1. 27 Powers. Mornings at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and eating yogurt, sitting across the table from Laurie, talking about everything that matters. A warm bath, how long it took to fill the tub, how the steam that rose off the water was lit by the candles, how quiet the house was. Sitting at the long table Wild Writing. Resting with Zander on that last night. Lunch in the yard with Sherry, eating Firecracker chocolate for dessert. Snuggling in the big chair, sitting in a circle of open hearts receiving a transmission of wisdom from Rachel, how she helped me to understand what I’m truly hungry for, that what I long for is to be home, in all the various ways that manifests — in my body, my practice, my work, my house, my relationships, the world.
2. Being seen, encouraged, accepted — and through that, allowing it to touch me and light the way, being able to do those things for myself.
my current favorite picture from my photo shoot with Andrea Scher
3. In my Eddy Hall office, listening to Sufjan Stevens with the window open and the wind blowing the trees outside, rattling the leaves that are left.
4. Blooming Schlumbergera.
5. Sleeping in my own bed, next to the warm bodies of my boys.
Bonus Joy: The way Sam squealed when he saw me for the first time in four days.
Not acting on our habitual patterns is only the first step toward not harming others or ourselves. The transformative process begins at a deeper level when we contact the rawness we’re left with whenever we refrain. As a way of working with our aggressive tendencies, Dzigar Kongtrül teaches the nonviolent practice of simmering. He says that rather than “boil in our aggression like a piece of meat cooking in a soup,” we simmer in it. We allow ourselves to wait, to sit patiently with the urge to act or speak in our usual ways and feel the full force of that urge without turning away or giving in. Neither repressing nor rejecting, we stay in the middle between the two extremes, in the middle between yes and no, right and wrong, true and false. This is the journey of developing a kindhearted and courageous tolerance for our pain.
What is yours is the way you meet the turbulence as it arrives: with grace or terror, with gratitude or anger, with openness or clenched fists, with focus or distraction. Your life will find you, no matter what you plan. Be here then. Be of this wild, brilliant new day. Respond as truly as you can, and know this life is made both of your breath, and of the wind you breathe.
You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.
30. Charlie the Dog Is the World’s Worst Recycler on Jezebel. An empty plastic water bottle really is one of the best puppy toys ever. Reminds me of Sam when he was a puppy, and I’d hide a ball under a tupperware bowl and he’d try to get it out. (P.S. Dexter was the best big brother).
Everybody on a massage table is beautiful. There are really no exceptions to this rule. At that first long sigh, at that first thought that “I can stop hanging on now, I’m safe” – a luminosity, a glow, begins. Within a few minutes the whole body is radiant with it. It suffuses the room: it suffuses the massage therapist too. People talk about massage therapists being caretakers, and I suppose we are: we like to look after people, and we’re easily moved to tenderness. But to let you in on a secret: I’m in it for the glow.
I’ll tell you what people look like, really: they look like flames. Or like the stars, on a clear night in the wilderness.
When you stop warring with yourself, when you end the shaming and judging and blaming, when you stop the pushing and pulling and feeding the desire to be someone else with a different life, the war with food ends as well. Maybe not all at once, but soon. It couldn’t be any other way.
“If I’m depressed, everybody’s depressed, I don’t think those feelings are that different from what everybody’s feeling. Most people just don’t tell everybody. I was just tired of telling people I was tired. It felt like every day someone would ask, ‘What’s wrong. Are you OK?’ “And I would say, ‘I’m tired, I’m tired.’ I didn’t want to do that anymore. I guess sometimes not telling the truth is just as bad as telling a lie.”
1. 27 Powers. Mornings at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and eating yogurt, sitting across the table from Laurie, talking about everything that matters. A warm bath, how long it took to fill the tub, how the steam that rose off the water was lit by the candles, how quiet the house was. Sitting at the long table Wild Writing. Resting with Zander on that last night. Lunch in the yard with Sherry, eating Firecracker chocolate for dessert. Snuggling in the big chair, sitting in a circle of open hearts receiving a transmission of wisdom from Rachel, how she helped me to understand what I’m truly hungry for, that what I long for is to be home, in all the various ways that manifests — in my body, my practice, my work, my house, my relationships, the world.
5. Sleeping in my own bed, next to the warm bodies of my boys.
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 