I spent part of my day yesterday clearing out my desk drawers of accumulated old paid bills and papers from the last couple years. In the beginning, I felt energized and full of resolve, sorting papers into category piles to help me decide what I need to recycle and what I need to keep. Pretty […]
Author: elizaking
What Would Your Magic Potion Do?
As I was walking home a couple weeks ago, a small voice hailed me. “Want to buy a magic potion?” The speaker was a neighbor from up the street, a four-year old boy with dark straight hair, sitting with his Mom on the front steps of their house. A box with three small bottles lay […]
Wisdom of Fireflies
Dear Folks, One fourth of July evening when I was 13, my mother, sister and I sat out on a hillside near our house in Virginia. We pretended we had fabulous balcony seats overlooking a phenomenal light show. In front of us was a small forest of bamboo run wild from lack of knowledge about […]
Unexpected Benefits
“What are the benefits of practicing meditation?” a newcomer asked at a recent Still Water Mindfulness Practice Center orientation to an evening of mindfulness and meditation. Later, I thought of an answering question to understand better where the speaker was coming from, “What are you wanting from the practice. What is it you are longing […]
Stepping Up
“You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr. We’ve all had the experience of getting in the groove with something, exercising, playing an instrument, eating healthily, practicing meditation, and then letting one week slip by without doing that activity. Then without meaning to skip […]
Recipe for Friendship
One of my most vivid memories of my friend, Dotz, is of her calling my name at the Farmer’s Market on a hot summer day in Takoma Park. Dotz and I had met a few times before that day, once at the local yoga center, and again, unexpectedly, in Connecticut at a weekend poetry […]
Seeing Birds
“Close both eyes to see with the other eye.” —Rumi The anniversary birthday of my sister’s partner Nathaniel, an avid birder who died in an accident six and half years ago, occurred a few weeks ago in early January. In celebration of Nathaniel’s memory and his joy in birding and in life, friends and family […]
Coming Home to Ourselves
“Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.” –Edith Sitwell Dear Folks, I was walking down a neighborhood street this week and suddenly realized I had no idea where I was. The […]
Follow Your Rhythm
“As you begin to realize that every different type of music, everybody’s individual music, has its own rhythm, life, language and heritage, you realize how life changes, and you learn how to be more open and adaptive to what is around us.” —Yo-Yo Ma “One-two-three, One-two-three, One-two-three…” Does that sound familiar? Yesterday my music teacher […]
Going Gently
“To reteach a thing its loveliness is the nature of metta. Through lovingkindness, everyone & everything can flower again from within.” ― Sharon Salzberg Dear Folks, The Fall 2013 online Stress Cleanse is in its last days and as always, I learn so much from our participants! One woman writes, “There was something that you […]