Spirit Category Archives

Spiritual Fitness

By Leanne / Heart, Spirit / April 25, 2018

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, though no fault of yours something goes wrong.

IF YOU CAN take criticism and blame without resentment.

IF YOU CAN face the world without lies or deceit.

IF YOU CAN conquer tension without medical help.

IF YOU CAN relax without liquor.

IF YOU CAN sleep without the aid of drugs…THEN you are probably a dog.

-written by unknown

(photo by Jason Briscoe)

Death And The Merging With Life

By Leanne / Heart, Mind, Spirit / April 02, 2018

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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The Answers Lie Within The Question

By Leanne / Body, Spirit / January 15, 2018

What happens when you wake up one day and you realize you have no connection with your Self?  You realize you have never seen your Self, acknowledged your Self or honored your Self.  Where on god’s green earth do you begin?

My experience is you begin with listening, and you begin by seeing.  Seeing all the things you may have been running from all of your life so far, covering it up with dismissal, turning away, busying yourself with distractions. 

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Taking The Past Into The Present, Mindfully

By Leanne / Spirit / January 08, 2018

Along the way, with each day and sometimes even each second I learn something new.  As I welcome the new year and reflect over the past years, there are a few “solids” that have unraveled in my life so far, and I want to share with you the culmination of that reflection.  I feel blessed to have been bestowed these gifts upon my ever questioning and wondering “why?” nature.

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A New Year Word

By Leanne / Heart, Mind, Ohm Work, Spirit / January 01, 2018

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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The Parallels Of Practice Between Yoga And Life

By Leanne / Body, Spirit / November 15, 2017
Parallels Between Yoga and Life

How to be in a yoga pose?

How to be in life?

Doing.  Being. Trusting.  Faith.  Balance.  Center.  This is my practice.

Looking at life and how I participate with it, I see, with clarity, a parallel between the practice of yoga and the practice that continues to evolve within my life itself.

In yoga is someone else wrong for doing a pose differently?  Maybe their body is different.  Perhaps their experience is different.  It is not about them, but instead, it is about what works for me.  In life, we compare ourselves to others.  It seems we think we need to be more like someone else as we hold our self to a standard we believe we know.  Yet, in yoga, I clearly see I do not compare.  I do not look at someone who can stand on their head for an hour and insist that I need to jump in immediately and stand on my head for an hour.  I do not look outside in a yoga class and strive to be like others.  In yoga, I come back inside and do what I can, be what I am, trust in myself, have faith and find my balance.    In yoga class the students respect the teacher, we listen, we observe, and then we approach the pose and enter it as our Self for our Self.  We do not enter the pose to show or become someone else.

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The Third Patriarch of Zen Verses on the Faith Mind

By Leanne / Spirit / October 31, 2017

The Third Patriarch of Zen

by Seng-T’san

The Great Way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however,
and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.

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Love For The Dancing Mind

By Leanne / Mind, Spirit / October 25, 2017

Always looking for a way to make things better.

What if everything, I mean everything was the best it could possibly be in each moment, but our minds travel away and miss it?  Each time it doesn’t see it because it is somewhere else.

Jumping in to stop what we don’t prefer is like jumping into a small pond to stop a ripple.

What if everything is perfect and full of surprises already?

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7 Perception Shifting Books

By Leanne / Heart, Mind, Ohm Work, Spirit / October 23, 2017

Information has an amazing ability to transform our choices and illuminate our own knowingness.  At the same time, information can keep us suspended in this middle space of never being enough.  We see a headline promoting something, and we think, I want that because I don’t feel like I have it in my life.  We place our hope in learning about something to get away from something we don’t like about ourselves.  It’s easy to implement practices or methods to escape.  Escape from what makes us uncomfortable, what makes us feel insecure, ashamed, fearful, sad, or angry.  If we are not careful, we spend our days acquiring information to rid ourselves of things that have the potential to be our most prominent teachers.  Meanwhile, those same things we perceive as obstacles keep showing up in different places with different faces trying to get our attention.

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