I wish to create a wholehearted life in which I practice self-love and self-care, balance work with play and rest, maintain a healthy body with ease, experience an abundance of gratitude and joy, embody love and kindness and sanity, am mindful and connected and open-hearted and brave.
I wish to create art that inspires and heals, that reminds people of basic goodness and helps to ease suffering in the world.
I wish to create resources (books, art, workbooks, webtexts, videos, podcasts, ecourses, classes, workshops, retreats, etc.) that act as a map for others who want to find their way deeper, to sink more fully into their heart and life.
I wish to create space where people can come together and safely explore what it means to live an authentic, wholehearted life, to practice such a thing.
I wish to create a project or a collective that helps advance health and well-being (clean water, food, access to medical care and education, and the cultivation of mindfulness, compassion, and wisdom) in places where this is the least likely, most difficult.
My biggest wish for this summer is that the High Park Fire will be 100% contained, controlled, stopped, extinguished. That the fire fighters will stay safe, that no more homes will burn, no more harm will be done, and no more fires will start this summer.
That Eric and I and our two boys have a safe trip to Oregon, and then back to Colorado. That our drive is smooth, easy, and without issue or complication, that the dogs stay cool and comfortable, and we arrive in Oregon (and then Colorado) with little effort or suffering. And that our Big Rig functions as a vehicle of love and light that protects everyone we pass or follow or meet along the way. That anyone else traveling in this same time frame is also safe.
driftwood beach, where we’ll be walking in just a few days
That I practice mindfulness and gratitude, experience rest and play and joy while we are in Oregon.I need the rest, and I want to connect wholeheartedly to the joy of the present moment and sink into it fully.
hiking two years ago at cape perpetua, on the oregon coast
That I have a good experience at the World Domination Summit. That I don’t freak out, I don’t push or bully myself to do too much, I don’t try too hard, don’t sink into feeling unworthy or afraid that I’m missing something, that I remain safe and well, and that I get to, in a kind and gentle way, meet the people on the list I carry in my heart and tell them to their faces “thank you and I adore you.” That I can have confidence, “the willingness to be as ridiculous, luminous, intelligent, and kind as you really are, without embarrassment” (Susan Piver).
Happy, comfortable, safe beach dogs.
Naps, eating seafood, reading, writing, yoga, meditation, walks on the beach, hiking, meeting new friends, long conversations about nothing and everything, laughter, love, love, love.
where the forest meets the sea
And this, from Mary Oliver (shared here this morning), this is what I wish, not just for summer, but for my life. And for you as well, kind and gentle reader. Happy first day of summer and much love to you. May you have everything you wish for this summer as well.
The Summer Day
by Mary Oliver
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 