IF YOU CAN start the day without caffeine or pills. IF YOU ARE cheerful, ignoring aches and pains. IF YOU CAN resist complaining and boring people with your troubles. IF YOU CAN understand when loved ones are too busy to give you time. IF YOU CAN overlook when people take things out on you when, […]

I get lost in my thoughts, like every other human being in the entire world.  For me this “getting lost” is most prevalent in the morning.  They are thoughts fueled by anger and sadness and before I know it I have spent a good hour shuffling through my morning “doings,” and sometimes even driving while lost in them.  Read more

Death, it is a funny thing and not something, in my experience, anyone enjoys talking or thinking about with sincerity.  We keep death at a distance.  It is known but always a known that will be “later.” It seems, for the most part, we avoid the reality that this thing called death is the one thing that is a for sure in life.  We all will die.   Everything dies.  Moreover, as human beings, we tend to do everything we can to keep the thought of death at bay.  Death is sometimes referred to as darkness, but lately, I have been spending some mind time wondering if it is indeed darkness as we perceive it to be.  If death is inevitable, as it is today, it is therefore interwoven into life itself, yet we see them as separate; life and death.

When it comes to death, we tend to wrap it up with euphemisms, parodies, or even thoughtful quotes to encourage the mind that this death thing is OK.  I see stuff like live the moment entirely, this moment is all you have, etc.… with the underlying tone that you could be hit by a bus in a second and have it all gone.  When we grasp those present moment thoughts or when we have a traumatic event we get glimpses of the idea and feeling that this could be my last day on the planet.  However, it is beginning to seem to me that death and the idea and understanding of death could have much more to offer.
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What if you accepted this moment, and everything and everyone in it, including yourself, as exactly enough?

 

 

 

 

Expectations are a funny thing.  I feel I am someone who harbors many expectations.  My expectations so often obscure my view of reality to such an extreme I cannot see things as they are or people for who they are for that matter.

Dropping expectations often feels like a thin line to walk, for I fear I will become tolerant of being mistreated or detached and complacent.  One thing I can experience undoubtedly is how many expectations I have for myself.  I am always “working” on something to fix, repair, or put the way I expect it to be.  I am beginning to experience control, insecurity, and fear masquerade as expectations.

I focus so intently on making things work I lose sight of being able to watch them work.  Everything then becomes viewed through the lens of a problem, and everything becomes blurred.  Because there is no separation of how we treat ourselves and between how we treat others I can undoubtedly experience how my expectations of myself bleed out into the world and onto all of those around me.
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Self-condemnation and self-distrust are grievous errors…all I plead with you is this:  make love of your self perfect.

-Sri Nisargadatta

Don’t turn away. 
Keep your gaze on the bandaged place. 
That’s where the light enters you.

-Rumi

Welcome to 2018!

I have been off in hibernation over the holidays – it is what I do every year.  I visit my family at the beginning of December, my hubby heads off to his family’s house, and I stay at the casa with Travis (the cat) and hibernate.

It is one of my favorite things to do each year.  There is a space that opens inside of me when I am left to my own devices, when I can make my own schedule, and when there is no one, but Travis of course, to listen to me regurgitate my thoughts audibly.

For the past 20 or so years, I have practiced my end of the year ritual.  It is not even about the new year itself but rather the energy that permeates everything and everyone towards the end of the year that resonates with me.  Everyone seems to be in the same mindset; there is more optimism everywhere I look, and I ride the tide and wrap myself in the energy that feels like wrapping up and beginning anew.
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This post was written by my dear friend, Carol Orsborn

I think of myself as a seeker and for years I experienced myself as a human being utilizing spiritual practice to alleviate the drama of life. But one of the great gifts of age is that perceptions—even cherished ones– can seemingly change in a flash, like the final drop of water finally overflowing a dam. All the life experience, all the trial and error, all the observation and contemplation finally amounts to something. And so it is that my experience of not only myself but the world shifted dramatically somewhere along the way and I suddenly have a new theory of everything.
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Everywhere I look my daily life offers opportunities to become more mindful, present, aware, and responsive.  Everyday “mundane” tasks unfold in front of me, and I see the opportunity to serve them vs. how reactive and ultimately unmindful I have approached these interactions with life.

One of those daily interactions, my attention was drawn to recently is email.

A couple of weeks ago, I realized just how reactive and quick I am to write or respond to emails while never considering in great detail, the other person at the end of my email.  Emailing has been driven more by a desire to knock something off my list and get the answers to the questions I had so I could move on.  As Eckhart Tolle would say, my action of writing emails so often have been “a means to an end,” I am writing A so I can get to point B.
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