Two summers ago I helped my mom with her garden, lifting the heavy potting soil bag, fetching trowels, gloves, and weed bags, digging holes...it was okay, I didn't mind helping. Loved being outside, of course.
Last summer, my mom's back and hip being worse, I did a lot more. The usual going for …
I've been developing a deeper appreciation of contentment,
that barely blissful amalgam of awareness, appreciation, and acceptance gently simmering just beyond stillness
where perfection is known but has nothing to do with circumstance, where peace intersects with the pleasure of being,
whe…
A quiet mind is not an escape from the fortunes of life. In silence, joy or transcendent tranquility can arise, we might rub elbows with intelligence, or get an inkling of who we are. More typically, psylence allows for an awareness of ordinariness, and any physical and emotional sensations occurrin…
Sparrows are sweet and stunning, though the earth-tone feathers and their sheer numbers render them ordinary, just as everyday life seems to render most of us ordinary.
If a sparrow lands on your balcony railing and a deep vein of sadness wells up, spilling out of your eyes, it may be an accumul…
Sometimes, if feeling irritable, restless, or frustrated (or all three) it helps to close the eyes and sit in the silence of the bottom of the sea, the ocean depths, supported by sound-cancelling water.
Movement is slower there, and the roil of emotion and feeling remains at the surface. Whether…
In silence, the reality of oneness exists. What a rest and relief from the news of the world that is. In a quiet mind differences are the stuff of wholeness; there is no right or wrong, winners and losers. Peace is not complicated or confusing. It's simple.
If everyone in the world learned to quiet their mind and practiced it for even a few minutes every day, would the world become more peaceful and nurturing? Well, it is fun to speculate but that doesn't accomplish anything, and you can't make people learn to enjoy psylence anyway.
Not everyone is ea…
When quiet within you can feel presence, though it's not really a feeling but more of a knowing, or maybe knowing is the subtlest of feelings. Grosser feelings are easier to put words to than knowing—which is too ethereal to be sayable. So, trying to communicate something about presence generally ta…
It's lovely to enjoy silence when my emotions and feelings are at peace, but that is not always the case. Instead of getting annoyed with the presence of an uncomfortable feeling or sensation, I've learned to just allow it, let it be with me as an uninvited and semi-welcome guest.
Sometimes thes…
