“Being aware of your breath forces you into the present moment – the key to all inner transformation. Whenever you are conscious of the breath, you are absolutely present. You may also notice that you cannot think and be aware of your breathing. Conscious breathing stops your mind.”
Eckart Tolle
I took Sunday off from writing. Like to keep Sunday’s open from anything other than chilling.
Bit of a blank today as I find myself stunned again at the predicament we are all in. On the one hand, and for the most part, I am able to just be with the fact that this is what’s happening and so it goes. I can stay calm within the uncertainty, do my part in keeping myself safe and isolated-for myself and others. Help in whatever ways possible. I can get beyond my mind and all the stories and concerns and worries that want to surface.
On the other hand, moments of fear creep in-fear of the unknown, of what things will be like when this is all over. What will the world be like, what will everything be like.
Remember to take some deep breaths. To sit for even 5 minutes during your day to be still, put your attention on your normal pace of breathing and allow yourself to relax and get beyond the mind even for a few minutes each day. It’s worth it.
Love to you all!
Well, it’s been a while since sitting down in front of my computer to write. I did take a vacation, however, and then forgot to get back into my daily writing. Good thing I didn’t make a commitment to write every day in case this would happen.
In February we traveled to a place called Yelapa, Mexico. A flight to Puerto Vallarta and then a 45 boat taxi ride to this small bay/cove along the coast of Mexico right up against the jungle. What a place to vacation-if you like being secluded from city life, crowds, and cars. Walking everywhere on cobblestone walkways about 20′ from the beach. Getting to experience a genuine Mexican village and how people live there. Until about 20 years ago there was no running water or electricity. We had a wonderful, relaxing, meditative time for 9 days.
Life for the world has change dramatically since then due to the Covid-19 and the worldwide shutdown. Where now we get to experience another adventure (and even possibly label it as a staycation in our homes). We all get to figure out how to weather this storm. I’m catching up some things – like getting paperwork and files in order, taking care of taxes, cleaning the garage and rearranging cabinets in the house. Gratefully we have a growing dome and vegetable garden so we get to play in the garden. We live outside the main city, bumped up right against the foothills of the Rocky Mountains so we have the opportunity to go out and hike. I like to just put on my shoes and go for a couple mile walk just around my neighborhood. Fun things to do-play games, watch movies and bing some favorite shows, work on puzzles, give each other a massage, write letters or call friends that I’ve wanted to for so long, take naps, meditate more often, and I’ve even starting putting on some music that moves me and I’m dancing and exercising. Great time to get in shape.
I hope that in the midst of this worldwide situation you can find a way to make the best of what life is handing you right now. That you can find a peaceful and enjoyable time to spend your days, with yourself, your partner, your kids. It can really be a time for great bonding and a time for less busyness in your life.
Take care and I pray that we will come through this with a newfound connection to mankind-that more and more people begin to realize we are all one, we have the same hearts and the same desire to love.
The greatest pleasure of life is love.
Euripides
I’d like to visit the action of blame. After many years of my own personal journey to know myself, I’ve just recently seen the depth of where and how I have blamed something or someone outside of myself in order to take away my pain, anger, resentment, upset, frustration.
Somehow the lights just went on, showing me how the behavior of blame never is the solution to the problem.
Here’s a quote from Wayne Dyer that I think nails it!
“All blame is a waste of time. No matter how much fault you find with another, and regardless of how much you blame him/her, it will not change you. The only thing blame does is to keep the focus off you when you are looking for external reasons to explain your unhappiness or frustration. You may succeed in making another feel guilty about something by blaming him/her, but you won’t succeed in changing whatever it is about you that is making you unhappy.”
This above all: “To thine own self be true”.
In May of 2017, Kris and I set out on a 4 month trip in our Northstar truck camper up to Alaska. I did quite a bit of writing on that trip, and this particular piece comes to my mind often when I think about our trip. I wrote it the very first night, the beginning of our 4-month trip.
Have you ever thought about or maybe even heard the barking watchdogs of geese on a lake? Last night we arrived at a breathtaking camping spot at Saratogo Lake, Wyoming. It’s located about 30 miles south of Sinclair, tucked way back in the sprawling open fields and located on a serene lake. We camped right on the lake, where the shore is highlighted by flowing grasses and reeds, leading into the vast blue water of the lake teeming with various species of birds. This area was developed in 1992 as a sanctuary for birds and wildlife. The magnificent music of the birds singing all evening and again in the morning and afternoon was a delight. I’d say for me that one very soothing and enjoyable thing I’ve loved my whole life is to hear birds. I’ve memories of birds in the trees in the area where I grew up, but over the years the open land was developed into housing tracts along with DDT and the birds and butterflies disappeared. It’s nice to find places where birds are abundant and grace us with their symphonies.
Why did I ask if you had ever heard the watchdogs of the lake? Because last evening, as we strolled the lakeshore we spotted two geese also basking in the grasses along the lake. When they saw and heard us coming close, they started honking, flew into the water and for at least 10 minutes they continued to honk, (which sounds like barking) until we were far away from them. Had me think that these geese were on alert, like the dogs in our neighborhood who bark and protect their area when the see or smell something foreign. So I labeled these geese as “the watchdogs of the lake”.
Otto Warburg was a German physiologist, medical doctor and Nobel laureate. He was the sole recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1931 and won the Nobel Prize for proving that cancer cells cannot survive in an oxygen rich environment.