These days are like scooping mercury. Chasing after it can be so exhausting as it beads and evades more with each attempt to contain it.
Feeling the need to clean it up, but might just have to sit here for a bit and just watch as it glides and rolls around making beautiful patterns and shapes.
Remarkable how something so potentially harmful can have such valuable purpose and be so beautiful.
Feeling the tug on the visceral thread that connects us all…riding the wave…knowing we are all so bravely in this together.
On the surface rests an assumption of flavor, texture, and tartness. Neither color, nor shape, nor size can truly tell me what’s inside.
I can’t necessarily rely on prior experience to guide me. I am informed and intelligent, yet my predictions are never risk free. There is always a chance of finding sourness, mushiness, under ripeness or rot. Even in the bitterness there is nutrition.
Am I willing to let down my guard, to go against the odds, and to look past the outside appearances and find a way to see all as just ripe for me?
Through your accomplishments I gain confidence in my ability to move the world.
In your mistakes I recognize your willingness to be my teacher.
In your humility I lay down my need to fight for my existence.
In your weakness I see the most incredible power.
Each time I pause to notice, I cannot help but shed tears of incredible gratitude and honor in feeling into life through your heart and eyes.
Both chairs are always available to you. One sits above and allows you to sprinkle your wisdom confidently, but also requires you to hold a caring space, to lift me up. The other sits at the feet of the first, providing a place to listen, learn and receive, ignighted by curiosity and wonder.
Which seat do you choose? Can you find a way to sit under, to humbly receive and accept knowledge and perspective from others? Can you sit above without looking down and casting a shadow?
Is there a way you can fit in either seat depending not on what you desire but on what I need?
Please come sit with me for a spell.
As the last of the peppers hang on the branches of summer gardens, I am reminded that all dressed up in their glossy and attractive shades and shapes, all peppers really do look quite similar. Yes, some may be longer or rounder, but for the most part you can recognize a pepper when you see one.
The truly interesting part is that what you see on the outside rarely relays the tastes and sensations that are discovered on the inside. Size, color, and shape don’t always indicate what you will find. Stand a bright yellow pepper next to a long red one and you might think they were very different until you take a bite. Then you find a delicious sweetness in both of them. On the other hand, line three different green peppers up together and each can have a distinct flavor — some cool and sweet and others quite bitter or firey. In fact, some peppers will even take your breath away.
All crisp, juicy, and designed to complement one another, peppers come in all shapes and sizes, all flavors and intensities, all suiting different taste buds. Imagine if the world had only one type of pepper. Imagine if someone tried to decide which pepper was best for all and ignored the taste treats hidden in the others.
Isn’t it grand we have so many peppers to get to know?
On this road of life, we are fortunate there are many places to stop for nourishment and refueling.
The key is to listen for sounds of rumbling and feel for the vibrations of imbalance, to watch the gauges and keep a keen lookout – from the inside – for what’s needed on the outside.
Know that your intuition is powerful and your breath like fuel.
Listen up,
fill up,
tune up,
and rev up.
Make wise choices and the road is yours.
Lighten up on yourself, my dear friend.
You have not veered off the path.
Every apparent curve, every jagged edge, and every soft shoulder belongs to the path.
It’s all the path.
So, pack extra love and the balm of forgiveness and grace in your backpack
and set off
not for the journey
but as the journey.
Lighten up on yourself, my dear friend.
You have not veered off the path.
Every apparent curve, every jagged edge, and every soft shoulder belongs to the path.
It’s all the path.
So, pack extra love and the balm of forgiveness and grace in your backpack
and set off
not for the journey
but as the journey.
Of varying form and purpose, we all arrive in a beautiful and powerful way – the key is to remain here not with force but with formidable grace.
Monday Mindfulness 