Spread Your Wings; enjoy your day

In all my studies of anatomy, philosophy, design and yoga there is the common thread of observing nature’s pulsation.  This idea of contraction and expansion permeates our surroundings, our bodies, our minds and spirits.  When we are able to tab, connect, ride, touch or pulsate with the overarching pulsation of God, then we experience an authentic life that moves us closer to the sweetest experience of life itself.  I found this poem by Rumi, which evokes beautifully what all great teachers are trying to cultivate in us.

Birdwings by Rumi (translated by Coleman Barks)

Your grief for what you’ve lost lifts a mirror
up to where you’re bravely working.

Expecting the worst, you look, and instead,
here’s the joyful face you’ve been wanting to see.

Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
if it were always a fist or always stretched open,
you would be paralyzed.

Your deepest presence is in every small contracting
and expanding,
The two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as birdwings.

 

Words of Wisdom for Hope and for Moving Forward

My heart felt condolences to all the families and the victims of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown.  Our hearts are broken.

Not that long ago, I was listening to On Being’s radio show about the mindfulness of anger, the talk was offered by  Buddhist Master, Thich Hhat Hanh and in times like this when our own thoughts can’t possible offer an explanation, we must turn to the wiser ones,  the stronger ones, knowing that in our hearts those qualities abide too.

 I found light in this passage from the Buddhist master, I hope you do too.  It is particularly poignant:

“…there is a seed of anger in every one of us. There are many kinds of seeds that lie deep in our consciousness, a seed of anger, a seed of violence, a seed of fear, a seed of jealousy, a seed of full despair, a seed of miscommunication, a seed of hate. They’re all there and, when they sleep, we are okay. But if someone come and water these seeds, they will manifest into energy and they will make us suffer. We also have wholesome seeds in us, namely the seeds of understanding, of awakening, of compassion, of nonviolence, of nondiscrimination, a seed of joy and forgiveness. They are also there.

What we see, what we hear, what we eat, always water the seed of violence, the seed of despair, the seed of hate in us and in our children. That is why it’s very urgent to do something collectively in order to change the situation. Not only educators, but parents, legislators, artists, have to come together in order to discuss the strategy that can help bring the kind of safe environment to us and to our children where we shall be protected from the negative watering of the seeds in us. The practice of transformation and healing could not be effective without this practice of seeking or creating a sane environment. When someone is sick, you have to bring him to a place where he or she can be treated and to heal.

If the human person is affected by the poison of violence and anger and despair, if you want to help heal him or her, you have to bring him or her out of the situation where she continues to ingest the poisons of violence. This is very simple. This is very clear and this is not only the job of educators. Everyone has to participate to the work of creating safe environments for us and for our children.”

A Prayer of Thanks to Nature

We may tend to attribute ego-driven behaviors to Nature (i.e., wrath), but I know that Nature is Love, because God is Love.  And Love has no Ego.   As we prepare to gather for Thanksgiving,  I want to share this beautiful prayer that was written a century ago, but its connection with Grace and Gratitude is permanent and as relevant today as it will a hundred years from now.  Happy Thanksgiving.

Prayer for Nature
by Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918)

O God, we thank you for this universe, our home; and for its vastness and richness, the exuberance of life which fills it and of which we are part. We praise you for the vault of heaven and for the winds, pregnant with blessings, for the clouds which navigate and for the constellations, there so high. We praise you for the oceans and for the fresh streams, for the endless mountains, the trees, the grass under our feet. We praise you for our senses, to be able to see the moving splendour, to hear the songs of lovers, to smell the beautiful fragrance of the spring flowers.

Give us, we pray you, a heart that is open to all this joy and all this beauty, and free our souls of the blindness that comes from preoccupation with the things of life, and of the shadows of passions, to the point that we no longer see nor hear, not even when the bush at the roadside is afire with the glory of God. Give us a broader sense of communion with all living things, our sisters, to whom you gave this world as a home along with us.

We remember with shame that in the past we took advantage of our greater power and used it with unlimited cruelty, so much so that the voice of the earth, which should have arisen to you as a song was turned into a moan of suffering.

May we learn that living things do not live just for us, that they live for themselves and for you, and that they love the sweetness of life as much as we do, and serve you, in their place, better than we do in ours. When our end arrives and we can no longer make use of this world, and when we have to give way to others, may we leave nothing destroyed by our ambition or deformed by our ignorance, but may we pass along our common heritage more beautiful and more sweet, without having removed from it any of its fertility and joy, and so may our bodies return in peace to the womb of the great mother who nourished us and our spirits enjoy perfect life in you.

So, Deepak, what is Meditation anyway?

As we walk in our Yoga Practice inevitable we’ll encounter the path of Meditation and even though I believe that no one can teach you  meditation; I do believe that there are tools that can help you  find it and that there are great teachers that can guide you with these tools.

In case you live under a rock, and that is my favorite place to live  sometimes, Deepak Chopra issued a 21 Days Meditation Challenge.  As an introduction to this program, Chopra defined some basic terms and I loved the way he was able to define and explain it so I am sharing with you.  You can find out more visiting the 21 Days Meditation Challenge site.

Disclaimer, I pasted my notes on it, so the words are Mr. Chopra’s but I highlighted words that resonated with me.  Feel free to share which one resonate with you. 

“What is Meditation?

Deepak Defines Meditation – Everyone thinks that the purpose of meditation is to handle stress, to tune out, to get away from it all. While that’s partially true, the real purpose of meditation is actually to tune in, not to get away from it all, but to get in touch with it all. Not to just de-stress, but to find that peace within, the peace that spiritual traditions talk about that passes all understanding. So, meditation is a way to get in the space between your thoughts. You have a thought here, a thought here, and there’s little space between every thought.

According to wisdom traditions, this space between the thought is the window, is the corridor, is the vortex to the infinite mind – the mystery that some people call the spirit or God. We don’t have to use those terms, but it’s your core consciousness. And the more we learn about this space between thoughts, we find certain things to be true of it:

• It’s a field of infinite possibilities – infinite possibilities, pure potentiality.
• Everything is connected to everything else.
• It’s a space of infinite creativity, infinite imagination.
• It is a place where there is something called observer effect, or the power of intention, which means intention is very powerful when brought to this space and it orchestrates its own fulfillment – what people call the law of attraction – so those are wonderful qualities of your own spirit.

In meditation, we get into this space so we find ourselves infinite possibilities, infinite correlation, infinite creativity, infinite imagination, and infinite power of intention. That’s what meditation is really about.”