Category: perception

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Palpable Joy: A November Gratitude Challenge

This post is a slightly modified excerpt of Woodland Manitou: To Be on Earth.

It’s Halloween in America.  If you’ve gone into any commercial establishment in the last few weeks, you’ve been bombarded with pumpkins of all sizes and materials, plastic decor of infinite variety, mountains of orange and black wrapped candy, and enough cheap costuming to clothe the entire country for a year.  The holiday season is about to begin in earnest as October gives way to the season of shopping, otherwise known as Thanksgiving and Christmas. Commercialism abounds, we get sucked into the frenzy even if we don’t like to shop, and good deals take our attention from being content with what we already have.  We eat too much too quickly and have more excuses than usual for why we can’t exercise.   For many of us, the holidays mean putting on weight, being stressed out, spending too much money and throwing in the towel until January.   Often times we are multi-tasking, working late to prepare for a few extra days off or packing frantically to visit the in-laws.  We get snippy with our children, our neighbors put up lights that are too bright and we hope the time goes quickly. It doesn’t feel like a time of celebration when culture calls the shots.  We forget to be mindful and live in the present.  Even in this season that’s supposed to be about thanksgiving, we forget to practice gratitude. Continue reading “Palpable Joy: A November Gratitude Challenge”

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Snake Bucket

It was the stuff of childhood lore, really, those few years when garter snakes declared the low area just behind the house their territory.  We’d lead unsuspecting friends over to the barrel with the mesh lid on it and they’d run away shrieking at the sight of that day’s capture writhing up the sides, looking … Continue reading Snake Bucket

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Waking Up

A bear wakes up in spring and gets back to the business of living out loud and breathing fresh air and moving though the days with intention.   Maybe a person in spring can do the same and get back to the business of living and breathing and moving through the days with intention.   … Continue reading Waking Up

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Tea

In the evening (or anytime, really) take a kettle and fill it with water. Put it on the stove, and let the heat invite the steam to sing. Pour the water over dried herbs, loose leaf, or in a bag. Let it sit, and sit with it, (maybe outside). After 5 minutes, or ten, have … Continue reading Tea

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12 Tiny Things

What does it mean to “nourish our roots?”  That question could be answered in myriad ways, but one constant is that to effectively nourish, said ‘nourishment’ must often be ingested in small bites.  When I water the garden in the summer, the plants do much better when I give them a steady, small stream of water over time rather than if I just dump a whole bucket on at once.  And interestingly (and not surprisingly) when I meditate I get a lot more out of five minutes than I do out of an hour.  Because when I try to do an hour?  It doesn’t last.  But five minutes?  That I can handle, even days at a time.  Tiny doesn’t have to mean insignificant.  Tiny can actually mean commitment and impact, if we let small things be enough.  Because when enough builds, we find that we have a strong root system.  A foundation that won’t crumble.  A sustainable way of operating in the world.  Less overwhelm in a culture that often feels out of control.  Continue reading “12 Tiny Things”

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Where the Magic Happens: Practicing Radical Authenticity

Here we are at the end of another December.  A time for looking back over the past year and looking ahead into the new one.  Some of us will indulge “one last time” before beginning a strict diet on January 1st.  Some of us will set lofty goals to exercise 6 days a week at the gym that we hate.  Some will get out a blank journal with the intent of getting up early every single day to write down three positive thoughts.  New years resolutions come in many forms, and sometimes they even stick for awhile.  Benefits have been seen by setting one’s sights on making change with the turn of the calendar year.

But.  So often it’s the same old same old every year.  The diet starts strong and tapers off by February.  It turns out we still hate the gym enough to stay home more often than not.  “Thinking positive” starts to feel like pulling the wool over our eyes and avoiding the root issue.   New years resolutions can be useful in setting a path forward, but they also fail a large percentage of the time.  They don’t do what we really want them to do.   They don’t change what we want them to change.

Do we throw in the resolution towel then?  Stop setting goals since we just fail at them over and over again?  Embrace our negative thinking since that’s what feels real?

Maybe.  Actually, I propose we do all of those things.

Continue reading “Where the Magic Happens: Practicing Radical Authenticity”

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Health, Healing and Patience

I’ve been sick for three months.  Sounds terrible, right?  It’s not been awesome, that’s for certain, though it’s not like I’ve been bed-ridden or in the hospital for weeks or anything.  I got a cough in September, just after my second book was published and launched, which developed into bronchitis, which in turn didn’t respond to antibiotics (since it usually doesn’t….being almost always viral..), and vaporizing eculyptus, drinking gallons of tea, trying to rest, and all the usual home “self-care” remedies just didn’t have much impact.  My family got tired of the incessant coughing, and for good reason – it’s hard to relax when your loved one is up half the night, especially when you live in a small house.  After too many days of cough syrup in an attempt to get the rest I needed to heal, I landed in the emergency room on Thanksgiving day – I woke up disoriented and with a pretty solid case of vertigo and nausea.  Turns out I was dehydrated, and after an IV of fluids, another clear chest Xray and a negative strep test, they sent me on my way, feeling less dizzy, but still coughing.  Continue reading “Health, Healing and Patience”