1. Morning walks. It’s slowly leaning towards fall, my favorite season in Colorado. There are fewer mosquitoes and it’s darker in the morning which means we see more critters and fewer people.
2. Practice. I’ve been understandably distracted so the quality of my practice has reflected that, and yet I’m still so much better off when I show up, am present for whatever may arise, keep my heart open. There’s lots of crying right now, but that can be good too.
3. Simple self care. Brushing my teeth, taking a shower, drinking water, eating, napping, reading, asking for help, hugs, petting Ringo’s sweet head, letting myself fall apart and feel sad, texting with Chloe’ and Chris and Mom, listening to podcasts, watching videos, looking up at the sky, stretching, keeping the curtains closed, eating cookies and mac & cheese.
4. All the work I did to prepare myself for being “here.” I’ve been a serious committed practitioner for 15 years, have studied and read books about all the difficult things, have taken classes and gone to workshops and retreats, practiced with open hearted teachers of all kinds and became a teacher myself. Turns out the benefit of all that is to be able to live through this — somewhere between grief and grace, in the middle of nowhere, at the end of the world, empty and luminous. Thank you, past me, for the dedication, the tenderness. You are saving me now.
5. My tiny family, small house, little life. Ringo got a new enrichment toy and it’s so cute watching him pull out each ribbon of felt and carefully unroll it with his nose to get the treat. Eric spent the day at a D&D event, an annual bash that involves dressing up (this year’s theme: Space Cowboy) — I swear, a nerd is the best possible partner for an introvert.
1. Wisdom from Danny Gregory: “Money and value are not the same thing. You can be a billionaire and still be a miserable egomaniac who’ll never be satisfied. Or you can live simply, draw in a handmade sketchbook with a cheap pencil every day, and feel like the richest person who ever lived.”
6. The End of the “Social” in Mediafrom Frederick Joseph. “How mainstream social media lured us with connection, then sold us out.”
7. Being with Love, Death and Grief: Tara Brach and Frank Ostaseski. (video) “Grief is our natural way of expressing loss for what we love, and learning to open to grief serves the deepening and widening of our loving. This event, given at the Upaya Zen Center on June 25, 2023, includes short meditations and talks by Frank and Tara, and powerful sessions of questions and responses.”
9. Celebrating 27 years without a netfrom Patti Digh. “I started my own business in August 1996. Here’s what I’ve learned about working as a solo entrepreneur since then. Part One.”
10. Pep Talkfrom Maggie Smith. “You’re not for everyone.”
11. The Door Opened. “Nancy Hamilton’s enlightening poem ‘The Door Opened’ revels in the glory of openness and emptiness, and overcoming illusions. A meditative narrative on overcoming barriers to inner peace and truth, this poem shows us that perhaps the obstacles we thought existed perhaps were never even there at all. ‘I wrote this piece inspired by an experience I had on retreat where what I was experiencing in meditation was mirrored by what I saw in the material world at the same time,’ Nancy informed The Dewdrop.”
17. Wisdom from Maya Angelou: “Every person needs to take one day away. A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future. Jobs, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence. Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for. Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us.”
22. Maui Is Still in Crisis. Here’s How to Help. “Support the survivors of the wildfire by donating directly and by following these activists and organizations for real-time updates on what’s needed now.”
31. Wisdom from Kurt Vonnegut: “And how should we behave during this Apocalypse? We should be unusually kind to one another, certainly. But we should also stop being so serious. Jokes help a lot. And get a dog, if you don’t already have one,” (by way of Hugh Hollowell’s weekly Life Is So Beautiful list).
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 