Moment of Mind August 2020 – Finding Mindful Now

Image of Datura flower — Image of datura flower on land near the Trinity river, original land of the Wintu, Natinixwe/Hupa, Chimariko, Yurok, Karok and more tribal peoples. Click here to watch it open on video.

Moment of Mind

If you click on the link below the image at the top of this newsletter you’ll go to a video that shows a datura flower in the second half of its opening process. I stood in front of it for about 5 minutes filming different phases of the slow process because life amazes me like that.
One thing I invite you to pause and consider is that the life moving through this flower is identical to the life moving through you right now. That this innate intelligence and wisdom is you: all the time.
Life opening the flower’s petals. Life buzzing the bee’s wings. Life moving your body. Life generating thought activity. Thought literally brought to life as your living feeling and sensory experiences, through you.
Anaïs Nin once said that life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage. She meant the small self’s perception of life. Because that small self struggles a lot with fear and overthinking which clouds over the vast expanse called alive awareness that is our core big self.
A few newsletters ago I shared that the feeling of courage for me is a mix activation, fear, and love. In revisiting this quote from Ms. Nin I also see that fear, when it’s of the anticipatory worrying or anxiety kind instead of the in the moment taking action kind, also has some judgment ..some not wanting what’s happening…mixed in.
I know this Tia-self doesn’t control the thoughts or feelings that arise – how could it considering that’s what the self identity is made of – just like I don’t control my cells dividing.
Last year I started turning toward feelings like anxiety and stress. I figured it couldn’t hurt because experience always happens from the inside-out – feelings happen inside, not outside. And decades of seeking to run away from feeling experiences like anxiety and stress have clearly been a hamster wheel of endless effort. Since feelings always change anyway, what would happen if I sat with them instead of running? What I’m seeing is that just like when I meditate, or when I tune into one of my senses using mindfulness, awareness expands and the thinking slowly but surely dissipates.
It’s not that I’m going through them, it’s that I hold still long enough for them to go through me.
I see how much fear is not my enemy, not a barrier, not an oppressor,
it is an experience.
A temporary companion.
A feeling of activation mixed with the left brain’s judgment that it should not be.
As I embrace it, understand it, integrate it rather than resisting it….
My world expands.
Even during a pandemic, during financial hardship, during conflict.
I invite you to explore the idea that you’re always feeling your thinking – conscious or unconscious.

Love For Your Inner Science Nerd

“Lettuce be happy”

This month’s review is actually a book recommendation so I changed this section from “science” to “art”. It’s a really short book with brief meditations. I have been reading one a day. They are like distilled, concentrated gifts of words on a page.
It’s called Embers: One Ojibway’s Meditations by Richard Wagamese. I am recommending because it’s a reminder to take a break from the news, from the social media feeds, from the television, the zoom calls, from work and school activity and to tune into the life within you and all around you. Even if it’s only for a few minutes.
You can read more about it here.

[Image of book cover of a small fire with words Richard Wagamese Embers One Ojibway’s Meditations on it]

Get Your Park Groove On: Oxbow Park

If you haven’t yet visited Oxbow Park in Gresham, Oregon, along the Sandy river yet, I recommend it. It is a way to visit multiple habitats including mixed fir forests, old growth, grassy fields, and riparian zones along a creek. I recently had the honor of learning from Pamela Slaughter, founder of People of Color Outdoors, that Ms. Estella Ehlebe preserved Oxbow park’s ancient forest in her tenure at Multnomah County Parks. Read more on this legacy here.

The park has accessible picnic areas, restroom and shower buildings (when they are open – currently closed because of covid19) and some campsites. There is a $5 parking fee to enter, dogs are not allowed nor smoking, vaping or alcohol. You can float or paddle the Sany and do a shuttle approach if you park at one end of the park and then float and emerge at the other end.