Tag Archives: Practice

Gratitude Friday

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1. Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes from our garden. There’s something meditative about picking them, and it feels so good to be able to share with people who don’t have a garden this year — although yesterday, after about 45 minutes of harvesting and almost running out of containers to put them in, I was ready to put a “free tomatoes, pick your own” sign on the plants out front.

2. Red Table Cafe. *sob* I just learned yesterday that they’ll be closing mid-December because their landlord is raising their rent by 46%. This is my absolutely favorite cafe in Old Town, my favorite place to sit, have important conversations, to laugh and eat. I am going to miss it so much when it’s gone, will enjoy it as much as I can until then.

3. Deva Premal chanting “Om Gum Ganapatayei Namaha, (removing of obstacles).” Every tarot card I’ve pulled this week has been about the need to calm, focus, quiet my mind. This mantra, and specifically Deva’s recording of it, is so helpful.

4. Noosa. How did I not know about this? And in the end, why did it take a California girl to tell me when it’s made only eight miles from my house with milk from the local dairy where I buy ours?!

noosa5. Meditation, yoga, writing — the calm, comforting qualities of practice, constant and known, yet fresh every time.

Bonus Joy: Hiking with my boys. Fall is the best time to hike in Colorado. This past Sunday, we hiked ten miles on the Blue Lake Trail. It was beautiful and awesome.

Day of Rest

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I am realizing that path is everything, a direct route to dharma, the truth. For the past few years, I have been so caught up in doing, in planning what I have to offer, striving and struggling, that I forgot I don’t need to work so hard, that if I simply show up, practice, move the way love makes me move, the way joy makes me move, I am already there.

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
~Mary Oliver, excerpt from her poem Wild Geese

The truth is I am already free, what I seek is already present, I can be content now. I am already there, there is here, the exact place I long for is where I live. I can open my eyes, I am awake already. Awareness of how I want to feel, my open heart, the way I sink into my practice, soothing my spirit and letting my body relax, honoring my desires, is the path that will lead to the other, the offering. Instead of striving and pushing, I can relax into my life, my body, my self, my breath, this moment.

I am on the path, this is where I find the offering, and it’s not work, it’s like hiking, how the stillness and clarity and joy and connection come simply by walking the path. It’s easy, it feels good. Show up, do the practice, don’t abandon yourself. Trust what you want, what you love, the sacredness of an ordinary moment, the precious nature of your own heart, your messy and brilliant humanness, just as it is.

The place where you are right now, God circled on a map for you. ~Hafiz