Being with the Bitter Sweet
You must know the bittersweet sentiment when a time of great change comes over you, leaving a feeling of aching joy. The tangy taste of the bittersweet is coming up for us this month, as we send off our only child to college. The masala of emotions is thick with feeling: joy and sorrow, gain and loss, relinquishing …
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The Face of God
In the era of Facebook, Zoom and Twitter, we are inundated by faces, faces of all kinds from immediately recognizable, celebrity faces to the faces of complete strangers. Two dimensional faces appear on the surface of our screens, faces made and manipulated, CGI constructed faces designed to look seductive or scary. On social media we encounter …
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The Zen of Oz
A Zen Moment of Awakening and Discovery It all started when Toto pulled back the curtain and revealed nothing but a puny man pulling on his levers. It was a very Zen moment– the bald head, the long black coat, the no God. After the trauma, getting banged on the …
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Be As You Are
It’s funny how we spend an entire lifetime trying to get somewhere. We struggle to get ahead in life, to make the grade, to get the big contract, to be liked on social media. Yoga and Spiritual Awareness A spiritual discipline is not immune to the mind that grasps. We …
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Seeing Clear to the Bottom
Flowing Like Water: Nurturing Adaptability and Clarity Water has been our theme this month. In practice, we have been moving in the Way of water, staying fluid and adaptable, always nourishing. We emulate water that is supple and soft yet can overcome the hardest thing. Water is humble for it has …
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The Call of Solitude
There is nothing as treasured as a dear friend, someone to be with in idle moments, walking the paths, sharing warbling thoughts, drinking tea. This friend is a confidant, one in whom you can place your trust and love the most, a virtual friend in God. In Sanskrit the trusted other is suhrid (su meaning …
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Staying Fluid in Space
Bring to mind in your meditation the image of a carpenter’s leveler, suspended in fluid, empty like a bubble. The leveler is used by surveyors, stone masons, and carpenters to indicate the point of balance. Visualize this point floating in your mid brain at the bridge spanning your two brain hemispheres. This empty bubble “breathes.” …
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The Center is Everywhere
It is ironic that yoga practices today speak so often of finding your center. “Become centered” or “center yourself inside,” say many teachers. What if there is no one center but that the center is everywhere? You could imagine this in your body as you orient from the center of the top of your head, the center of …
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Embodying the Tao
May I live as the river flows Carried by the surprise of my own unfolding. -John O’Donohue Cultivating Resilience and Nourishment Through Taoist Principles This summer we have been embodying the Tao in all of our practices. The Tao is best likened to water that is pliable, nourishing, and flows with …
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The Union of Opposites
The Split: A Universal Human Experience It is so easy for the mind to get split, hearkening back to the days of Sesame Street when an apple and a banana bounced across the screen with the ditty “one of these things is not like the other, one of these things …
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