Tag: meditation
-
Do our expectations get in the way?
I can remember being a smug teenager who constantly reminded my mother that if she was going to place expectations on me, she was only setting herself up for disappointment. I have no idea where I got the confidence to make such an assertion and at such a young age; however, it was not far…
-
Lost and found
For quite some time now, I have been inspired by a beautiful poem written by David Wagoner called “Lost”. This past week I discovered that Wagoner based his poem on a traditional teaching given by Indigenous elders in the Pacific Northwest (U.S.A.). The story goes that a child asks an elder what to do if…
-
Easter: a chance to begin again
Easter has always been my favourite time of year. I was raised with a multitude of Easter traditions (fundamentally born of my Ukrainian heritage). These traditions range from church on nearly every day of Holy Week to dying eggs and baking something called Babka bread, or “little grandmother” bread. Easter, for my family, is an…
-
What’s your prescription?
Recently, I have been delivering a programme on Rest and one the practices that we do is setting our personal prescriptions. What does this mean? To begin with, it’s an exercise taken from Claudia Hammond who is a BBC radio presenter and delivers the podcast ‘All in the Mind’. It’s the practice of what she…
-
Re-emergence
Many years ago, a dear friend of mine happened across what she called ‘the day of the frogs’ . She had been over for an evening of soap making and had just moved into the area. When she left to drive home, she was a bit unsure of directions, so I made her promise me…
-
To punish or to heal, that is the question
Have you ever heard a soundbite spouting an obvious truth that is executed with such freshness that it stops you in your tracks and spurs on a moment of deep insight? It’s almost as if this soundbite is a message from beyond, smacking you across the face and telling you to wake up. I think…
-
The epiphany of awe
I am what some might call a prairie chick. Well, maybe I am a hen now. And yes, I know it isn’t exactly PC to relate myself to a bird- the poor chickens 😉What I mean by this statement is that I was raised on the Canadian Prairie. For those of you living in Canada…
-
Against the grain
There is a Buddhist teacher named Pema Chodron who has famously declared that, “to be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest”. I remember when I read this for the time, a droll smirk formed on my face. Accompanying this smirk, my internal dialogue muttered the word, ‘Great..’.…
-
The practice of looking up
Last week, things were feeling tight. Part of my discomfort was that I had a computer heavy week with very little output. This is perhaps funny as one of the projects that I was working on was the Art of Rest, which is starting in the Sanctuary this coming weekend. Despite the research that I…
-
When in doubt, keep on keeping on
I have been stepping out of my comfort zone a lot lately. Last September, I started “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron. The Artist’s Way is a bestselling book that guides the reader through 12 weeks of self-discovery and an uncovering of all that holds one back creatively. Through the 12 weeks, I have been…
My Silent Place 