Posted: December 4, 2014 | Author: CultFit | Filed under: Kindness, Meditation, Yoga | Tags: Body Image, compassion, Dreams, Edgar Allan Poe, Forgiveness, kindness, love, Mindfulness, nebraska, Omaha, passion, Poetry, Prose, reading, writing |
…
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow—
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand—
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep—while I weep!
O God! Can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
– Edgar Allan Poe
Posted: December 3, 2014 | Author: CultFit | Filed under: Kindness, Meditation, Yoga | Tags: Bad Religion, Bliss, Buddhism, compassion, cycling, family, fitness, free range, gluten free, gratitude, happiness, health, hipster, kindness, life, lululemon, marathon, meditation, Mindfulness, motivation, natural, nature, nebraska, Omaha, passion, pilates, running, time, trail running, winter, writing, yoga, Zen |
Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana-
Often, in our self-absorbed naiveté, we believe time to be infinite in nature. Oddly enough, time as we are experiencing it, right now in this wonderful moment … Is the one “thing” in our lives of which we can be absolutely certain of (I am deeply grateful for you being here with me right now). Why then, do we insist on spending our precious time consumed with how many followers we have on WordPress, or perusing the latest “Likes” on FaceTube, rather than being engaged in our lives?
…
The past few weeks I have been paying more attention to the virtual world, instead of the real world. Rather than being fully engaged in the fleeting moments before me, moments that, for their own nuanced reasons, are even more precious than most. A none too subtle slap upside my head brought me back in time, and this abrupt moment prompted me to begin thinking about just how much distraction we volunteer for on a daily basis, and how much it impacts what we have come to consider “meaningful” in our lives.
The end result of my introspection is a simple question I often fail to ask when I’m distracted – “What’s important in this beautiful moment?!?”
The scrambled priority of our lives keeps us from savoring each sip of our morning coffee, or enjoying conversation with a dear friend, or going for an early ride/walk/hike and enjoying the sun rising gently on the horizon.
Daily Meditation:
… The view that we no longer notice.
Posted: December 1, 2014 | Author: CultFit | Filed under: Kindness, Meditation, Yoga | Tags: blogging, compassion, cycling, exercise, family, fitness, free range, freshly pressed, gluten free, gratitude, happiness, health, hipster, kindness, life, love, lululemon, marathon, meditation, Mindfulness, motivation, musings, Namaste, natural, nature, Omaha, passion, perspective, pilates, running, trail running, writing, yoga |
At the end of the day, let there be no excuses, no explanations, no regrets-
Is it safe to say, given the byzantine nature of modern life, that most of us would admit that we could put gratitude into practice more in our own lives?
…
I still find myself handing out kindness and gratitude without acknowledging the what and why behind my actions. I fail to ignite a feeling of gratefulness within my heart that will ultimately burn into my memory … That this is no ordinary place or period in time – but rather a valuable one. Enriching our acts of “Thanks” – “Gracias” – “Namaste” with feelings of gratitude only serves to deepen our connections moving forward. I have been stuck in “Automatic Politeness” mode for the better part of the year, and I feel its time to put more meaning behind my actions, and deepen my presence in the world.
Daily Meditation:
*BREAKING NEWS* – The Holidays are about to speed our lives up by adding “things” to our already overflowing to-do lists, this is precisely the time to slow down and savor the important moments in life, instead of expanding my holiday shopping list while saying “Namaste” at the end of yoga class.
Posted: November 27, 2014 | Author: CultFit | Filed under: Kindness, Meditation, Yoga | Tags: Being, Happy Thanksgiving, Mary Oliver, Mindfulness, Poetry, winter, Winter and the Nuthatch |
…
Once or twice and maybe again, who knows,
the timid nuthatch will come to me
if I stand still, with something good to eat in my hand.
The first time he did it
he landed smack on his belly, as though
the legs wouldn’t cooperate. The next time
he was bolder. Then he became absolutely
wild about those walnuts.
But there was a morning I came late and, guess what,
the nuthatch was flying into a stranger’s hand.
To speak plainly, I felt betrayed.
I wanted to say: Mister,
that nuthatch and I have a relationship.
It took hours of standing in the snow
before he would drop from the tree and trust my fingers.
But I didn’t say anything.
Nobody owns the sky or the trees.
Nobody owns the hearts of birds.
Still, being human and partial therefore to my own successes—
though not resentful of others fashioning theirs—
I’ll come tomorrow, I believe, quite early.
– Mary Oliver
Posted: October 31, 2014 | Author: CultFit | Filed under: Meditation, Yoga | Tags: Boo!!!!, Candy, halloween, kindness, life, Mindfulness, Omaha, passion, Reality, social media, Trick or Treak, yoga |
We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will-
This evening when we find ourselves handing out treats to all the little ghouls and turds that inhabit our neighborhood – Pause for a moment, and gently turn your gaze away from the harsh glow of the warm gadget in your hand (Halloween Instagram pics can wait …). What is the reality that you see unfolding around you? Can you describe the nuance in each costume that knocks at your door? Their color, the story behind each superhero costume? Are the kids smiling and excited, or are they still with nervous anticipation of scoring a large amount candy?
…
This reality that we are witnessing first hand is the world as it is right here, right now. It may seem that we live life outside of “reality“, warm gadget in hand and simply observing the bundled up joy standing right in front of us as we snap a series of pics. The “reality” we capture on our gadgets only exists in our mind(s) eye, and we view it through our own unique magenta or black and white lens, filtered outside of our senses.
Daily Meditation:
After we finish dinner tonight and ready the goodies to hand out, imagine for a second that you are a different person, a different ghoul. Set down your gadget, choosing to capture life from a new perspective instead. Life is not a series of pictures we share on the inter-webz. Life is a series of remarkable photos occurring right before our eyes.
CultFit 