Tag Archives: Elephant Journal

Something Good

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1. Oh, hell yes, from the Bloggess.

2. On Starting Over Again, from Lisa Congdon.

3. How Depression Serves Us on Elephant Journal.

4. I need to find a dance studio, stat: Watch this 2-year-old and her mom break it down to Beyonce on Hello Giggles.

5. You are not broken or in need of fixing, a beautiful poem on Many Voices, a Sounds True blog.

6. Wisdom from Thomas Merton,

To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is itself to succumb to the violence of our times. Frenzy destroys our inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.

7. 12 Storytelling Podcasts That You Need to Be Listening To on BuzzFeed.

8. Who Sees The Real You? from Soul Pancake.

9. Kids on LOVE! from Soul Pancake.

10. Wisdom in the form of a poem by Hafiz,

We have not come here to take prisoners,
But to surrender ever more deeply
To freedom and joy.

We have not come into this exquisite world
To hold ourselves hostage from love.

Run my dear,
From anything
That may not strengthen
Your precious budding wings.

Run like hell my dear,
From anyone likely
To put a sharp knife
Into the sacred, tender vision
Of your beautiful heart.

We have a duty to befriend
Those aspects of obedience
That stand outside of our house
And shout to our reason
“O please, O please,
Come out and play.”

For we have not come here to take prisoners
Or to confine our wondrous spirits,

But to experience ever and more deeply
Our divine courage, freedom, and Light!


11. Shared by Positively Present Picks: Jerk Cats Knocking Stuff Over.

12. Brene’ Brown’s new ecourse, The Gifts of Imperfection.

13. Flying Takes Getting Used To, a poem from Ken Robert.

14. Little boxes on the hillside… home to 40,000 Buddhist monks: The stunning makeshift town that has sprung up around a Tibetan monastery.

15. Pema and Me and the Essence of Life on Huffington Post, in which Robin Amos Kahn says,

The essence of life is that it’s challenging. Sometimes it’s sweet and sometimes it’s bitter. Sometimes your body tenses, and sometimes it relaxes or opens. Sometimes you have a headache, and sometimes you feel 100 percent healthy. From an awakened perspective, trying to tie up all the loose ends and finally get it all together is death, because it involves rejecting a lot of your life experience. There is something aggressive about this approach to life, trying to flatten out all the rough spots and imperfections into a nice smooth ride.

…all of life is to be embraced, that all experience is here to teach us important lessons, even the most painful ones, and all human beings struggle with this at some point in their lives — it is part of being alive and connected to each other.

16. This close, another beautiful post from Christina Rosalie.

17. your daily rock : trust your heart.

18. Joy Retreat, an upcoming offering from Cidgem Kobu that’s sure to be wonderful, (because everything she does is, she is).

19. 7 Things You Should Stop Expecting from Others on Marc and Angel Hack Life.

20. How to Wish Someone Well for Real in a Way that Will Blow Your Heart Wide Open from Danielle LaPorte.

21. Still Writing, a review of Dani Shapiro’s new book on A Design So Vast. I just started reading Dani’s book Devotion this weekend, and can’t wait for her latest. In Still Writing, Dani shares this quote,

The good writer seems to be writing about himself, but has his eye always on that thread of the Universe which runs through himself and all things. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson.

22. Wisdom on the Buddhist teaching of emptiness,

The actual teachings on emptiness imply an infinitely open space that allows for anything to appear, change, disappear, and reappear. The basic meaning of emptiness, in other words, is openness, or potential. At the basic level of our being, we are “empty” of definable characteristics.

23. Adorable Brothers and Best Friends: Baby and His Dog Share Strong Bond, cute pictures on Dog Heirs.

24. living ether, from Doorways Traveler.

25. How Sweet It Is, Kat McNally saying sweet things.

26. Wisdom from Tama J. Kieves,

When you’re tired, you don’t feel creative, hopeful, capable or blessed. You can’t touch the light or depths. Rest is the first step to flight. Our culture runs us ragged. Go against the grain. Don’t be so “productive.” Rest and let the sunshine break through the clouds in your soul.

27. 25 Examples Of Artistic Watercolor Tattoos from Bored Panda.

28. Go Outside: mini-mission from Be More With Less.

29. Danielle LaPorte: Living With Fire And Desire, an interview on Good Life Project.

30. Thank You from Mystic Vixen. *sob*

31. October Notes from Jeff Oaks.

32. Why Self-Compassion Helps You Meet Life’s Challenges on Psychology Today.

33. On Publication Day from Dani Shapiro.

34. This Is The Most Inspiring Yet Depressing Yet Hilarious Yet Horrifying Yet Heartwarming Grad Speech on Upworthy. Really, you should watch it — it’s awesome.

35. Is Disordered Eating The New Normal? on Do You Yoga.

36. A Note from the Universe, “Jill, you’ve done better than you know. You’ve helped more than you realize. And you’re closer than you think.”

37. Wisdom from Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estès,

Be wild; that is how to clear the river. The river does not flow in polluted, we manage that. The river does not dry up, we block it. If we want to allow it its freedom, we have to allow our ideational lives to be let loose, to stream, letting anything come, initially censoring nothing. That is creative life. It is made up of divine paradox. To create one must be willing to be stone stupid, to sit upon a throne on top of a jackass and spill rubies from one’s mouth. Then the river will flow, then we can stand in the stream of it raining down.

38. Wisdom from Pema Chödrön,

Basic wakefulness, natural openness, is always available. This openness is not something that needs to be manufactured. When we pause, when we touch the energy of the moment, when we slow down and allow a gap, self-existing openness comes to us. It does not require a particular effort. It is available anytime. As Chögyam Trungpa once remarked, “Openness is like the wind. If you open your doors and windows, it is bound to come in.”

39. Neglected Ducks Get Their First Swim on Elephant Journal. This is what real joy, true freedom looks like.

40. Rachel Cole on The Fulfilling Life an interview with Kelly J. Dahl.

41. A new post from Hyperbole and a Half: Menace.

Day of Rest

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cdj03I was on retreat this weekend, an at home virtual retreat with the Open Heart Project that ended this morning. Susan always schedules our time allowing space for creativity and rest, along with dharma talks, meditation, and discussion. Every retreat for me, no matter the type — writing, meditation, creativity, etc. — always brings into stark focus whatever I am currently working with. What I saw on this retreat is that I suck at rest, that I am trying too hard.

How strange that the thing I struggle with the most is ease, that the most difficult part of this retreat was rest, the time we were given to relax. My pattern, my current preference is effort, pushing and striving, when the truth is I need to practice relaxing, sinking, settling, letting go, being rather than doing. And even as I know this, I still strive to get “there.” I think I have to keep moving, that if I stop, even for a second, everything will fall apart.

It’s as if I’m swimming the river, moving as if I’m in a race or being chased by a school of hungry piranhas. I spend so much time and money and effort learning new ways to move through the water. I practice all the different competitive strokes — freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly — read books about swimming technique, buy all the latest performance gear, watch videos of the greats talking about their practice, hire a coach, join a team, take private lessons, dig a pool in my backyard, get up early to swim laps… All to learn the exact wrong way to move. From time to time when I get too exhausted to go any further, I cling to the side to rest, grasping at roots and dirt, gulping air, wondering what I am doing wrong, what trick I’m missing.

I need to learn to float, to lean back, stretch out my arms, relax my legs, sink until the water catches and holds me, my ears just under the surface where it’s quiet, my eyes looking towards the sky, my breath even.

cdj06Instead I continue to struggle, to act out my confusion, my path this particular suffering. I used to be depressed and sad, stuck, paralyzed, and would beat myself up for being lazy, worthless. Then I woke up, started to work, to try, to give, to offer — and here I am still smashing myself to bits for not being enough.

The first thing we often do when we meditate together in the Open Heart Project is to make an offering. This offering can be something literal, like a flower or an orange or incense, anything that would be pleasing to the senses, but the offering can also simply be your current state, like maybe you are confused or tired or hungry or sad, and you offer that. When we meditated together the first time this weekend, my offering was how hard I try. Just thinking about it made me start crying. When I can’t even think about or say something without crying, I know it’s a tender spot, a truth worth being curious about.

Later we practiced loving-kindness, “metta” meditation together. The simplest way to describe the practice is you offer loving-kindness first to yourself, then a loved one, then a neutral person or stranger, then an enemy, and finally all beings. When Susan instructed us to start, to begin to focus on our self, the first thing she said was, “I know how hard you try.” More tears. This is the truth for me right now, I am trying so hard, and I am so tired, and still I am being so hard on myself, and it doesn’t have to be like this.

wherelifehappens“The way you do anything is the way you do everything.” I don’t know who to attribute that phrase to, but I’ve heard it applied to each of my practices, (except maybe dog, but it’s true there too). Practice is never just about what’s happening on the mat, the cushion, the page, or the walk, it’s about everything. I am coming out of this retreat carrying a deep knowing, clear about a fundamental truth — I need to balance my effort with ease.

This came to me today during our creativity session,

Rest in your longing, as the mountains do.
Keep your heart open and wait, like the sky does for morning.
Listen to songs that put you in touch with your breathing.
Hold your love in the stillness of your soft animal body.

I don’t really know how to end this post, maybe because I’m in the particular fog that is post retreat, maybe because I am still living it — but maybe I could say that about everything I write, anything I post here. What I am learning is something I’m still working out. So, for now, I’m going to hit publish and go walk my dog. May you have a day filled with rest, kind and gentle reader.