Love changes everything

Love Note For Hard Times

best of 2009 Challenge. Something that really made you grow this year. That made you go to your edge and then some. What made it the best challenge of the year for you? [Mahala's note: Not all challenges have the rush of excitement and the thrill of the pushing the limits. Sometimes the edge looks [...]

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Three Conscious Breaths

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Best of 2009 Moments of peace. An hour or a day or a week of solitude. What was the quality of your breath? The state of your mind? How did you get there?
Almost every week I hear someone say they’d love to leave everything behind and live a blissful life in some remote monastery.
My mental [...]

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Pages from the Book of Life

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Best of 2009 Book. What book – fiction or non – touched you? Where were you when you read it? Have you bought and given away multiple copies?
I start this post with a confession. I haven’t read a book from cover to cover in over 20 years.
It’s not that I can’t read. It’s that [...]

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Arizona In My Mind

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Gwen Bell is a social media rockstar and an absolute sweetheart. She’s invited more-or-less the entire world to join her in writing about their Best of 2009 experiences with a different subject for each day of the month. Pretend it’s December 1st when the prompt was: Trip. What was your best trip in 2009?
My [...]

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Shenpa: Why Holidays Hurt & What We Can Do About It

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There’s a Buddhist practice I’ve been working with a lot lately. The Tibetan word for it is shenpa.
Most of the time shenpa is translated as “attachment.” Pema Chodron translates it as hooked, or how we get hooked. She compares it to an itch we can’t help but scratch.
Here’s a basic example of shenpa: [...]

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Gratitude | Gary Snyder | Mohawk Prayer

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Photography as Meditation: The Friday Flower Thursday Photo. Sometimes just photos. Sometimes with writing. Appearing on Fridays Thanksgiving.
Gratitude to Mother Earth, sailing through night and day —
and to her soil: rich, rare, and sweet
in our minds so be it
Gratitude to Plants, the sun-facing light changing leaf
and fine-root hairs; standing still through wind
and rain; their dance [...]

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Army of Love and Compassion

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Photography as Meditation: The Friday Flower. Sometimes just photos. Sometimes with writing. Appearing on Fridays.
When Nelson Mandela was released after 27 years in prison for anti-apartheid activities, he was a strong voice for reconciliation and negotiation. His efforts, along with others such as Bishop Desmond Tutu, helped South Africa transition to a multi-racial democracy.
In an [...]

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Tender Edges of Your Heart

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Photography as Meditation: The Friday Flower. Sometimes just photos. Sometimes with writing. Appearing on Fridays.
There is a misconception, I think, that meditation and living in close relationship with your heart means your life will go easily.
But being luminous isn’t easy. It isn’t all love and light. It isn’t soft. It isn’t new age-y. And it [...]

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The Dalai Lama on Waking Up:
Getting Out of Bed on the Way to Enlightenment

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Photography as Meditation: The Friday Flower. Sometimes just photos. Sometimes with writing. Appearing on Fridays.
How we start our morning influences our entire day.
Some of the fortunate, disciplined and/or devoted among us manage to start with meditation, yoga or some small ritual to ground the day in mindful awareness.
But most of us simply hope to [...]

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Thoughts On Giving & Receiving

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Photography as Meditation: The Friday Flower. Sometimes just photos. Sometimes with writing. Appearing on Fridays.
These flowers, liatris, make me think of candles. The small flowers bloom on long wands from the top to the bottom. To me it’s like flames and wax dripping down. I actually thought one name for them was candle flower, but [...]