When I first received this assignment, my reaction was, “Ugh – that’s crazy! I don’t have the time or energy to do that!”  I come from a family of pessimists; my parents were impressionable little kids during the Depression and never completely got over living on the edge of survival. Eighty years later, gratitude is still not something that flows naturally in my family. But I have been slowly working at getting more optimistic and more grateful. So, on second thought, I decided to try this gratitude log for a few days and see what happened.

Noticing and recording my gratitudes went smoothly for the first few days. It didn’t take very long and I actually enjoyed coming up with a list of things I was grateful for.  But then, on about day 5, I hit a wall. I became completely and totally resistant to writing down ANYTHING else that I was grateful for, much less 25 items a day.  So, I stopped.  I stopped completely. And after a few days, I noticed how crappy my mood was. And how crappy it stayed.  I was a complete whiny bitch!

About day 9, after days of no gratitude log and much complaining, a quiet little voice inside me began poking at me insistently. My little voice  gently suggested that I focus on gratitude again.  But I’m stubborn – very stubborn sometimes.  It took my inner knowing 4-5 days to convince me to start logging gratitudes again.  But I finally did. And I felt better! I actually felt a lot better every time I sat down and logged 25.  So much better that some days I would log 30 or 40 or 50 items in my gratitude log.

And  now, even though my Getting Naked class ended a few weeks ago, I continue to log gratitudes for at least a few minutes every day.  So what happened? Why would I take the time to do this gratitude log every day?  Here’s what I’ve discovered about gratitude; it can completely change how your life goes.  Oprah was right.  🙂

I know it sounds trite and silly. And I don’t want you to think that I’m becoming a Pollyanna or anything (Pollyanna’s are definitely not allowed in my family). But focusing on what I’m grateful for softens me up in ways I can’t even put into words.  For one thing, this gratitude log gets my mind out of the perpetual worry and whine track that I am so prone to fall into. It also opens my heart to what I love about the world. This one little thing helps my day just plain flow better.

Now when I wake up cranky, I find myself actively looking for something to be grateful for right away; I have learned that if I can “reset” my awareness to gratitude setting, my entire day will shift for the better. What I focus on truly does increase.

Here are a few little things that I’m grateful for today:

Brigit’s hurt paw is healing – no more limp!
a wonderful vet in Lyons
walking by the river with Brigit again
talking with my friend JW yesterday
time to write
something to write about
hummingbirds at the feeder
Buffalo ridge outside my window
hubby and daughter coming home tonight
my spiritual ‘sister’, JP
friendly checker at the market in Lyons
finding gorgeous organic kale at the market
thunder rumbling – a cool rain is approaching
seeing the stars last night
the lavender bushes in my yard
smell of pine in the air every evening
it’s still green here in July
writing of Celtic mystic Tom Cowan
watching my kids grow into adults
cycles and rhythms of the seasons
my husband David’s voice on the phone
my daughter Izze’s laugh
my son Henry texting me and telling me what’s up with him
granite rocks – I love granite!
hot chai in a mug
little surprise cottonwood tree that rooted in the garden
a sudden mountain rainstorm this afternoon
Getting Naked with you

Ahhh, I feel better.  It truly is the little things that make the most difference in my life.

☾ ☽

How about you?  What are you grateful for today?