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The importance of immersing children in nature, with mindfulness.

This morning I have been thinking about children and nature. It began when I watched the formation of bubbles in the milk I was heating for my chai. All my attention was on the bubbles, and I felt quite happy!

When children are encouraged to mindfully observe nature and the natural phenomena in their daily lives, they bloom into being unfettered and secure individuals who are able to understand and appreciate the relationship of all things animate and inanimate.

A grounding in the active use of the senses with a sense of wonder and respect is the gift of this kind of attention. Of course, this requires adults who have the time and the inclination to make this a priority. How we convey this will depend on each parent’s inclination– little songs and stories can be part of it. But always a sense of joy and wonder. It seems such a small thing, but it can make all the difference.

“For Longing.”

FOR LONGING

Blessed be the longing that brought you here
And quickens your soul with wonder.

May you have the courage to listen to the voice of desire
That disturbs you when you have settled for something safe.

May you have the wisdom to enter generously into
your own unease
To discover the new direction your longing wants
you to take.

May the forms of your belonging — in love, creativity
and friendship —
Be equal to the grandeur and the call of your soul.

John O’Donohue

“The Inner Voice.”

THE INNER VOICE

Somewhere in every heart there is a discerning voice. This voice distrusts the status quo. It sounds out the falsity in things and encourages dissent from the images things tend to assume. It underlines the secret crevices where the surface has become strained. It advises distance and opens up a new perspective through which the concealed meaning of a situation might emerge. The inner voice makes any complicity uneasy. Its intention is to keep the heart clean and clear. This voice is an inner whisper not obvious or known to others outside. It receives little attention and is not usually highlighted among a person’s qualities. Yet so much depends on that small voice. The truth of its whisper marks the line between honor and egoism, kindness and chaos. In extreme situations, which have been emptied of all shelter and tenderness, that small voice whispers from somewhere beyond and encourages the heart to hold out for dignity, respect, beauty and love.

John O’Donohue
Excerpt from BEAUTY

“If it doesn’t resonate…”

If it doesn’t resonate (even if its “supposed” to be the right thing to do), I choose not to do it…
I wait for my intuition and body instinct to give me the go ahead!

I focus on the “feelings” in my body,
I obey my insights,
I can determine the difference between a yes and a no on an energetic level.
I know what’s best for me in any given moment…

I question everything handed to me as gospel,
it is censured through my heart…

I trust my “heart self”
She is my connection to the source of all knowing,
She is my mentor and guide…
Through her I make choices that truly serve my well being and blossoming awareness.

— Caroline de lisser

“… the darkness, when provided sanctuary, is brighter than a thousand suns.”

Falling apart, holding it all together. Then falling apart, then holding it all together again. Cycles of integration and disintegration. Chaos and ground. Stillness and activity. Sanity and confusion. Hopelessness and hope. As flows the natural world, the unfolding of the heart is alive and of the unknown.

In ways the mind may never resolve, guidance is pouring through you, washing away that which is less than whole, preparing you for what is next. But what is next is always of the nameless and will never be approached ahead of time by means of the conceptual. Stay close in the liminal, and attune to the creativity as it emerges out of the here and now.

While the narrative that you are “falling apart” is rich and multi-layered, look carefully and see if you were ever “together” to begin with. You are the vast space in which “together” and “apart” dance in union, and you will never be limited to either of these narratives. Rest for a moment and honor the unprecedented nature of what is moving within you.

If you remain too identified with “falling apart,” you cut into the natural aliveness that is the essence of pure, immediate experience. You lose contact with the luminous within, and become misattuned to the wisdom of your unfolding experience, exactly as it is. You disconnect with the radiance of embodied presence, with the intelligence of the earth, and with the high-voltage realization that nothing has ever been wrong with you. You forget that the darkness, when provided sanctuary, is brighter than a thousand suns.

But if you remain too identified with “holding it all together,” you disconnect from your natural vulnerability and the spontaneous mystery as it appears, turning from the surging reality that your heart could break at any moment. It is true that raw, tender sadness or deflation could approach at any time, requesting safe passage inside you. But it is through this broken aliveness that the poetry of your life will flow.

Right in the middle of “falling apart” and “holding it together” is the secret essence. Stay there. It is here where the light and the dark are in union, where integration and disintegration emerge as one in love, and where lunar and solar are weaving the substance of the sacred world.

–Matt Licata

Winter Solstice.

"Almost Winter Solstice" moon, Anchorage, 12.17.16
“Almost Winter Solstice” moon, Anchorage, 12.17.16

Sink down, sink down, sink deeper and more deep
Into eternal and primordial sleep.
Sink down, be still, forget and draw apart,
Sink into the inner earth’s most secret heart.
Drink of the waters of Persephone,
The secret well beside the sacred tree.
Waters of life and strength and inner light –
Eternal joy drawn from the depths of night.
Then rise, made strong, with life and hope renewed,
Reborn from darkness and from solitude…

—  “Dion Fortune,  The Sea Priestess   (Thank you, Mara Freeman)

“A Winter Blessing”

My Tree World, 12.12.16, Anchorage, Alaska
My Tree World, 12.12.16, Anchorage, Alaska

 

A WINTER BLESSING

In the shadowed quiet of winter’s light
earth speaks softly
of her longing.

Because the wild places are in tears.
Come, she cries to us.

Kneel down here
on the frosty grass ,
and feel the prayer buried in the ground.

Bend your ear to my heart
and listen hard.

Love this world, she whispers.
Distill peace from the snow
and water the cities
with mercy.
Weave wonder from the forest
and clothe grief
with beauty.
Rest in the rhythm of the turning year,
Trace the bending arc
Rounding the curve toward justice.
And vow anew to do no harm.

The winter trees stand watch
haloed in the last gleams of the slanting sun.

Glory sings here.
Heaven echoes the call:
Repeat the sounding joy.

Make your life an answer…

~ Rev. Dr. Rebecca Parker