Tag: meditation
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Making space
For as long as I can remember, I have always been chasing space. Space to read, space to paint, space to watch a sunset, space to meditate, space to write, space to sew, space to sit in a sunbeam streaming through the window. You get the drift. It’s not that I have never had the…
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Keeping it simple
As many of you know, I am currently at my cabin in Northern Manitoba (Canada). There have been a few forest fires up here, to say the least. What’s more is that due to the vast size of the Boreal forest, the fires will be an ongoing concern for months to come. This means that…
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My safe place
There’s a meditation practice that I guide from time to time that is taken from the Mindfulness Association’s Level 2 course: Responding with Compassion. It’s an imagery practice called Safe Place. Pinning down its exact origins can be tricky. For instance, I know that it is a meditation that is also used in Compassion Focused…
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Sympathetic joy
It’s funny, I don’t talk about mindfulness that much with my inner circle of friends. Maybe they would say different but it’s rare that I espouse the benefits of mindfulness, or wave the flag. Don’t get me wrong, I have plenty of friends who I work with or practice with in which I do talk…
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Celebrating lost days
A few days ago, I was taking a break amidst a busy ten day stretch of teaching and I had met a friend for a quick coffee catch up. As we shared the highlights of our schedules, I admitted sheepishly that right before things got busy for me, I had spent a couple of days…
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Disturbing the peace
A few days ago, I received a lesson from a duck. I was on my daily walk and I stopped to watch a number of mallards as they appeared to be peacefully swimming along the reeds of a slow moving river. They were casually foraging for food when I noticed this one duck repeatedly pecking…
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Mindfulness of Houseplants
Recently, a friend was in my house commenting on how healthy my houseplants are looking. My jaw nearly hit the floor. I have never been known for the health of my houseplants. In fact, I have been known for bringing them into work so those colleagues of mine, who are fortunate enough to have a…
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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…
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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…
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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…
My Silent Place 