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Meditation retreat reflections

Buddha

If you tire of the struggle,

love your life.

Vulnerability is next to godliness.

Mary taught me to let the soft animal of my body

love what it loves.

Let go of the purity path.

Rest in divine love

rather than circumstantial love.

Bring breath to the cells;

train in a new way of being.

bodhisattva spring
i sat on top of you, when i moved, you bloomed

Embody the insight:

Let Love Rule.

Trying to get rid of unwanted thoughts,

makes them want to hang around,

to see what they will miss.

Rejecting states of mind,

solidifies right and wrong,

strengthens isolation, and

feeds the illusion.

Rejoice, good sangha-

rejoice.

The mountain sings

praises to the flowing river.

For the steadfast stones,

the drifting branches,

the swimming salmon.

Surviving.

Writhing.

Thriving.

 

I pulled this one from the drafts page of my blog. This statue was in my front yard in Washington. I moved her and the flowers bloomed. I miss Washington where we had salmon in the creeks and trumpeter swans in the sky. Aloha Finnriver Farm. We hosted weekly meditations in our living room. Walking meditation on the land. We invited meditation to quell our insecurities as young parents and global stewards. Center Valley Sangha, Crystie Kisler, Finnriver Farm, mahalo nui loa.

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Appreciation for “Please” vs. “Perhaps”

sunrise appreciation

Gratitude gets you where you want to go. Building a culture of appreciation matters.

Take a look at two similar expressions:

Please own your role as a silence breaker.

vs.

Perhaps you are a silence breaker?

or

Please consider my perspective on this matter.

vs.

Perhaps you could consider me here?

or

Please do what I ask you to do now or let me know when you will, thanks.

vs.

Perhaps you could do this for me?

Which resonates more fully with you?

Stop questioning and start soliciting.

Which is stronger?

Please experiment with communicating more assertively.

vs.

Perhaps you might want to try this?

Please, thank you. 

 

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Gratitude Year Round

gratitude

Year round gratitude is a practice worthy of exploration. Here are twelve tip of encouragement to invite into your life, now.

Absence, Neutrality, Support

1. Pay attention to the things you don’t have…a sore throat that goes away, a noisy and nosey neighbor that moves away, a core scene of annoyance with a loved one that doesn’t happen as often, with the same intensity, or for the same duration.

2. Pay attention to the neutral moments and watch them transform into positive moments. At the holiday dinner table this year, there was no drama, no anxiety, no drunkenness. As we reflected on this at day’s end, we smiled and gave thanks.

3. Pay attention to what support looks like for the people in front of you and the opportunities to be of service. In the past I swung between “it’s all up to me” and “there’s nothing I can do” (neither of which is true) and now I simply ask, “how can I help?” From this place of genuine concern, I truly tune into my willingness in this moment to love even more, and do what I can to make the world a better place.

Nature, Body, Reality

4. Pay attention to the sky. The quality of the sunlight, the dancing display of clouds, the stars and moon imperceptible in their movement, the trees losing leaves.

5. Pay attention to your feet: Rub and massage them for all they have accomplished, for the miles they have carried you, for the uplifted nature they allow. How can we not have gratitude for our feet?

6. Pay attention to water: The faucet that turns on and produces, the rain that fills the lake, the one ocean that connects us all in the bigger perspective of life.

7. Pay attention to the energetic exchange with animals, vegetables and minerals: the purr of the cat, the bark of the dog, the wag of the tail, the buzz of the bee, the strength of garlic and red onion, the grounding quality of sea salt on your tongue.

8. Pay attention to gravity, a power greater than yourself that is always present.

Breath, Enough, Money, Life

9. Pay attention to your breath, effortlessly, endlessly, easily keeping you alive. Instant gratitude.

10. Pay attention to those moments of feeling well rested, loved, loving and enough. They exist and they nourish the soul. The act of noticing them increases their positive influence on our overall wellbeing.

11. Pay attention to money, sharing appreciation for all the freedom is affords you. Borrow what Marie Forleo says when she spends it, “there is more where that came from.”

12. Pay attention to the great good fortune of being alive. If you struggle with remembering this, go on a media fast and don’t let in the negative for at least 30 days. Be willing to experiment with your life. Be a force for good by cultivating a grateful heart and living in gratitude year round.

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Tree of Sorrow

Sorrow and grief arise this time of year as the leaves fall more readily and nights darken more quickly. Dominant culture invites frivolity and feasting, yet let us not forget time to contemplate the darkness within and without as well. It’s both, and.

Tree of Sorrow

This is a story of the tree of sorrow, as I remember it.

In the center of the village, stood a tree.

On this tree people hung their sorrows and regrets and challenges.

The people walked around this huge tree, and gazed at all of the sorrows and struggles. Circumambulating and contemplating.

Asked to select something from the tree, people invariably picked a struggle familiar to them, known to them, and something worth healing; their own lives.

Take home: own your story, change the ending, choose thriving over striving. 

And from Mary Oliver,

The Uses of Sorrow

(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

 

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.

 

And finally, from Rumi,

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

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Be the Change You Want

Being the Miracle You Are

What is the change you want in your relationships? Take ownership for your part in the nightmare. Empower yourself to be the change you want (in your relationships, in the world). Less bickering? Stop your bickering.

More sex? Make yourself approachable and slink into the sexy neighborhood in your mind. Turn towards your beloved more often than you turn away.

Less negativity? Find what’s working in your life and set up camp there. Perhaps only daring into the dark woods of dangerous debate when you are finding the common purpose; the pure intention driving you.

This brings me to the point. Find purpose. Live with intention.

Be the change you want to see in your relationships

This year for Halloween I dressed up as a miracle. An angel dress, sparkly make-up, and an inner glow lit me up on the dark night of disguises. Too tuckered to be creative, I relaxed into the easy costume selection. Be myself. A sober woman of integrity. It is a true miracle that I am 30 years practicing yoga, 24 years sober, and 16 years married. I am grateful beyond measure. It’s miraculous when I look at where I’ve been and where I am now.

As I’m typing this I’m barking at my son for not putting the dishes away sooner. I paused and re-read the top line, apologized for my bickering, and repaired the rupture quickly. Another miracle. I don’t linger in resentments toward self or others.

Want to know a quick trick to get clear what you’re really taking a stand for in your life?

What costume you put on in the morning?

In an interview this week, I heard the brilliant prompt: if you woke up tomorrow and everything you’ve ever done or said or written were somehow wiped clean, what would you write down as your three truths?

Here’s what I came up with immediately:

  1. Heal addictions that rob your soul of the beauty of the present moment.
  2. Heal relationships with Self, Other, Spirit — this is the S.O.S. of our times.
  3. Contemplate grace daily, for me, this is spending time outdoors in yoga and meditation.

Comment below and share your 3 truths. What we share gains strength and sustenance. Mahalo.

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Sacred Kanaloa

calm in the eye of the storm

My soul’s exposure to the raw, primal, spiritual energy of the most sacred of all of the Hawaiʻi Islands, Kahoʻolawe, is something I treasure as sacred. Sacred like this wiliwili tree on the island that survived the storms and the bombs. Presently, there are so many storms swirling about in the world, relationally, environmentally, socially. To be the calm in the eye of the storm is my mission in life.

A force for good

Let me back up a bit. My entire life I have felt compelled to make this world a better place. I have volunteered in beach clean-ups, tree plantings, trail maintenance, and political protests to preserve our planet. Yet I find most of my toils happen in the energetic realm of personal relationships. How can I be a force for good, be a part of the solution vs. feeding the paranoia of the human mind?

Halau ‘Ohiʻa

Joining Halau ‘Ohiʻa, a unique professional development opportunity, and engaging with our landscape through Hawaiʻi lifeways, positions me to learn more about this. This is the group of folks I went with to the remote island that was a previous target for military bombing. My classmates are primarily employed with natural resource management. My natural resource management has to do with managing our selves, our breath, and our relationships. Together, we are foundational to the well-being of the landscape. Together, we learn skills we can apply to our professional and personal lives.

Kahoʻolawe, also known as Kanaloa

We engaged in proper protocol for this experience on Kahoʻolawe, also known as Kanaloa. Chanting in the transitions, we chant to ask permission to enter this sacred space as well as to leave this sacred space. We readied ourselves completely.

The uninhabited island of Kahoʻolawe: she is the place of hope in my mind. I feel blessed to go there. To repair the wrongs of humans. To give and receive the spiritual mana (power) of Kanaloa. She represents conflict between peace/war, life/death, cultural perpetuation/forced assimilation. She calls on all of us to reflect in natural great beauty.

“training for peace through destructive means”

She is ravaged by years of U.S. military bombing and “training for peace through destructive means.” She is evidence of one of the greatest travesties of government taking over and destroying, temporarily, the natural great beauty of our earth.

I want world peace. I am working on it one relationship at a time. It seems, the mark of progress is not that world looks like I would like it look, with respectable leaders and genuine aloha radiating in all directions, rather, it boils down to my relationship with myself. I have grown patience and calm. In the midst of the storm.

The calm in the eye of the storm

Is it futile to believe that if we all did this inner work we wouldn’t have such a devastating storm of moral bankruptcy on our hands?

Hungry ghost realm

We all want protection and safety. Let it be based on love and caring and mutual respect for the inherent worth and dignity of all human beings. I don’t want war, fighting, missiles. I don’t want to feed the insatiable hunger of the hungry ghost. Imagine a beast with a pencil-thin neck and bloated belly that never gets enough of whatever it thinks it is lacking, this is the hungry ghost. Therefore, because it thinks it is lacking, its hunger is never-ending, the root is fear.

Replace fear with faith

Let us replace the fear with faith and break the change of habitual hydraulics of our paranoid mind. May it be so.