In The Miracle of Mindfulness, he writes, “While washing the dishes, you might be thinking about the tea afterwards, and so try to get them out of the way as quickly as possible in order to sit and drink tea.  But that means that you are incapable of living during the time you are washing the dishes.  When you are washing the dishes, washing the dishes must be the most important thing in your life.  Just as when you’re drinking tea, drinking tea must be the most important thing in your life.”

When I look into the lives of spiritually awake people across spiritual traditions, there seems to be a common thread.  Each lived or lives deliberately with an appreciation of the uniqueness of each moment, each circumstance, each person.

Each of us can let each moment become a moment of deliberate, conscious living.  Each of us can learn, with practice, patience, and perseverance, to greet the Presence of God, of Consciousness, of Spirit, of Shakti and welcome that formless Presence regardless of the form.  Each of us can let each moment’s experience become a way of seeking out God’s Presence and increasing our love for that Presence.

Living in such a way, we become the artists of our own life.  We can sculpt, paint, and dance our way through each day.  We need only to pick up and use the tools at our disposal and one of these tools is the practice of the present moment.

Of course, we cannot shape each circumstances of our lives, though there is debate about that.  We can, however, completely shape our response to Life circumstances and embrace the Presence in each unfolding moment.  With Grace, we step aside from the thoughts that lead us to believe Grace is somewhere other than the present.

This may seem obvious, ridiculous or perhaps overwhelming.  Yet, in practice it becomes sublime and poetic.  It may be that searching out the sacred in each day, looking for holiness in a single moment over the course of a single day feels more attainable than the seemingly monumental task of recognizing the sacredness of each and every moment.

However you approach such a practice, the practice is one of slowing down for the moment, by doing one thing at a time.  A neighbor of mine once summed this up for me with beautiful simplicity, “when walking, walk.”

The integration of centering practices is a meaningful way of enriching your experience of the Presence in the present.  If you are interested in deepening your experience of centering practice, consider investing in my new 21 day audio program - Reclaim Your Life and Learn to Live in Balance.

Photo courtesy of a friend

I really appreciate a beautiful garden.  I love checking out books on gardening from the library and reading them on my couch, while my yard goes neglected.  As an army brat, I never learned and really don’t know the first thing about where you even start when you want to create beauty in the yard.

That’s all changing.  In fact, I now understand that it’s not about creating beauty, it’s about revealing the beauty that’s already there.  I owe this new found wisdom to, Shar, my gardening mentor/tutor/teacher.

I’ve long wanted to play with someone outside, someone who could teach me, but wasn’t really uptight about how things should be.  How do you find someone like that?  How does a grown woman ask another grown up, “Wanna come over and play in my yard?”

That’s just what I did.  And, Shar said, “yes.”

One of the things I’ve learned from her so far is how easy it is to create little pockets of beauty by “eliminating the negative.”  For example, I live in the woods, lots of shade and lots of tree debris.  Recently, Shar and I were playing in the yard and she was delighted to find a stump that I’d thought was an unsightly mess.  After cleaning away the debris in the stump, we filled it with some dirt, added some moss from another part of the yard, a few rocks and VOILA!  A little pocket of beauty.

Where are there hidden pockets of beauty in your life?  What might you eliminate to add to the beauty of your life?  Perhaps there are old habits, ways of being or thinking that you could eliminate.  Perhaps there are virtues you could cultivate.  Or maybe a little pocket of beauty could be revealed by your cleaning and rearranging a shelf or a cabinet or your state of mind.

Post a comment and share your little pockets of insight and beauty on my blog.

I'm the girl in the back

When I was in my twenties, I spent several summers as a guide on the Colorado River in southern Utah.  On one of those trips, I injured my back.  Big time pain.  Flash forward a couple of decades and that old injury is showing up with a vengeance.

For the last couple of years, I’ve been seeing chiropractors, physical therapists, massage therapists, orthopedic doctors…and on and on, as I attempt to find relief.  Relief is slow in coming, but coming it is.

At first I felt a bit betrayed by my body, like it had somehow let me down and I could no longer trust it.  Ever so slowly, I realized that perhaps I have betrayed my body by not taking better care of it.  Heck, there’ve been times when I took better care of my car than I did my body.

Because I have a strong preference for my body to last a good long time in good health, I needed to make some changes.  So I did.  These days, I take good care of my body and have a good team to support me — physical therapist, massage therapist, svaroopa yoga teacher, and ME.  I stretch almost every day, walk several times a week and aim to provide my body with good fuel.  There’s more, but those are the basics.

I can almost hear my mother-in-law teasing me and saying “Well pin a rose on your nose.”

Nonetheless, the changes have made my life better, I’m more mindful of and more loving towards my body.  It’s rare that I take it for granted.

How about you?  Are you taking better care of your car than you do your body?

What small change could you make this week to take even better care of your body?

P.S.  One of the things I did that I think made a huge difference in how I feel towards my body was using ZPoint to help me clear out the negative feelings I had towards my body and motivate me to exercise.  If this sound interesting to you, check out the recording I made to lead you through the same process I used, “Say Yes to Better Health.” You can find it in my shop.

Long ago, for Lent, I gave up having expectations, not that I’m Catholic or Episcopalian.  I just like the idea of Lent.  (Note to Self, write about Lent, during Lent!)  I found that I was not so successful at completely letting go of expectations, but it sure did make me more aware of the role expectations play in Life.

What brings this to mind is my recent trip to the mountains of North Carolina.  Let’s give a shout out to 75 degree weather!  Anyway, we were staying on the border of the Pisgah National Forest, where I fell in love, again, with trees.

What do trees have to do with expectations?

Expectations, if we hold them too tightly rob us of delight and peace in the unfolding moment.  Whereas, trees, ahhhhh, trees ~ their very existence demands that they be flexible.  The wind blows, they bend,  The snow falls, they bend.  They don’t seem to mind the wind and the snow.

In fact, the wind seems to empty them of their dead branches, revealing even more beauty.  So, they flow with the wind and let go of what is no longer alive.

I think we can learn from trees.

Where might you need to bend a little?

Where might flexibility open the door to delight or peace in the unfolding moment?

What expectation might you be holding on a little too tightly?

How might being a bit more flexible enrich the forest of your life?

Finally, what ideas or beliefs might you release like so many dead branches if you bent with what is, rather than with what you think should be?

These are the days I wander through my life, following my nose.  It feels like finding and re-aligning with the Current of Life moving through me in the present moment—rather than setting out to accomplish a set of prescribed tasks.

Following your nose if the mindful practice of sensing the impulse of Life within, mindfully attending to whatever I’m doing until that impulse leads me elsewhere.  Being while doing.

Humans are a hidden stream whose source is hidden. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

On one recent ‘follow my nose days,’ I felt drawn to unload the dishes, mindfully.  This lead me to cleaning out underneath the sink, mindfully.  This lead me to deep cleaning my laundry room, mindfully.  On any other day, I might have called these activities ‘chores.’  On this day, these activities led me to a state of bliss.  I kid you not.

On other ‘follow my nose days,’ I’ve read, walked, played with the dogs, rolled around on the floor and stretched.  The trick is to do whatever you are doing with complete attention and when you feel drawn to do something else, do that, EVEN if the thing you started is not finished.  There are no rules, no shoulds.

In fact, following your nose frees you ‘should’ and teaches you to release the tension of ‘should’ in each moment.  These are the days I practice living as Brother Lawrence, as if there were no one but Thee and Me in the world.

The perfectly precious gift of following my nose is realigning myself with the Current of Life in me.  The bonus prize is the pure peace that comes from aligning with that Current.

If you can’t take a full day, take a morning or an afternoon.

If you can’t take a morning or an afternoon, take an hour.

If you can’t take an hour, take a half hour.

Follow your nose.  What happens?  What Wisdom flows to you when you are aligned with the Current of Life in you?  Can you sense the Source of your stream?  I’d love to hear your stories.

In a nutshell, it was fantastic!  The food, the setting, the companionship, the wisdom and reflection —  all of it was just fantastic!  I loved watching the women on the retreat blossom in the warmth of a small group of incredible women in an incredible setting.  And, the sunflowers WERE in bloom!  Just glorious.

Sunflowers in Monclar de Quercy

Each morning, we began the day in a stained glass windowed room with meditation followed by stretching… or vice versa.  The day unfolded from there with a variety of activities from one-to-one sessions with me, massage, facials, walks, excursions to simply exquisite places, delicious food, retreat sessions and great good company.

One participant shared that “this trip was, by far, the best trip I’ve ever taken!”

I think that something magical and alchemical happens when you bring together a group of women in a setting away from the familiar.  There were new insights and breakthroughs everyday.

One breakthrough for me was realizing that I absolutely love doing retreats like this in other countries and in our own magnificent country.  By the time it was all over, the participants were saying, “Where are we going next year?  Bali?  The Amalfi Coast of Italy?

There are several amazing places for retreat.  And, I’m am more and more clear about the difference between a retreat and a vacation.  One big difference is a schedule.  On my retreats, we take the support of a flexible schedule.  One primary benefit of having a flexible schedule is that the benefits of the retreat stay long after the retreat is over.  That’s not always the case with a vacation.  Another benefit of a flexible schedule is that you are able to experience and integrate new places, new people and new, more authentic ways of being.

If you’ve not planned a retreat for yourself yet this year, plan one!  Take a look at my book, an illumined life, if you need some support.

If you are a woman and would like to join me on retreat, take part in this survey and help me choose the time and location of our next retreat!  Take the survey now.

Reflecting in Carcassonne

When I was in my twenties, I spent several summers as a guide on the Colorado River in southern Utah.  I’m still unpacking what I learned on the river and from the desert in those summers.  One perfectly obvious lesson came from packing and unpacking my boat.  I was responsible for my boat.  Of course, I could ask for help and it was there in a skinny minute.  But when it came time to get on the river, the oars were in MY hands.

It was up to me to make sure that the boat was balanced.  And we all know that a balanced boat makes for a smoother ride.  It was up to me to stay in the current and navigate the rapids.  How this translates today is that I can pack the boat of my life with all kinds of activities, people, and thoughts that take me out of the current of my life.  And, before I know it, I’m trying my darnedest to paddle my way out of some eddie or I’m rowing backwards through some rapid.

Or, I can get conscious about what I’m putting in the boat of my life — today.  I can make sure that my boat is balanced with the three essential keys to life balance and personal peace – centering practice, self reflection and body care.  I can anticipate any rapids that I might be approaching and make the necessary adjustments to navigate those life challenges with greater equipoise and greater peace.  This is made so much easier if I’m already rowing along with centering practice, self reflection and body care.

When I’m taking care of myself through regular centering practice, self reflection and body care – the boat of my life floats along life’s current with much greater ease.  If I neglect one of these, I’m sunk.    Though I’d really like to unpack this topic more completely, a blog post just doesn’t lend itself to this exploration.  That’s why I created the Reclaim Your Life 21 Day Challenge.  Stay tuned.  I’ll tell you more later.

In the meantime, what about you?  How’s the boat of your life packed today?  Are you making sure to pack your boat well?  What one thing can you do today that will help you feel more centered?

Many of you know that I find this process quite helpful to help release the ‘charge’ or ‘static’ when you are experiencing emotional upset.

So, pop on over to free stuff and grab the new material!  Happy Saturday Y’all!

He writes, “While washing the dishes, you might be thinking about the tea afterwards, and so try to get them out of the way as quickly as possible in order to sit and drink tea.  But that means that you are incapable of living during the time you are washing the dishes.  When you are washing the dishes, washing the dishes must be the most important thing in your life.  Just as when you’re drinking tea, drinking tea must be the most important thing in your life.” (Miracle of Mindfulness, p. 24)

With such great beings as Brother Lawrence, and our own contemporaries, such as Thich Nhat Hanh, we are in good company in our search for the Truth.  It is through the glimpses of the Divine that philosophers, poets and saints have experienced and shared that we find assurance that such a search is not in vain.

From their yearning to know Truth, they seem to have attained great understanding and found their way Home.  It is our good fortune that they left many clues on the path.  The reverence with which they approached the moments of their lives, continue to inspire seekers today.

Such seekers seem (for who among us truly knows the experience of another)  to deliberately approach life with an appreciation of the uniqueness of each moment, each circumstance, each person.

We, too, can let each moment become a moment of deliberate, conscious living.  We, too, can learn, with practice, patience, and perseverance, to greet the Presence in the present and welcome that formless Presence regardless of the form.  We, too, can let each moment’s experience become a way of seeking out Presence and open to that experience whole-heartedly.  Even the joys and the sorrows, opening to what is present.

Not one of us escapes heart-ache and truly not one of us lives every single moment in that kind of pain.  It seems that in opening to be with what is as it is, ‘what is’ seems to change.  All this to say, say ‘hello’ to this moment with your whole heart.