Winter Dark, Winter Magic

The Sprue Coppice, by Henrik Krogh
via the Textile Blog

What will you find in the dark winter woods?
May this winter season be filled with magic.

I've been doing some soul diving during these dark winter moons... I've been watching old beliefs rise to the surface and then leave me a little less burdened. In the space that's cleared from diving and uncovering the depths, I'm hoping some new and useful practices will form. I think this coming New Year's Eve ritual will involve giving thanks for the realized potentialities of the past year (so many miracles and blessings to count!) and also giving thanks for the yet un-realized potentialities waiting in the future. 

Return to Center

Arrows, by Finch and Canary

Life has a way of pulling you away from your center in a hundred different directions at once. My favorite way to return to center is to follow a simple pattern: In. Out. Gratitude. 

1. Sleep. Return to center by letting your body and mind do it naturally, without all of your efforting. In. Move into your breath and the heaviness of your body to help you fall asleep. Out. Move out naturally as you give up control and fall asleep. Gratitude. Wake up grateful!
2. Move. It happened that I took Neesha's "Finding the Hub: Centering Mind, Body, and Heart" class on yogatoday recently. Just what I needed. The key to the class:  In. Move into the core of your body.  (My favorite example: draw your arm bones in before raising them above your head.) Out. Open from the heart to the periphery of your body.  Gratitude.  Be grateful and joyful that you can share in the practice.
3. Meditate. Try this bell meditation, which is available via the On Being website. The principles should sound familiar by now:  In. Move in by focusing on the sound of the bell.  Out.  Move out by letting your mind open and welcome everything.  Gratitude.  End with gratitude and extend this joy and peace to all beings.

May you all feel the peace and joy that comes with feeling centered!

Happy May Day!

May Queen, by Ronnie Creswell

May the season be filled with abundant blessings and joy!

Imitating the Habit of Twilight

Untitled landscape, by Rabindranath Tagore

I've been feeling at odds with time lately. I say 'lately' not because my racing around is an entirely new feeling, but rather the same old feeling has been stronger the past few weeks, despite my best intentions to slow down. I know I'm partially making up for a few weekends of missed productivity, and I know I'm also being too concerned with getting everything done.

John O'Donohue has gave a fantastic interview with Krista Tippet of On Being, where he described stress as "a perverted relationship with time." A harmonious relationship with time, in his view, is being a subject within time and seeing the "deep heart" of time, which is possibility and transfiguration. It's such a beautiful thought, to see time as our invisible friend instead of our cruel tormentor. 

John O'Donohue also has a beautiful blessing for "one who is exhausted." Here is the end of it:

"Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.

Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time."

Postmodern Hymn: Morning Has Broken

Foxglove, by Beatrix Potter
via Shelley Bean, via Victoria Albert Museum

Here's another hymn that isn't entirely new (see my post on Brother Sun Sister Moon for another example). Cat Stevens brings a earnest, hippie feeling to this classic hymn, and the tone seemed just right for these spring days we've been having. I walk outside and see bursts of new color each day—what a miracle this world is!

Apocalypticism

The metaphorical end is truly coming. Are you prepared?

The Pretend Is Near, by Nick Nelson

What if we put our energies into the pretend, the future-now, instead of the usual future end time?

Time Traveling

Silvers Welch Road View, by Oldoinyo
via Selah, Selah

Four years ago, I made a fantastic decision, which has sent ripples of joy through my life ever since. 

I've recently discovered that this decisions could be called karmic . . . a kind of perfume that continues in the body and mind beyond a single moment. 

This may be a simple concept for some of you readers, but for me, this view of karma reawakened my sense of responsibility to create my life. 

May we all be blessed with joyful, creative moments.

The Ritual of Handwriting

Writing nailed to a tree, taken by me in northern Thailand, 2005

"It seems that handwriting is morphing into a source of leisure, reaffirming its magical, artistic and sacred origins."
    —Ecriture Infinie website

Ecriture Infinie is a world-wide project organized by Bili Bidjocka to celebrate the process of writing by hand. Large notebooks are filled with what contributors would write if it was their last opportunity to write something by hand. (Discovered via Black Eiffel.)

photo via cool hunting

What would you write as your last handwritten note? I think mine would have to be something personal and heartfelt. Perhaps a love letter, because I love getting hand-written notes from my husband. Sometimes I can't understand them, because his writing is a little scratchy, but I love that each letter uniquely reflects his hand.

Doorway Blessing

I've been thinking about posting a blessing near our front door, as a little reminder of how I'd like to live. Kind of like the mezzuzah of Jewish tradition, except completely different, because I wouldn't be playing by the rules.

Some contenders:

1. The closing prayer of the Navaho blessingway:

In beauty I walk 

With beauty before me I walk 

With beauty behind me I walk 

With beauty above me I walk 

With beauty around me I walk 

It has become beauty again 

It has become beauty again 

It has become beauty again 

It has become beauty again

It's hard to beat wisdom as beautiful as that. Whole books have been written about the Navaho concept of beauty, which can also be translated as harmony. More on that some other time. 

2. Some words a teacher used to say:

Now go out into the world, and expect the unexpected . . .

Simple words that I return to again and again.

Illustration by Carson Ellis for Wildwood
via Mrs Fancy Pants

3. Some words that I write myself that somehow capture the idea that the world is magical and I'm a part of it.  But if there are already such eloquent expressions out there, I'm not sure if I can say it any better.

Stay tuned!