Our Mindful Nature: Meditation Inspired by Nature to Soothe the Overwhelmed Mind and Ease Anxiety

My friends, if you read only one book this year, let it be Pause, Rest, Be: Stillness Practices for Courage in Time of Change My dear friend, Octavia Raheem has released her second book into the world and it is the balm we have all been waiting for. In her introduction, Octavia writes, “I created Pause, Rest, Be to meet you in the places that shape, redefine, and sometimes undo us: endings, limina...

As the light of the moon diminishes, and our meditation practice nears the end, we are reminded one last time to return to presence. If we have drifted off this is the moment to catch that last thought, daydream, or feeling, and to remember the wisdom of our practice before moving on with our day. Join me for today’s mini meditation in honor of the waning moon.   Special thanks to today’s sponsor:...

She wanes.  The moon gradually continues her cycle with diminishing light night after night until we return to the dark moon and start over again. This phase of waning light reminds us that we set an intention to turn our attention inward. The premise of this series has walked us through the cycles of the moon and their representations in our meditation practice. The new moon, waxing moon, full mo...

This week is the week of the January full moon. Many indigenious groups have specific names for each of the 13 full moons of the year. January’s moon, by northern and eastern tribes, was often called the wolf moon. So called because this is a time, deep in winter, when the wolves are hungry and howling frequently. Interestingly, the full moon is also the time when we are believed to be the most ma...

This week is the week of the January full moon. Many indigenous groups have specific names for each of the 13 full moons of the year. January’s moon, by northern and eastern tribes, was often called the wolf moon. So called because this is a time, deep in winter, when the wolves are hungry and howling frequently. For us too, January has evolved to be a hungry month. For many people throughout the...

We add light and awareness to our meditation practice, when we relinquish all judgment.  What happens when we stop telling ourselves we are wrong? That we are something to fix? What happens when we are curious instead? When we stop saying no; when we soften the armour around what we can’t feel or won’t feel, is it possible that there is wisdom waiting for us? Join me for today’s mini-meditation as...

This week, the moon is waxing. She is adding a sliver of light every night. We also see this experience mirrored in our meditation practice. We begin by simply settling into the present moment, and then, we add more light and deeper awareness by incorporating non-judgment into our practice.  In our daily lives, the waxing moon is typically an ideal time to brainstorm, to plant seeds of creation, a...

The new moon happens each lunar cycle; it is the time when the moon is completely dark. The new moon reminds us that the moon itself doesn’t possess any light. The light we so love and celebrate is a reflection, an illumination from a perpetually radiant source of light- the sun.  This is quite true of our meditation practice as well. It isn’t “meditation” - the type, style, name or duration - tha...

I am most decidedly NOT a night owl. I’ve always been early to bed, early to rise - hence teaching 6 a.m. yoga for more than a decade ;-)  And yet, over the last year, I found myself taking walks at night. Nothing fancy; just short strolls through my neighborhood - the same route I would walk with my kids during the daytime, and yet, I found it was completely altered at night.  As I’ve tracked the...

In today’s mini meditation we explore and honor the Mystery. The unknown forces that cause some moments to feel particularly chaotic or overwhelming and the unknown forces that tip us back into periods of calm.  We can look to the Winter Solstice as an example -  In ancient times, this was a moment when it appeared that the sun had stopped moving in the sky. The light had disappeared.  Our ancesto...

Happy Winter Solstice to my friends in the Northern hemisphere and happy Summer Solstice to those in the south! Today’s episode is the final installment of the Chaos to Calm series as well as my final episode of 2021.  In today’s class we explore and honor the Mystery. The unknown forces that cause some moments to feel particularly chaotic or overwhelming and the unknown forces that tip us back in...

Spiral fractals can be seen in shells, fiddlehead ferns, hurricanes, spiral galaxies, and the motion of fluid. And, isn’t this exactly what we are doing in our practice? We are spiraling inwards, learning to listen to our deepest selves.... but here is what I’ve learned about spiraling inward:  It isn’t as clear-cut as it first seems. It seems like we should always feel like we are getting closer...

In last week’s episode, From Chaos to Calm part 1, I kicked off this series with the idea of doing the deep work of noticing our own internal fractals. Remember, a fractal is a never-ending pattern that is created by repeating a simple process over and over. Last week, we looked at fractals that branch - trees, blood vessels, and rivers as examples, but there is another kind of fractal… a spiral. ...

I look at the calendar. I look at my to-do list. I look at my bank account. I look at my inbox. I repeat. This time of year more than any other, I feel the pull of the outer world rub distinctly against my desire to slow down, stay inside, and savor this dark, cozy season.  As I reflect on the familiar feelings of chaos, I realize that what I am seeing is a fractal. A fractal is a never-ending pat...

I look at the calendar. I look at my to-do list. I look at my bank account. I look at my inbox. I repeat. This time of year more than any other, I feel the pull of the outer world rub distinctly against my desire to slow down, stay inside, and savor this dark, cozy season.  As I reflect on the familiar feelings of chaos, I realize that what I am seeing is a fractal. A fractal is a never-ending pat...

Today, I am so delighted to share a conversation with Day Schildkret - an artist in pursuit of impermanent beauty - about his upcoming book Hello, Goodbye: 75 Rituals for Times of Loss, Celebration and Change, which will be published on January 25, 2022. Day is internationally known for his work Morning Altars in which he creates impermanent art through found objects in nature. In this conversatio...

Today’s mini meditation is a sneak peek of some new content soon to be released in Shoreline meditation app. This is a 10-minute guided walking meditation that you can do anywhere - your backyard, a sidewalk, a park, a hiking trail....  A mindful walk is a beautiful and valuable practice; it invites us to cultivate the qualities of meditation: presence, non-judgment and compassion, in our everyday...

Happy Thanksgiving.  As we acknowledge this holiday in our own chosen ways this year there is much to celebrate. There is also much to grieve. And, there is much to remember about the truth of our relationship with the indigenious people of this land.  As we each work to sort out our understanding, feelings and plans for the holiday, I thought we could practice today with the gift of contentment. ...

“Thinking only of the negative aspect doesn’t help to find solutions and it destroys peace of mind,” he writes. “I love smiles, and my wish is to see more smiles, real smiles. … If we want those smiles, we must create the reasons that make them appear.”  - The Dalai Lama In our practice, a bit of humor can be a mechanism for going deeper. Rather than doubt, judge or over-analyze, what happens if w...

This meditation series was crafted in response to a simple and mind-blowing statement that ‘humus, human and humor’ all share the same root word. In part 1, we explored the concept that we are earth come to consciousness {humus}. In part 2, we looked at what it means to be human; to be as boundless as the ocean {human}.  And now, in part 3 we look at humor in life and our meditation practice. The...

The classic text, the Ashtavakra Gita, is a dialogue on the nature of Self. Within it, we as human beings, are described as a boundless ocean. So much more than a single thought, a single mind, or a single body. Join me for today’s mini meditation as we tap into our true expansive nature.  These mini meditations are meant to support a daily home practice. Tune in every Monday to find your practice...

From Humus to Human Being  Today’s talk is an exploration of what it is to be human. To be earth come to consciousness. In many languages, cultures and depth practices, there is a word or phrase that means something along the lines of “I am that I am”. In Sanskrit, So Ham means “I am that I am”. In Hebrew, Hineni means “I am here”. These words & phrases point to something vast and boundless. S...

In a recent meditation, the Franciscan priest and author Richard Rohr wrote: “Being human means acknowledging that we're made from the earth and will return to the earth. We are earth that has come to consciousness. In all the ancient teachings, we read that the body is a microcosm of the universe. There is both poetry and science in these statements. When we acknowledge the truth of this connecti...

Recently, I listened to an interview with Suzanne Simard, author of Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest. She talks so beautifully about how forests are wired for wisdom and how trees that we previously thought were drowning out young saplings are actually helping them to thrive, much like a grandmother-mother-child relationship. Within this interview, a comment was made t...

Since 2006, I have been pulling at the threads of meditation. The threads of mindfulness, of Shamatha, of Vipassana, of Tantra, of Sri Vidya... ⁠ ⁠ While styles, words, and texts may differ, there are some threads that run through all of these practices. ⁠ Threads of Truth, I call them. ⁠ ⁠ In the creation of my Awakened Heart Meditation Teacher Training, I wove these threads together. ⁠ ⁠ The wor...