Living and Loving
Sacred Stories
She was out enjoying an early morning bike ride with a friend. The friend was sharing about a program she had seen the night before featuring the ecological benefits of converting cultured lawn space back to nature’s landscape.
As she turned onto her road, a magnificent linear garden stretched out before her.
She pulled over to take this photo.
No fertilizer and no irrigation….
Be mindful of other ways we have discarded basic beauty for believed better.
Sacred Stories
She was visiting with her young granddaughter, out for a walk near the canal. They saw this turtle.
As the turtle began to move away from them, her granddaughter motioned to the turtle saying, “More turtle.” She had learned to do that with the dog.
The turtle stopped, turned around and came back their way!
Imagine recognizing divine intelligence everywhere. Breathe into the wildflowers, “Grow.” Tell the coronavirus, “Soften.” Whisper to your sweet spirit, “Fly…”
In the U.S. the 4th of July represents freedom. People often think of freedom as freedom FROM something outside of us, but true freedom is an inside job, and nothing outside of you needs to change for you to enjoy it.
Wednesday night I was unable to fall asleep after John came to bed, so I got up and came in on the bed in the office. At 2:00 am, I was still awake, but I fell asleep some time after that.
At my normal waking time (about 6:00 am) I was enjoying a very stable (lucid) dream state, and I knew I had a choice (or not) to feel (or not) tired. It really isn’t sleep that restores one—we are restored by alignment. What is alignment? Activation of your parasympathetic nervous system….
I have previously posted several tips on activation, but maybe it is worth another quick reminder: (See PNS is BIG; A Chilling Way to Calm Down; Covid-19.
For decades I have enjoyed the benefits of doing a Self-Full Body Connection or meditation or prayer at bedtime so I fall asleep in alignment. I use this metaphor: If your TV is on channel 19 when you fall asleep, it will still be on that channel when you wake up.
With all the stress around the globe, most people are running the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) much of the time. Now, like never before, it is vital to bring ourselves back into alignment again and again.
Ram Dass said that compassion is the ability to see how it all is. When you are worried about “X” or “Y” or “Z” your body is processing EVERYTHING via the sympathetic nervous system. Even if you worry yourself to a solution about SOMETHING, your TV is still set on channel 19.
I saw a beautiful quotation by Haruki Murakami, a Japanese writer: “When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what the storm is all about.”
How amazing that without being fabricated,
This mind, which is unborn and primordially pure,
Is spontaneously present from the very beginning!
This self awareness is naturally free from the very first,
How amazing that it is liberated by just resting — —
At ease in whatever happens!
Flight of the Garuda
Lama Shabkar, Tsogdruk Rangdrol
Think about activation of your sympathetic nervous system as being the storm. Not something outside of you, but what is happening inside. Think also about activation of your parasympathetic nervous system as being coming out of the storm. Also not something outside of you, but what is happening inside.
Sacred Stories
She sent a tree emoji in a text message to a friend, including one with the yoga tree pose.
A little later during a gathering via Zoom, several people expressed how trees help them get or stay grounded and centered. Late arriving to the group, one woman explained that she had been painting a tree, and even turned her iPad around to show the group the trees outside her window!
While her phone’s ringer was off, she had received a text message from another friend. That friend was sharing a video of her baby daughter looking out the window, talking to the trees.
The baby was so engaged with the trees she did not even respond when her mom softly called her name a couple of times.
The only words in the text message were: She knows about the 🌲 🌳
This morning I saw a wonderful quotation by Bruce Chatwin, an English travel writer, novelist and journalist. Although Patagonia, his first book, cast him as a travel writer, in his own mind Chatwin was a storyteller. His true passion was bringing to light unusual tales.
Chatwin’s quotation that caught my eye is: “Man’s real home is not a house but the road, and life itself is a journey to be walked on foot.”
I was inspired to write the following poem.
No “I”
19 March 2007
Seated in a large room
filled to capacity with the
community’s most
influential
“Modern medicine
is
like
mopping up the mess
without
turning off
the faucet”
Someone
in the audience
asked
“What is the difference
between wellness and illness?”
Placing the marker
ceremoniously
on the clean
white page
of the flip chart,
Dean Ornish, M.D. wrote:
WELLNESS
ILLNESS
Standing
for a moment
in stillness
breathing
before
circling the ‘WE’ in wellness
and the ‘I’ in illness
before pausing again
then speaking slowly
“The difference
between WE and I,”
he continued
“There is no “I”
in wellness.”
A few other comments from that talk:
When you are going to indulge yourself, don’t tell yourself it is good for you.
People are not afraid to make big life style changes, they have kids!
These are choices worth making even if you don’t live one day more—because you will feel better.
Pain is not the problem, it is just the messenger. Bypassing pain is like clipping the wires on your smoke detector and going back to sleep.
I will close this post with a poem by Rumi, a 13th Century Persian poet, and Sufi mystic:
Don’t Go Back to Sleep
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth
across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.
Attending that talk way back in March of 2007, reading Rumi, being a Healing Touch Certified Practitioner and learning NLP and Hypnosis, has been my walking the journey of my life on foot. I have been and continue to be dedicated to helping Western medicine transition from an “I”llness based system to a “WE”llness based lifestyle.
If you are reading this, that has been part of your life on foot, too.
Don’t go back to sleep….
Sacred Stories
During break time on the last day of their meditation retreat, out for a bike ride, she stopped to take photos of some gorgeous blossoms on the side of the road.
She had ridden this same route the day before but had not noticed the blossoms. How could she have missed them? They were so beautiful and there so many of them!
Her fairy image was an Aboriginal-like child with wings where the ears would be!
In the middle of the fairy’s forehead was a spout, out of which light and love and wisdom and blessing poured down upon anyone who was looking up at the tree.
After sharing her drawing, she learned that the noun ‘catalpa’ derives from the Creek katáłpa, a compound word that translates literally as “winged head.”