One of the treasures in my life is the ability to lose myself in a song. Closing my eyes and allowing the words and music to play through me – to stop listening with my ears and listen with my heart. As the music washes over me, my mind relaxes, my breathing slows and I quietly drift into unexpected places of creation. This is the sacred discipline of deep listening, of being spiritually attentive through our hearing sense.
Take a strawberry into your hand. Notice the brilliant color, the sweet aroma, the texture of its seeds. Consider these as you sink your thumbnail into the skin of the strawberry… the membrane that so carefully holds the precious juice inside. Notice the burst of aroma and the spray of juice. Feel the sweet, sticky coolness [...]
In the previous blog I talked about the spiritual sense of smell, as akin to our physical sense of smell, which can be a powerful attraction to something. The spiritual sense of smell is a symbol, a metaphor for that attraction to being attentive to Spirit that is hidden all around us, as well as [...]
I am almost always in awe at how the deepest and truest things in life are those things that are intangible. Things like love, fear, peace, faith and even God. We can’t really hold them in our hand, or really point definitively to them. And while we can’t see them with our eyes, we can [...]
A hero has died by his own hand. The news is making its way around the world at lightning speed. As quickly as his last breath left his body, the world grieves this brilliant, troubled and tender-hearted soul. And we grieve as though he was a close family member to each and every person. Suicide brings us [...]
When I hear the word “transition” the first thing that comes to mind are all the different ways to describe what it is. Here are just a few: change, passage from one state or place to another, transformation, segue, an evolutionary shift, conversion and so on. I think my favorite is “metamorphosis” because it typically [...]
Everywhere I look there are TV shows, articles, pictures, poems, reflections and pithy aphorisms about "oneness." If I didn't know better I would think we were hungry, or even starving, to know what "oneness" is, how to experience, capture it and celebrate it. We want everyone to know this "oneness" because I think we all [...]
For some time now, I have spent mornings writing, or probably more accurately practicing what I call a “brain dump.” I sit at the keyboard and tap out whatever is floating around inside. Some days I’m not at my keyboard and will pick up a notebook and scribble away. Today’s scribbling though was captured on [...]
“To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour.” -William Blake Whenever there has been a snowstorm I love to awaken early and sit quietly looking out the window at a world of white that [...]
Act always as if the future of the Universe depends on what you do, while laughing at yourself for thinking that whatever you do makes any difference. – Buddha This sums up 2012 beautifully for me. It is the quintessential paradox for my life, an inescapable infinity loop that is always at work as I [...]