Tag Archives: Retreat

Something Good

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1. Another day, another opportunity for a fresh start, to begin again.

2. “Where I’ve Been” blog posts. I can’t wait to try this.

3. The Pressure, a poem by Tara Sophia Mohr: Oh how I know this pressure, and want to discover what it might be like without it.

4. Gratitude Practice. Spending some time, every day, thinking about what you are grateful for, writing about it, or even saying “thank you” directly or publicly, is a path to contentment and joy. Here’s a freebie intended to help, “3 good things that happened today,” shared by way of a Scoutie Girl post, “art to inspire: the power of positivity.”

5. Slow down your writing from Kaspa at Writing Our Way Home. This is some really great advice, not just for writing Small Stones, but for writing practice in general.

6. Hannah Marcotti shared a list of some really good stuff to read, Beautiful faces. Magical Places. My favorite quote is from the post on Find Your Balance (because if you’ve been reading this blog for long, you know I struggle with finding balance):

When I say balance, I’m not saying, “Be like me.”
I’m saying, “Be more like you.”

7. I knew there was a reason I have been in love with Ray Bradbury’s work most of my life. His love of reading and writing is my own. He says:

Books are smart and brilliant and wise. Love what you do and do what you love. Don’t listen to anyone else who tells you not to do it. You do what you want, what you love. Imagination should be the center of your life.

8. How to Find Your Purpose and Do What You Love by Maria Popova. This is a really great list! And the blog where I found this post and the Ray Bradbury video, Brain Pickings, is really great too.

9. how to be original by Justine Musk. She is on fire lately. This post is all about the four qualities of a compelling creative voice.

10. 40 Days of Silence, a free ecourse from Erica Staab. I signed up for this and have been getting the daily emails. They are short but powerful, such good reminders! My favorite from this last week was a quote from an interview with John O’Donohue, (a really wonderful Irish poet, he wrote some of my favorite poems), which said “To return back into ourselves, there are three things needed”: stillness, silence, and solitude, and he explained why each was so essential.

11. A Blessing For One Who Is Exhausted, a post by Erica Staab and a poem by John O’Donohue. I couldn’t stop crying when I read this, both Erica’s words and the poem. Erica said:

Tears sprang to my eyes as I thought how often we think we have the “wrong” answer. How often we are stuck in the thought that we should be anywhere else but where we are. How often we think that we are handling our grief, our children, our jobs, our friendships in the “wrong” way. And sometimes yes, things need to change, but more often than not it is only because we haven’t given ourselves the compassion and more objective look that we give to others.

12. Brene’ Brown’s latest TED talk, “Listening to Shame.”

13. If you never saw Brene’ Brown’s first TED talk, “The Power of Vulnerability,” I highly recommend it. Judy Clement Wall wrote a post today on a Human Thing, “What I know,” about that first talk’s impact on her. While her details are different, I had the same experience of that first video. It changed my life, helped save my life, in about a million different ways. Judy said:

It changed everything for me. Not that day, or that week, or that month, but over the course of the almost-year since I watched it. It was the beginning of deep down, gut-wrenching honesty, first with myself and then with my husband. It was the beginning of true fearlessness, of love like a religion, of faith.

Amen.

14. The wreck and the raw of post retreat. Dear reader, I am in the thick of this. I went to the Boulder Shambhala Center this weekend (along with about 340 others, and 1500 who joined us in a live, online broadcast) and received a new practice from Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche that broke my heart wide open, which always leaves me completely exhausted, but in this really beautiful way, feeling everything that it means to be alive–the good, the bad, and the ugly. So today, I am attempting to take John O’Donohue’s advice from A Blessing For One Who Is Exhausted and be excessively gentle with myself.

We think we are rocks, but we are gold.

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image by Richard Reoch, click on the image to see a beautiful little video of the making of the dragon

I mentioned in a post yesterday that it was Tibetan New Year, Year of the Water Dragon. At the Fort Collins Shambhala Meditation Center, this is celebrated as “Shambhala Day.” Last night, a large group met at the Center, and while we couldn’t do the full, traditional Lhasang (smoke) ceremony because of high winds, and there were some technical difficulties with parts of the Sakyong’s video address, dinner from Mount Everest Cafe was its usual delicious and the company was good.

A few things from the Sakyong’s talk really stood out to me, are still resonating. First, as he was on retreat last year, he talked about how for him it was a year of knowing basic goodness, studying it and reaching a fundamental understanding. He feels this year, for all of us, will be a year of being basic goodness. For me, this reinforces my own path of retreat this year, underscores the importance of really knowing something before you can manifest it, embody it.

Dalai Lama and Sakyong Mipham at Shambhala Mountain Center

The other thing the Sakyong said is “we think we are rocks, but we are gold.” This phrase has been on repeat in my head, in my heart since I first heard it. I am utterly in love with it.

He didn’t mean that we should feel like we are special, or that we should use this information to build up our ego into thinking we are better or more important than anyone else. He meant that we all, every being, are precious, have basic goodness, and that our true nature is compassionate and wise.

We think we are rocks, but we are gold.

We could also say that we think we are rocks, but we are diamonds. Or that we think we are dirt or even shit, but we all are a seed, flower or vegetable or tree, we all have the possibility, the instinct and desire to grow, to manifest our basic goodness. We must know it, and then we must be it.

We think we are rocks, but we are gold.

Pema Chödrön and Sakyong Mipham

Then I read the latest post on Painted Path (seriously, are you reading this? Julia’s writing, poetry, audio posts, art, and beautiful self are not to be missed), in which Julia invited her readers to answer this question “What in your heart do you know you are meant to do?” and “Leave six words that give a glimpse.” Her own answer was “I am meant to shine light.” Mine was:

I am meant to open hearts.
Soul surgery, to help and heal.
Kindness and gentleness are my superpowers.
Wake up, brave and tender hearts!
We’re warriors of wisdom and love.
Our basic goodness is our birthright.
I am here to remind you.

Once I started, I couldn’t stop (see, even that’s six words!).

painting by Julia

We think we are rocks, but we are gold.

Be you.