The themes this week have been learning through experience (sitting in the middle of a forest, arms wrapped around a tree, waiting to experience what comes), and observing with one's whole being, with the heart. Those led me, not surprisingly, to this weekend's "quest" -- Practice For 20 minutes, sit yourself somewhere in nature, or…
A quote came up in my planner today that resonated with Bear Heart. I found it originally in The Little Prince: It is only in the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince What does this sentiment mean to you? It occurs to…
Imagine this: your teacher brings you to the middle of a forest and tells you to hug a tree. He says, “Stay here until I come back,” giving you no information about how long he’ll be gone or what you’re supposed to do, what you’re supposed to learn. So you sit, arms wrapped around bark,…
This week, Rumi's words inspired me to explore without planning what I might find. Gloria Fuertes and Rumi pointed toward different points of awareness than just our conscious mind: the body's "endless eye" and the "other eye" that we tune into when we "close both eyes." Fuertes reminds us that seeing with the body's eye…
I've been sitting with this question, trying to open to (per Rumi) what will happen instead of planning or trying to direct what I will find in meditation. I ran across this quote, an epigraph to Jesmyn Ward's Salvage the Bones, and I felt it articulated something I had been encountering -- the "eye" of…
Simple and Forgotten Things 