47 degrees, I took a predawn walk around the hood this morning, then sat at the firepit to warm up.   We rarely get cold weather here, so I like to get out in it as often as I can.  The cold shocks my system to a new level of awareness: the chill air on my skin, on my lips, against my teeth, into my lungs.  In the cold, I wear my hair down and tucked into my collar for a warm hairshawl.  The sensation of my own hair against my skin is new awareness for me, since at home I wear my hair up. Piling on layers of clothing gives me new awareness of my physical body: where I feel warmth, where I feel a breeze, where I feel free, where I feel restricted.  A tight sleeve makes me feel restricted and limited.  A heavy shoe makes me feel restricted but secure.   Having new sensations creates new thoughts.  Sitting in the cold — just like any other relatively unfamiliar event or behavior — evokes profound meditation for me.  A seeing of myself from an entirely different perspective.  The many looking outward from the one.   Today, I’ve allowed my thoughts to congest my sinuses to justify sleeping all day while my subscious works it all out for me.  I’ll oblige the Universe and do just that.

RELATED: Meditation links

Oh what a tangled web we weave

I’ve been watching Weeds, a show I discovered in 2012 when I had the Showtime channel for a promotional month.  Starring Mary-Louise Parker, I saw a half dozen episodes in 2012 and then forgot about it until I got Netflix and saw it on the lineup.  Score!  It took me a few months to get to it, but I began watching with Season 1, Episode 1 and watching a few in a row in the midnight hours.  It’s the first time I’ve done that, spent hours at a time immersed in a show and I used it as a format for observation, as I would had I stepped into their life with them.  I got to know each character and, thanks to excellent production and editing, got to feel I was right there with them during everything they went through.  Each day I’d take the events into my meditation, as I would my own real life previous day’s events.   Continue reading →

The festival of painting continues! I painted until 3:00am yesterday morning, then 8am-ish made coffee for the man. We’ve got an easy morning routine of chatting about what we’ll do each day. Self employed from home, we keep each other motivated to stay on task! Today I couldn’t goof off until I finished billing, answered emails and returned calls but I was in the art studio by noon.  In true Aries fashion, I’d begun several paintings and had them set up around me in various stages of completion.  In the midst of working on one of an out of body, astral flight, I began the one you see here to the right.  I notice I’ve got an owl in many of my sketches. I never felt a particular affinity for them until recently.  I was surprised to find I’d sketched so many through the years, several different kinds.  The subconscious at work! I wrote here about –-> The owl as a medicine totem animal.

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… Sit twice a day for 20 minutes at a time …

Morning meditation. A lot to be thankful for. A new day, a new beginning, a fresh start. Starting right now, I can be more mindful as I go about my day, to draw every bit of juicy sweetness out of it as possible. I want to expand myself to live my most full and meaningful life. I want to live a life that encourages opening eyes to the simple wonder we live in and to how powerful we all are. Truth and transparency set you free like nothing else. Doubt leaves, Grace descends. The more I look to be grateful for, the more profoundly I am blessed.

RELATED: Meditation links

Before work today, I took a pre-dawn trip to the beach for morning meditation. I sat on the steps awhile and then took my blanket out to the dunes for morning yoga in the cool air. It was low tide. No one else in sight nor needed to be; I was joined by the ever present Presence. No lights and no moon, yet the scene was lit from within by my own radiant heart.

RELATED: Meditation links

My waking thought was the subject of this morning’s meditation: invisible supply, the fact that (my understanding of) God is my supply. This realization changed my understanding and changed my life. I see Google Books has an excerpt of Joel Goldsmith’s book online.  Pages 3-7 tell you enough to rock your world.  Read those pages over a few times, take them into meditation.  Your world will change.  It helps me to see supply, friends, happiness, money as coming out of me, just as an oak tree comes out of an acorn.  It’s all within us. All we need do, as Robert Browning wrote, is to open a way for the imprisoned splendor within us to escape.

RELATED: Meditation links

I wrapped up in a sheet and sat in the pouring rain last night in the backyard.  It had been raining off and on, short spells of pouring.  I was reminded of a powerful waterfall meditation I’d had once at a retreat, so I prepared for it. I pulled a bedsheet out of the closet and wrapped it around me like a cloak.  I went out into the backyard and found a grassy spot to sit on.  The skies were cloudy, no moon in sight at 9:30 pm. It was about 77 degrees. I began by preparing myself by breathing rhythmically.  Within a few moments, a downpour hit and I could feel it pummel down on me.  I had the sheet over my head as well, but within a moment I was soaked through.  I’d prepared myself for the chill by doing yogic fire breaths.  Continue reading →