Skip to content

Posts from the ‘Mindfulness’ Category

Jul 10

Roots and Sky

“Maybe it’s impossible
for poets to hide
the abundance of moons inside
when their heart is carved
from the clouds of a sunrise.”― Carolyn Riker, My Dear, Love Hasn’t Forgotten You

“As humans, we roam the entire world. We even venture beyond it not space. The whole planet is ours, but the whole planet is not our home. Instead, home is the ground we measure with our own two feet. And home is the place that measures us. Home is the place that names us and the place we, in turn, name. It feeds us, body and soul, and if we are living well, we feed it too. Home is the place we cultivate with our love.”― Christie Purifoy, Roots and Sky: A Journey Home in Four Seasons

Beneath your feet.
Where you stand now.
In this very moment.
Life resides.
Awaiting your full participation and rapt attention.
Not in some far off land.
Not yesterday or tomorrow.
Today in this present moment.
If we can’t recognize it here, we certainly won’t recognize it in the fictional land of “someday when.”
You are home.
Let yourself in.
May you cultivate love, joy, delight this day.
Roots and sky.
Welcome home.

“To be loved and to love, takes courage. To be fully seen is incredibly rare and breathtaking. We lower our masks and see a celestial inner being. It is our full self — the supernova as well as the black holes. Our fears and doubts. Our anger and joy…This is love.”― Carolyn Riker, Blue Clouds: A Collection of Soul’s Creative Intelligence

Jun 13

Look Up, Look In

“The mind creates the abyss, the heart crosses it.”― Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

“A quiet mind is all you need. All else will happen rightly, once your mind is quiet. As the sun on rising makes the world active, so does self-awareness affect changes in the mind. In the light of calm and steady self-awareness, inner energies wake up and work miracles
without any effort on your part.”― Nisargadatta Maharaj

Pull over.
Stop.
Put it in park.
Sit.
Look up.
Look in.
In this space.
Wide margins.
Unbound.
Quiet mind.
Soft heart.
Deep breath.
Fresh view.
Daily practice.
To master.
Become the author, the creator.
Not of circumstances out of your control.
Of your perspective and approach.
New outcomes require new inputs.
Experience the journey with joy and awe.
And a side of wonder.

“Once you realize that the road is the goal and that you are always on the road, not to reach a goal, but to enjoy its beauty and its wisdom, life ceases to be a task and becomes natural and simple, in itself an ecstasy.”― Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Jun 9

The Now Things

“We are, always, poets, exploring possibilities of meaning in a world which is also all the time exploring possibilities.”― Margaret J. Wheatley, A Simpler Way

“As soon as you honor the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease. When you act out the present-moment awareness, whatever you do becomes imbued with a sense of quality, care, and love – even the most simple action.”― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

In the now thing, not the next thing
In the now thing, not the last thing
In the now thing, steeped in presence and attention
Aware and awake
To see the wide expanse, deep beauty
Filled with awe, wonder and gorgeous delight
The now things, on the ground we stand

“Accept — then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transform your whole life.”― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

Jun 6

2 Comments

Gaze and Glance

“There’s always a sunrise and always a sunset and it’s up to you to choose to be there for it,’ said my mother. ‘Put yourself in the way of beauty.”― Cheryl Strayed, Wild

“To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.” – Mary Oliver

To consider, ponder, pause
Chart the day
To what will I gaze, what will I glance
Embrace or release
Absorb or roll off like water off a duck’s back
Stop or bypass
Pick up or put down
Listen or ignore
On trail or cut new paths
Awareness throughout to stop and reframe
Check and rename
To breathe deep and reclaim
Weeds or sky
This day to paint anew
Create and savor
Allow and invite
To gaze at what matters
To glance at the rest

“How wild it was, to let it be.”― Cheryl Strayed, Wild

May 29

1 Comment

Reconsider

“Art feeds my soul. Great books battleproof my hope. Rich conversations magnify my creativity. Wonderful music uplifts my heart. Beautiful sights fortify my spirit.”― Robin Sharma

“Everything is created twice, first in the mind and then in reality.”― Robin Sharma

Reconsider.
Think again.
Overthink less.
Look twice times two.
Observe.
Be present.
To now, not someday or what was.
Shift.
Allow.
Move through.
Pass by.
Pause.
Shift energy, attention, effort.
To the good.
Circumstances may not change but choices expand.
Create. Build. Remodel. Your thoughts.
Discover joy, delight, beauty, a symphony, depth, richness, imperfection, laughter, gratitude right in the midst of everything else.
To anchor and set free.
Choose your thoughts well.
Reconsider.

“Every second you spend thinking about what you don’t want in your life is a second denying focus and energy from getting what you do want. Every minute you worry about what’s not working is a minute drawn away from creating what will work. And every hour spent reflecting on the disappointments of the past is an hour stolen from seeing the possibilities that your future holds.”― Robin Sharma

May 18

3 Comments

Prayer of Attention

“Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God.”― Karl Barth

“I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?”
― Mary Oliver, House of Light

In spiral.
In staleness.
In routine.
Break the pattern.
Stillness.
Rest.
Wander.
Wonder.
Walk lightly.
Laugh, delight, play.
Reset.
Pay attention.
Be made new each day.

“there is a great choice that awaits us every day: whether we go around carving holes in others because we have been so painfully carved ourselves, or whether we let spirit play its song through our tender experience, enabling us to listen, as well, to the miraculous music coming through others.”― Mark Nepo, Finding Inner Courage

Apr 28

4 Comments

Fortunate Hours

“There are those fortunate hours when the world consents to be made into a poem.”― Mark Doty

“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.”― Alan Wilson Watts, The Culture of Counter-Culture: Edited Transcripts

Moments of stillness.
Quiet symphony.
Awake to beauty.
Drawn to light.
Pause here.
To root, anchor, steep.
Ordinary days.
Fortunate hours.

“Hoping to live days of greater happiness, I forget that days of less happiness are passing by.”― Elizabeth Bishop

Mar 23

1 Comment

Panoramic Attention

“We find true refuge whenever we recognize the silent space of awareness behind all our busy doing and striving. We find refuge whenever our hearts open with tenderness and love. We find refuge whenever we connect with the innate clarity and intelligence of our true nature.”― Tara Brach, True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

“The true Renaissance person is endowed with panoramic attention…. The habit of noticing the ensemble of everything and its constituent parts is a matter of will, not of innate aptitude. It involves the conscious noticing of things and the gaps that separate and connect them.”― Christy Wampole

An exchange.
A conversation.
Ebb and flow.
A broader view, deeper too.
An expanse, awakening.
To all that lies before us.
Noticing and responding in awe.
Found in the pause.
With honed senses to take it all in.
To be overwhelmed with reverence, with inquiry.
Filled with wonder.
To let go, making room to open, invite and welcome.
Aperture set to panoramic.
Enter this space.

“But Radical Acceptance also means not overlooking another important truth: the endless creativity and possibility that exist in living. By accepting the truth of change, accepting that we don’t know how our life will unfold, we open ourselves to hope so that we can move forward with vitality and will.”― Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha

Mar 21

2 Comments

The Habit of Pause

“What is God doing in my life? In the mornings, I wake to find that he has traced the world in silver. Every blade of grass. Each pumpkin on the porch. In the afternoons, I find him washing these fields with the mellow sunlight of autumn. He has gilded every rail in the fence and the sheet metal roof of the old red barn. He has transformed familiar trees into something otherworldly.”― Christie Purifoy, Roots and Sky: A Journey Home in Four Seasons

“Learning to pause is the first step in the practice of Radical Acceptance. A pause is a suspension of activity, a time of temporary disengagement when we are no longer moving toward any goal. . . . The pause can occur in the midst of almost any activity and can last for an instant, for hours or for seasons of our life. . . . We may pause in the midst of meditation to let go of thoughts and reawaken our attention to the breath. We may pause by stepping out of daily life to go on a retreat or to spend time in nature or to take a sabbatical. . . . You might try it now: Stop reading and sit there, doing “no thing,” and simply notice what you are experiencing.”― Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha

Pause, pray, reflect, meditate, sit.
Whatever you want to call it.
The necessity to stop, to create space, to look at beauty, blessings, light.
Amidst struggle, worry, rush.
In the slowing.
In the witnessing.
In the quiet.
A soft clear reminder of what always has been true.
You are loved.
Love is the call on all our lives.
The power of the pause.

“You must try to pray so that, in your prayer, you open yourself in such a way that sometime—perhaps not today, but sometime—you are able to hear God say to you, “I love you!” These words, addressed to you by God, are the most important words you will ever hear because, before you hear them, nothing is ever completely right with you, but after you hear them, something will be right in your life at a very deep level.”― Ronald Rolheiser, Prayer: Our Deepest Longing

Mar 19

A Simple Yet Profound Pause

“There is something wonderfully bold and liberating about saying yes to our entire imperfect and messy life.”― Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha

“May I be filled with lovingkindness; may I be held in lovingkindness.
May I feel safe and at ease.
May I feel protected from inner and outer harm.
May I be happy.
May I accept myself just as I am.
May I touch deep, natural peace.
May I know the natural joy of being alive.
May I find true refuge within my own being.
May my heart and mind awaken; may I be free.”
― Tara Brach, True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

A pause.
To open.
Observe.
Inquire.
Rest.
Reset.
Allow.
Shift attention.
Create intention.
Invite.
Lovingkindness.
Like the tide, moving in and out.
Breathing.
Nowhere to be than in this moment.
The joy of being alive.
The awareness of thin spaces.
The mountains meeting the sky.
Transcendent woven in ordinary time.
In a simple pause.
Profound.

“Mindfulness is the intentional process of paying attention, without judgment, to the unfolding”― Tara Brach, True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »