Saying “Yes” to Spirit: Being Lived into the Fullness of Your Potential
Another talk at Unity, Norwalk, CT
Meditations, experiments, books and guided meditations to assist with nourishing spirituality, healing childhood wounds, and living more consciously.
Meditations, experiments, books and guided meditations to assist with nourishing spirituality, healing childhood wounds, and living more consciously.
Another talk at Unity, Norwalk, CT
This guided meditation invites you to settle into the core steadiness that is always present, that is never disturbed, and that is a resource you can lean into during challenging times. Using the metaphor of “becoming a mountain”, you have an opportunity to directly experience the qualities of steadiness that can be found in a mountain, experiencing yourself as a mountain.
As I sit to write this week’s practice, I find myself orienting to some recent research that was brought to my attention. At a time when we need increased empathy for all life forms, for all our kin and for the earth itself, it seems that there is a new trend. The report shows that people in the United States, where the research was conducted, have shifted in their relationship to empathy. Whereas people used to feel empathy in general, it now seems that it is becoming normalized not to care about what happens to people who are outside a person’s immediate sphere of relations. It seems that anyone outside the “tribe” doesn’t deserve empathy. Instead, people tend to blame the victim instead of opening their hearts to the suffering of people who are different—be they different because of ethnicity or different because of their beliefs or lifestyle.
We can see reflected in the state of our planet’s environmental destruction, with the extinction of species caused by human activity, and with the escalating levels of conflict between so many groups of people all around the planet that we need a collective awakening to the cost of being empathically disconnected from one another.
Because of this new trend toward less empathy, it feels more important than ever to engage practices that cultivate empathy and compassion not only for the people we know, but for all life—to make empathy a true practice of the heart.
Read More “751st Week: Cultivating Empathy”Just before the election, I had an unexpected—and unusual for me—interaction with someone on Facebook that reflected something we’ve all seen emerge over time. It seems that differences of opinion are now taken as attacks. Read More “Week 653: Speaking with Respect”
Watching a video of a talk from, I think, a Science and Nonduality Conference, a concept caught my attention and got me to thinking about the power of creativity and unexpected discoveries. In this talk, the presenter described the process of “emergence”, where nature is able to bring things together and create completely unanticipated results, outcomes we wouldn’t be able to conger up from the original elements involved. The example he gave that stuck with me is how, when nature brings together two inert elements—say, two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen—there is no way any of us would expect that combination to create a liquid, water. For me, this is a powerful and inspiring example of Nature’s intelligence and of the creative, living context in which we live. Read More “704th Week: The Concept of Emergence—Expect Miracles”
This month, we begin with a focus on timeless stillness, a frequency and state of being that offers deep quiet, a refuge in the core of our body-mind. Then, I invite you to notice your relationship with choice, given that our choices orient us to particular qualities of experience and being, and to choose a frequency for this meditation. Then, notice what it’s like to resonate with it. I also invite you to take time to deeply experience the impact of your choice of that particular frequency and then, after some time, to return to the timeless stillness for a few minutes.
The audio version is here:
If you’d rather do the meditation with images from nature, here’s the YouTube version, here’s the link to that video:
Sitting in Central Park on a recent weekend morning, someone passed by where I sat without smiling or any acknowledgment. That wasn’t odd. People have all kinds of responses as they walk along. Some smile and say hello. Others smile briefly as they go by without saying anything. Some look over without smiling. Some pass on by without doing anything but continuing their walk. This young woman was one of those folks.
I happened to look up when she was a good bit beyond me and I noticed that she was looking for or at something on the ground. I thought she might have dropped something. She finally found a small branch on the ground, stripped off the leaves, and then reached down between her feet and worked to move what was either a worm or some other crawly other-than-human off the walkway. When she finally had the crawly on the branch, she took it to the grass and left it there.
What touched me about this interaction is that this person cared enough to take the time to take the crawly other-than-human person out of harm’s way. That she noticed it and actively responded brought to mind the power of small acts of kindness, of the little things we do that add up over time. They are expressions of a fundamental kindness and a recognition that we share this world with countless others, some of whom are human and some of whom are other-than-human people. All are our earth-kin.
Read More “844th Week: Small Acts of Kindness Add Up”