Reading Rilke

Immersed in Rilke
His words stir blue memories
Leaving me breathless

Choose to do no harm to any living creature

Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.

E. O. Wilson

An expanded heart is an emotional garden...

It is not wise to ignore anger.

Anger is a complex emotion. It can be comprised of disappointment, hurt, fear, insecurity, judgment (toward self and or others), and shame. Each of these emotional planes is a moment, sometimes a series of moments in our lives when we face confusion. But, within confusion, and within this web of internal interrelatedness exists the desire to express an idea that is suppressed. Suppressed sometimes by our actions and occasionally by the actions of others. I think of this as collective karma...the consequences of a community that culminate in the experience of one.

We may feel isolated in our anger, or we might unite in anger. Either way, we benefit from being fully with our anger--naming its complex components and allowing space for each of them. It is within the space we allow that we may expand our heart.

An expanded heart is an emotional garden in which compassion may take seed and flourish.

Which of your abilities will you allow to lie dormant?

Which of your abilities will you allow to lie dormant? What talents will you let sleep, get fat and lazy; become memories of past hopes and dreams?

The experience of striving for the greatest level of accomplishment possible leaves our entire being stronger and better off than it was. Our physical, mental, emotional, social and spiritual health is improved through the experience of taking on challenge.

What will you do today to be more fully alive?

Meditation

There is nothing more rewarding, nor challenging than sitting in the silence of nature.

Embracing our kinship

What is it that allows our goodwill to expand and our prejudice and anger to decrease? This is a significant question. Traditionally it is said that the root of aggression and suffering is ignorance. But what is it that we are ignoring? Entrenched in the tunnel vision of our personal concerns what we ignore is our kinship with others.

Pema Chodron

Strength is Everpresent

Yesterday I went out for an 8-mile run. After a summer of unrequited illness, my legs feel out of shape, and I'm 11 lbs overweight; my lungs are out of the habit of working hard. I began to think, though, that "I have done this before."


Strength is everpresent; it does not come and go. We all have moments when we are more in touch with our strength--physical, mental, emotional, social, or spiritual...or probably more accurately, the intertwinement of those. Our strength is sometimes challenged by fear, anxiety, doubt, or pain. But the strength is always there, we need only be confident.

Catch yourself today talking yourself out of your strength. The self-doubt, or fear, or whatever will not go away. Just allow it to be there. But equally, embrace all the strength that is within you and stay present in that reality.