Sowing the Seeds of Mindfulness

Preventing War

The most important practice for preventing war is to stay in touch with what is refreshing, healing, and joyful inside us and around us. If we practice walking mindfully, being in touch with the Earth, the air, the trees, and ourselves, we can heal ourselves, and our entire society will also be healed. If the whole nation would practice watering seeds of joy and peace and not just seeds of anger and violence, the elements of war in all of us will be transformed.

We must prepare ourselves, whether we have one minute, ten years, or one thousand years. If we don’t have time, there is no use in discussing peace, because you cannot practice peace without time. If you have one minute, please use that minute to breathe in and out calmly and plant the seeds of peace and understanding in yourself. If you have ten years, please use the ten years to prevent the next war. If you have one thousand years, please use the time to prevent the destruction of our planet.

Just by your way of looking at things and doing things, you influence others. Approach everyone with love and patience, and try to water the positive seeds in them. We have to help each other, being skillful, kind, and understanding. Blaming and arguing never help.

In the practice of mindfulness, we nurture the ability to see deeply into the nature of things and people, and the fruit is insight, understanding, and love.

—Thich Nhat Hanh, 1991

Stayin’ Alive: Bollywood Style

In my world, disco is making a comeback. My morning ritual consists of dancing to the BeeGees and Boney M. So, I was very excited when I found this clip on YouTube. To all the closet disco dancers out there, you will love this one, I promise. I don’t know how old these clips are, but I remember singing to “I am a disco dancer” over a decade ago.

Live!

I will not live an unlived life.
I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,

to make me less afraid, more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance;

to live,
so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.
—Dawna Markova

Circles

“When you leave you must remember to come back for the others. A circle, understand? You will always be Esperanza. You will always be Mango Street. You can’t erase what you know. You can’t forget who you are…Then I didn’t know what to say. It was as if she could read my mind, as if she knew what I had wished for, and I felt ashamed for having made such a selfish wish.” Chapter 41, pg. 105, House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

“This very moment is the perfect teacher”

“Generally speaking, we regard discomfort in any form as bad news. But for practitioners or spiritual warriors–people who have a certain hunger to know what is true–feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we’re holding back. They teach us to perk up and lean in when we feel we’d rather collapse and back away. They’re like messengers that show us, with terrifying clarity, exactly where we’re stuck. This very moment is the perfect teacher, and lucky for us, it’s with us wherever we are.”

Pg 14, When things Fall apart, Pema Chodron

say

if I am not for myself, who will be?

if I am only for myself, what am I?

and if not now, when?

-from Common Sense

Love what you do?

the Italian proverb says

working in your calling is half praying

Emerson says more

do your work and you shall reinforce yourself

Grandpa Gene says

be yourself all through the year and it will be well

Stolen from a homemade postcard

today

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don’t open up the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

From The Essential Rumi

What Truly Matters?

I’ve had this conversation my whole life, with myself, close friends, and strangers. What is important in life? This is what I think now: The highest good that I can do for myself and the world is to do that which I most love. Whatever you love to do, when you do it unabashedly, with heart and dedication, it becomes the highest form of art. The premise being that deep in everyone’s soul is the desire to express a form of love and beauty.

What do you think is most important?

Sugar and Spice

Women’s Blood Mysteries
by Adelheid Ohlig

Excerpt from Luna Yoga

In matrifocal cultures, women are honored and seen as the Goddess. The power of their fertility, both to give birth and to green the Earth, as evidenced in their ability to menstruate, is respected and held sacred. Menstrual blood has been used through the ages as an Earth fertilizer par excellence. During planting season, women would plant the seeds and then fertilize the ground with their menstrual blood. The menstrual cycle is seen as creatively powerful, giving birth not only to children but all nourishment.