Inspirational Blog
Time Travel: Are You Going...
It’s no use to go back to yesterday because I was a different person then. ~ Lewis Carroll from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Ignorance is bliss. When I read a book about the many benefits of becoming vegan for...
FEAR
The true courage is in facing danger when you are afraid. ~Frank Baum from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz One of my teachers says that fear is False Evidence Appearing Real. Courage is facing fear, not danger. Sometimes,...
What’s Love Got to Do...
I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty. You don’t grasp the fact that what is most alive of all, is inside your own house. ~Kabir Air surrounds everything, is in every living...
Build a Brick House
Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness. ~Edward Stanley, Earl of Derby, 1873 I am very proactive when it comes to my health. I brush and...
What to Do with All That Time
Millions long for immortality who don’t know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. ~novelist Susan Ertz I don’t want immortality. Knowing there will be an end adds meaning to my life and makes me...
Have Faith
Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase. ~Martin Luther King, Jr. When I watch my grandson or my parents go up or down stairs, they focus entirely on the step in...
Here and Now
“But what if I forget to be here and now?” worried Piglet. “No need to fret,” said Pooh reassuringly. “It happens to everyone. Once in a while your thoughts may carry you away to the ‘there and then,’ or...
Still Waiting?
Good things come to those who wait. ~English proverb I used to believe that, with enough patience, I could achieve anything. And so I would practice, practice, practice having patience. As with most things that I practice long...
Blessing the Year
We bless this year for all we learned, For all we loved and lost And for the quiet way it brought us Nearer to our invisible destination. ~John O’Donohue from At the End of the Year Before I look...
An Invitation to Look Again
ah, in the corner look again— winter chrysanthemum, red ~ Teijo Nakamura This week will be jam-packed with gifts and activities, so many that it’s easy to overlook a few of the most important ones that create meaning in...
Winter Solstice
So on these long nights of winter solstice may you find your wildest dreams walking companionably alongside you. Having waited for you all this time to turn toward darkness and find not fear, but peace and courage and wild...
Shazam!
Nothing is impossible. Even the word itself says, “I’m possible.” ~Audrey Hepburn When I feel overwhelmed or helpless, I call on my superpowers and, shazam!, they change an “impossible” situation into...
Looking for My Heart’s...
Much of the time we find what we are looking for– be that keys or trouble or some form of our heart’s desire. ~ Chris Heeter from On Seeking I’m at the stage of my life where I...
Thoughts on Thanksgiving
This food is the gift of the whole universe—the earth, the sky, and much hard work. May we live in a way that makes us worthy to receive it. May we transform our unskillful states of mind, especially our greed....
Stones and Turnips
Turn stones into turnips. ~paraphrased from Pigs Eat Wolves by Charles Bates It’s a good thing I love turnips because I’ve found lots of stones in my path. The stones are the obstacles or stumbling blocks that prevent
Drop the Old
Be like a tree and let the dead leaves drop. ~Rumi Today I threw away old photo albums. I’ve lately realized that all those pictures aren’t treasures others want to inherit. In fact, none of us have looked...
How Full is Your Glass?
Remember, every year two million people die of dehydration. So it doesn’t matter if the glass is half full or half empty. There’s water in the cup. Drink it and stop complaining. ~Rudy Francisco Sometimes I just need a...
Catch a Leaf
i catch the maple leaf then let it go ~John Wills There are lots of things that fall into our life, and other things get swept away. But this haiku is not about the things over which...
My Wildest Dreams
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting— over and over announcing your place in the family of things. ~Mary Oliver from Wild...
The World Goes On
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the...
Good Enough
You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. ~Mary...
A “Bird’s...
migrating birds— fields of pampas grass show the way ~Kristen Deming I love hearing the geese and cranes as they start their migration south. This haiku reminds me that sometimes I need to have a “bird’s eye”
The Honorable Life
Seeing the shadow Around each color, We honor our inner eye. Hearing the silence Around each sound, We honor our inner ear. Feeling the sacred Around each moment, We honor our inner heart. ~Tao Te Ching, Chapter 12, translated...
Good Fences
across a rose fence— a cat lover a cat hater ~Kazuo Sato I am so tired of the extremes of our politics. What happened to moderation? of seeing the other side? of win/win compromises? As a (recovering) perfectionist, I...
Learn to be Quiet
Learn to Be Quiet You need not do anything. Remain sitting at your table and listen. You need not even listen, just wait. You need not even wait, just learn to be quiet, still and solitary and the world will...
3 Things
To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go,...
Getting to the Real Me
You may not be what you think you are, But what you think, you are. ~Jim Clark In my yoga therapy training, I learned that the quality I believe I exhibit the least is usually the quality that underlies...
Lumps in Life
I only like a little bit lumpy stuff. ~wisdom from our almost 4 year old granddaughter There are lumps and bumps as I journey through life. Ideally, there will only be a little bit of challenge, just enough to...
The Opposite of Love
The opposite of love is not hate, but fear. I have no idea who said that or when I heard it. Elie Wiesel said something similar but ended his quote with “indifference” instead of “fear.” Indifference leads to...
Summer Song
stillness— piercing the rocks the sound of cicadas ~ Basho Matsuo The bittersweet sound of the cicadas reminds me that summer is almost over. We joke that spring and fall are only a weekend long, but summer is always...
Summer Relaxation
on the patio the afternoon drifts along with the butterfly ~Patricia Machmiller My husband and I just spent almost two weeks watching our grandchildren. It was exciting and exhausting. We kept them entertained and fed, gave baths
An Honor Badge
May this day, this predicted week of moist jungle air be for you an honor badge in loving what is. May you pause in your day, move slowly as this heat requests and notice how capable you are, how...
Abundance
Such love does the sky now pour, that whenever I stand in a field, I have to wring out the light when I get home. ~ St. Francis of Assisi I have so much energy when the sun is...
Getting Results
…do not depend on the hope of results. …you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you...
Weeds
A week away from the garden, rain and sun in my absence grow a jungle of weeds, a veritable lawn of grass in and amongst the planted ones. I can only stand back and marvel at what sun and rain...
Smile 🙂
“I’m walking to the bridge,” begins a Golden Gate Bridge suicide note. “If one person smiles at me on the way, I will not jump.” ~cited by Thomas Joiner, author of Why People Die by Suicide I believe our...
Culture
We shape ourselves to fit this world and by this world are shaped again. The visible and the invisible working together in common cause, to produce the miraculous. From Working Together by David Whyte I am molded by the...
Messages from the Universe
a small dew droplet sits atop a bright green leaf morning air is a gift ~ T. Iverson I love going out in my garden in the morning when everything is so fresh and inviting. I feel hopeful when I...
Spark Joy
In the Navajo tradition, a child’s birthday is a celebration of the first time that child laughs. At that moment, the Navajo believe, the child’s soul attaches to the body. ~Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin I love the idea...
Live a Larger Life
Be reckless when it comes to affairs of the heart. …Fall madly in love with life! Be passionate about some part of the natural and/or human worlds, and take risks on its behalf, no matter how vulnerable they make you....
A Good Shake
shaking the packet of seeds asking, are you still alive? ~ Kiyoko Tokutomi I planted my spring vegetable seeds the other week and anxiously waited for them to show signs of life. Alas! None of them have sprouted, so I...
Perspectives
Holding the water, held by it— the dark mud. ~William J. Higginson Is it the soil that holds the water to create mud or the water that holds the soil? Either way, it’s mud. This haiku helps me remember...
Thinking of Myself
Humility is not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less. ~C.S. Lewis Humility is related to being comfortable with who you are, and aware of your strengths and weaknesses. It’s obvious when someone thinks that they
Visiting or Experiencing?
When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real. I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument. I don’t want to end up simply having...
Jump!
“A bit of advice given to a young Native American at the time of his initiation: As you go the way of life, you will see a great chasm. Jump. It is not as wide as you think.” Joseph Campbell...
Just Do It
Start close in, don’t take the second step or the third, start with the first thing close in, the step you don’t want to take. ~from Start Close In by David Whyte Sometimes I need to remind myself...
Simplicity
this spring in my hut there is nothing there is everything ~SodoYamaguchi My parents moved to a smaller house this winter and it was a very difficult process for them to go through their belongings. It inspired me and...
The Cycle of Change
Everything changes in this world but flowers will open each spring just as usual. ~Japanese folk saying Change is a sign of life. Everything changes because everything that lives, grows and is affected by the world...
An Irish Blessing
May you take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention. May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder. ~ from For Presence by John O’Donohue Poets always remind us that...
How to Live
Let us live deep enough till there is only one direction… and slow enough till there is only the beginning of time… and loud enough in our hearts till there is no need to speak… ~ from Earth Prayer by Mark Nepo...
Looking Back to the Present
Let me tell you this: someone in some future time will think of us ~ Sappho as translated by Mary Barnard This fragment of a poem by Sappho, a female poet from 600 BC, is just as applicable in...
Offering More
At the end of the road, I will not be asking about outcomes. I’ll be asking if I was faithful to my gifts, to the needs I saw around me, to the ways in which my gifts might meet those...
Finding and Using Your Gift
The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away. ~ Pablo Picasso We all have a mission in life. That mission is to use our gifts to make the world...
A Metta Meditation
May I be free of inner and outer harm. May my physical body be healthy and strong. May my heart be filled with joy and peace. May my days unfold with ease. There are many versions of the...
Life Instructions
Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. ~Mary Oliver from Sometimes The inspirational poet Mary Oliver died recently. She was one of my favorite poets because her work was so accessible. In this stanza...
At the Edge of Comfort
There is beauty and sensuality in deep cold, but there is not much comfort to be found outside. And so we venture in as well as out because that is where life is meeting us… at the edge of...
What Matters
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” ~Martin Luther King, Jr. We all want to fit in. And we’re willing to sacrifice certain things in order to do that. We don’t speak...
To Glisten
To glisten: To be present with others in ways that help them shine into their deepest color, purpose and wisdom. ~John Paul Lederach Each of us has a mission in life. That mission is to use our gifts...
Our Embodied Experience
“The goal is to be relaxed without being slack, and alive and extended without being stiff. This gives us a sense of firmness and weight, and we feel ourselves properly balanced in space. There’s a sense of solidity without being...
Getting to a better you
“Be like a tree and let the dead leaves drop.” ~Rumi What do you need to leave behind in 2018? What needs to go so that you have the space to grow something new? Many of us drag outdated...
Keeping the Peace
Peace doesn’t mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart. ~anonymous Some of you...
Seeing what is
ah, in the corner look again— winter chrysanthemum, red Teijo Nakamura Perhaps you’ve been given a poinsettia or amaryllis for the holidays. At first, you may enjoy looking at it, maybe even going out of your way to admire it....
Namaste
“Namaste” means “the light within me bows to and honors the light within you.” It’s easy to say, but do you truly believe it? The first part is believing that you have “light” within you. That there is something wonderful...
The Blessing of Yoga
The yoga sutras are 196 sayings about yoga written before 400 CE by the sage Patanjali. They are considered the “yoga Bible” and an authoritative text. The first sutra is “Atha yoganusasanum,” which is usually translated as “And now the...