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2023 May Meditation
This month, we expand the everyday relationships you have with the world around you. Imagine you go to a store–notice how it is to recognize that when you enter the store, you are immediately in relationship with it. You have joined the community of presences that comprises the store. Take a moment to offer gratitude and blessings to the store and to everything and everyone within it, acknowledging within yourself the inevitability of relatedness, of community, every time you move in and out of a particular space, be it a store, a park, a recreational environment, any building–anywhere at all…
Please remember never to listen to guided audio meditations while driving or using dangerous machinery.
If you’d rather see images of nature as you meditate, here’s link to the youtube version…
685th Week: On Being An “Energy Oyster”
What if it were possible to move through the world filtering negativity in much the way oysters filter the water they live in? Because of my belief in collective consciousness, I’ve often thought of oysters and the role they play in helping to clear and clean water. The other day, I saw a video of oysters cleaning the water in a glass tank, and it always inspires and amazes me how nature generates what is needed to bring balance and healing.
Here’s another question. What if each of us could hold the intention to carry into our daily activities qualities such as kindness, compassion, collaboration, and respect for others, and what if these qualities were able to act as filters for the collective negativity currently being expressed in our world? Read More “685th Week: On Being An “Energy Oyster””
867th Week: Practices for Finding Refuge
I gave a talk at Unity of New York this morning and as I prepared for my presentation my mind went to the Buddhist idea of “finding refuge”. For me, this means having access to those experiences, places, and states of being that give us some relief and rest from the challenges of troubling times such as these.
For this week’s practice in conscious living, I’d like to share some ideas around “finding refuge” within our own creative, imaginal lives, as well as in our own embodied, grounded sense of being. Some of these practices I’ve shared before, so they may be familiar. That said, I figure that it’s always helpful to be reminded of resources that may become overlooked in the hurry and scurry of our everyday lives.
Leaning into Stillness
Over the years, I’ve had a practice that can, when it works well, bring immediate relief from mounting stress. It has to do with remembering that within and behind every thought, feeling, impulse/urge, physical sensation, or action there is an ever-present stillness. For me, the stillness arises within an infinite field of stillness that is behind any perception you can imagine.
One place where I connect with stillness is in the space between breaths and I often follow an out-breath down into myself and then, in the gap between the out-breath and the next in-breath, I enter into the stillness that is always there.
I also find refuge in leaning into the field of stillness that’s right behind me and often do this when I’m teaching. For me, this kind of stillness isn’t the same as emptiness. Instead, it’s more like a holding space where I can find rest and restoration.
Read More “867th Week: Practices for Finding Refuge”
2023 January Meditation
This year’s theme is reciprocal relationships–that we are in relationship with the world around us in every moment. For this month, we focus on the relationship we have with the community of collaborative organisms that comprise our body, offering gratitude and blessings to all of them.
The fidelity on this January meditation isn’t great, but it improves starting in February.
Please remember never to listen to these audio meditations when driving or operating dangerous machinery…
Here’s the YouTube version if you’d prefer to see images of nature as you move through the meditation.
2024 February Meditation
In this month’s meditation, we continue with the theme of universal love. This time, the focus is on the living community that is your body, an essential aspect of your wholeness while you’re here in the physical realm, and on the emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects of your body-mind being. As you work with this meditation over the course of the month, notice how your body and psyche respond and what this offers to your ongoing collaboration and relationship with the miracle that is your body and your psyche.
Here’s the meditation on YouTube, if you prefer seeing nature photos…