That Reminds Me
Posted: July 17, 2014 Filed under: Meditation, Yoga | Tags: art, blogging, compassion, freshly pressed, friends, happiness, health, Home, Identity, kindness, life, Literature, love, meditation, motivation, musings, natural, nature, Ogden Nash, Omaha, passion, perspective, Poetry, teaching, Wonder, writing, Zen 7 Comments…
Just imagine yourself seated on a shadowy terrace,
And beside you is a girl who stirs you more strangely than an
heiress,
It is a summer evening at its most superb,
And the moonlight reminds you that To Love is an active verb.
And your hand clasps hers, which rests there without shrinking,
And after a silence fraught with romance you ask her what she is
thinking,
And she starts and returns from the moon-washed distances to the
shadowy veranda,
And says, Oh I was wondering how many bamboo shoots a day it
takes to feed a baby Giant Panda.
Or you stand with her on a hilltop and gaze on a winter sunset,
And everything is as starkly beautiful as a page from Sigrid Undset,
And your arm goes round her waist and you make an avowal
which for masterfully marshaled emotional content might have
been a page of Ouida’s or Thackeray’s,
And after a silence fraught with romance she says, I forgot to or-
der the limes for the Daiquiris.
Or in a twilight drawing room you have just asked the most mo-
mentous of questions,
And after a silence fraught with romance she says, I think this
little table would look better where that little table is, but
then where would that little table go, have you any sugges-
tions?
And that’s the way they go around hitting below our belts;
It isn’t that nothing is sacred to them, it’s just that at the Sacred
Moment they are always thinking of something else.
Liberation : Front :
Posted: July 11, 2014 Filed under: Meditation, Yoga | Tags: blogging, compassion, cycling, exercise, family, fitness, free range, freshly pressed, friends, gluten free, GONG Ride, happiness, health, hope, kindness, life, love, lululemon, marathon, meditation, motivation, natural, nature, Omaha, paleo, passion, perspective, running, social media, Summer, trail running, writing, yoga, Zen 5 CommentsIf you’ve got nothing to dance about, find a reason to sing-
There are an infinite amount of wellness, exercise, health, fitness, yoga and “whatever” blogs, websites and apps that offer endless advice opportunities to improve ourselves, although until we learn how to love our true selves, and nurture these fragile new shoots? It’s unlikely we’ll find the love we seek. When we approach our search for self-love as an intimate journey, and not as a Strava race against time, a punishing series of new workouts or some extreme mud run, everything changes.
…
In the last five years of seeking a relationship with myself (you read that correctly – some dude learning to love himself … Not a cool thing to admit now isn’t it?), I have spent an incalculable amount of hours looking for love in places that lacked love: Battering my body early every morning in the gym and trail running until exhaustion before bed, using “extreme” and “trendy” training methods I read about online that had little to do with self-love. Concealing all traces of my unseemly need to be someone who I was not … I was endlessly engrossed seeking to be the best. However, as it turns out, this path led me a life of pain and ruin.
As much as we are led to believe that finding self-love and accepting who we really are is all about maxing out each and every rep, improving our appearance in yoga class, or beating every goddamn person in this marathon … It’s ultimately our inner spirit that lets us find and keep real, lasting love. When we learn to bring our inner spirit into the ways we search for self-love? This is when the real changes begin to happen in our lives.
Daily Meditation:
Through exploring and finding our own deeper insights, we transform and deepen our search for self-love … I have finally come to believe that these moments of self-reflection move us more quickly to finding self-love than anything else we will read about today.
Thank you Claudia for the recent award and for inspiring me to finally publish this post.
Midsummer Night
Posted: July 10, 2014 Filed under: Meditation, Yoga | Tags: blogging, Carol Ann Duffy, life, love, meditation, musings, nature, Omaha, passion, Poetry, Summer, writing, yoga 9 Comments…
Not there to see midsummer’s midnight rose
open and bloom, me,
or there when the river dressed in turquoise
under the moon, you;
not there when stones softened, opened, showed
the fossils they held
or there, us, when the dark sky fell to the earth
to gather its smell.
Not there when a strange bird sang on a branch
over our heads, you
and me, or there when a starlit fruit ripened
itself on a tree.
Not there to lie on the grass of our graves, both,
alive alive oh,
or there for Shakespeare’s shooting star,
or for who we are,
but elsewhere, far. Not there for the magic hour
when time becomes love
or there for light’s pale hand to slip, slender,
from darkness’s glove.
Not there when our young ghosts called to us
from the other side
or there where the heron’s rags were a silver gown,
by grace of the light.
Not there to be right, to find our souls, we,
dropped silks on the ground,
or there to be found again by ourselves, you, me,
mirrored in water.
Not there to see constellations spell themselves on the sky
and black rhyme with white
or there to see petals fold on a rose like a kiss
on midsummer night.
The : Hop :
Posted: July 9, 2014 Filed under: Meditation, Yoga | Tags: blogging, compassion, cycling, fitness, GONG Ride, gratitude, Gravel Rding, health, kindness, life, love, meditation, motivation, musings, nature, nebraska, Omaha, passion, perspective, Power Yoga, Questions, Summer, yoga 11 CommentsI must be a mermaid, Rango. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living-
As I strive to live each day, focused on changing myself and the world we live in for the better, I started to notice I ask more questions than actually getting anything meaningful accomplished.
…
Many moons ago when I first started writing this humble blog-o-thing, I came up with a litmus test before doing “anything” – Ask questions out loud to myself, situations change when I take a moment to write my most vulnerable thoughts and questions down and get a healthy, deep inner dialogue going. Yes! Talk out loud to yourself in public, trust me its OK, and here’s why: Asking questions matters in our lives. I’m a shining example that a deeper level of questioning can help to transform yourself.
*Listed below, in no particular order are a few questions I kick around, out-loud mind you, during the course of a day*
Can I do one thing today to make a small, noticeable difference?
What am I waiting for?
Am I as open to new possibilities as I think I am?
What can I do differently today, to begin making the changes I want to make in my life?
What do I want to spend the rest of the day doing?
How do I create more harmony and bliss in my life?
What do I look forward to doing every day?
What’s the tiniest change I can make that will create the largest difference in my life, change that might create a ripple effect touching those around me?
What am I creating that will outlive me?
Daily Meditation:
Is it time to start something new? Like right now?
When I’m not asking myself questions, I become stuck in the same old habits, the same old tired and worn out routines. Sometimes Dear Reader – All it takes is asking a question out loud before entering your 10am yoga class. A piece of paper from a kitchen drawer to scribble a note, a blank screen on your gadget to see your amazing reflection … The simple act of speaking (or writing) a question, makes it tangible, dense and real.
…
Last June after dealing with another string of self-inflicted injuries from racing and competing beyond what my body could take. A friend offered up a ride to take my mind off things … This upcoming Saturday evening is the annual GONG Ride here in our fair city – Omaha, Nebraska! Hands down the best social ride in Omaha all year – Please join us and keep in mind, the first round of drinks is on me!
Beyond this Moment
Posted: July 8, 2014 Filed under: Meditation, Yoga | Tags: blogging, Body Image, compassion, cycling, exercise, Facebook, fitness, free range, freshly pressed, friends, gluten free, GONG Ride, Gravel Riding, Gravel Riding Omaha, happiness, harmony, health, hipster, kindness, life, love, lululemon, marathon, meditation, motivation, musings, natural, Omaha, passion, perspective, pilates, running, simplicity, trail running, whole foods, WOD, writing, yoga Leave a commentArousal begins within the mind, then seeps out where fantasy propels physicality-
Is striking a match necessary in order to light a candle? The initial sparks of a freshly lit candle can yield a warm blaze, and the same simple action(s) can be applied to lighting our inner fire.
…
The passion building in our hearts matters just as much as what our muscles are doing in regards to sparks that can start a fire. If you are thinking about your workout program tomorrow morning, segment planning on Strava, picking out your running clothes and making sure your yoga pants are ready to go … These feelings of passion are likely to arise. If you are focused on the way your body “looks“, the woman who just breezed by you, comparing yourself to everyone in the crowd or fleeting fantasies of how “hot” and “toned” you will be after class? Odds are that your passion will decrease …
Daily Meditation:
The key word folks is focus. States of flow, including flow during yoga class and while out riding early one morning, depend upon my focused attention (otherwise I keep awaking old injuries). Hence, I prefer to spark my fire by using a magnifying glass – Like a beam of light, the more pinpoint my focus, the more intense my states of flow are. A magnifying glass can intensify and focus sunlight to the point that a single beam of light will cause the candle upon which it is focused, to burn into flame … What actions do you take, to spark your inner fire?
CultFit 