Moment of Mind
When I launched this business in 2019 I was following a thread of curiosity. I wanted to explore integrating the community health assessment work I was doing with mindfulness. I had started to feel uncomfortable having my contemplative practice so separate from my worklife. I felt fear of what people would think (someone once told me they’d never read a book by Light Watkins called “Bliss More” after I recommended it for example). And also the truth was that if I *didn’t* do this it was effectively dishonest…contributing to people thinking something about me (whatever it would be) that is less true. Of course mindfulness is a reminder that we don’t control the thoughts our brain generates – so ultimately there’s no control of other people’s thought processes either. And I wanted more integration of the contemplative and analytical dimensions. Cue intense growth process! They are learning to weave together.
My main aim for these newsletters is to ask questions that nudge us to presence. Sometimes when we ask a reflective question it can nudge the mind into curiosity and out of the shadow lands of identified thinking. One of my favorite songs that I feel like sums up when we believe the imagined version of reality is more real than the actual one is by Geto Boys, you can read the (explicit) lyrics here.
Mindfulness helps attention return to presence, or the current actual life we have in front of us. Instead of the mind being zoomed into the descriptions, judgments, and predictions it generates about how life appears through its narration, attention returns to observing. From the vantage point of awareness we can see the continual shape shifting of thought and emotion that comes in and out of that vast awareness space. Basically “getting out of your head” is finding ways to support attention returning to presence. And noticing each time the cloak of divided thinking covers over presence so that presence returns…on repeat.
This week I invite you to take 5 minutes in the mornings and afternoons and to look or move the body outside. I invite you to notice the feeling of temperature on your skin – where is it warmer and cooler? As the mind begins to wander, feel into the sensations of the bottom of your feet: in the shoes, on the ground, wiggling them to bring attention there. What do you notice?
This email is also an invitation to learn about a few folks I recommend providing similar mind-body supports. One of the first supports I provided as a service was mindfulness walks. This was based on research that being outside in thriving natural settings, combined with intentional sensory-based mindfulness practices has physiological, psychological and interpersonal benefits for participant well-being.
Of course this requires a sense of personal safety, which isn’t something everyone has access to given the history and current challenges of what I have started calling fear culture: racism, homophobia, xenophobia, fatphobia, and so on. In any of these iterations fear of separateness, fear of an “other” or fear of lack of control is, in my opinion, linked to a sense of self that requires someone else to be less-than for a self-identity to have value. We don’t have to scan through very many headlines to see how people tear others apart out of their fear of difference. Indeed, are willing to obliterate entire land bases based on that thinking.
Mindfulness is important to me in anti-racist and related rehumanizing work because it’s one of the supports for seeing when the mind’s evaluations are often inaccurate…and for seeing more of the core transpersonal self that is the human birthright.
And this seems to be…. slow work of unraveling those lack-based beliefs that underpin the culture of fear. How often do I find myself internally judging an aspect of self, segregrating one aspect from another…creating internal war, internal attacks? Daily. So it’s no wonder how much of this I see out in the world. This re-membering wholeness is a lifelong path.
While we keep noticing and questioning, I strongly recommend people find the resources and supports that contributes to their system’s healing of that same sense of separation. It looks different person to person. That urge to feel better is part of the path.
One resource and support is through creating life, culture, and whole-person affirming spaces. Below are several suggestions of folks doing great work in reestablishing connections between people and the more than human world as part of co-creating supportive spaces.
Note that when walks are offered for free like this it’s often through the efforts of organizations who apply for, and receive grant funds, to make the events free or low cost while still providing compensation to the guide.
At the end of this week on March 26, 27 and 30 at Leach Botanical Gardens, Ly Duong is leading sensory mindfulness walks that support connecting to the natural world through the senses. These are free to the public. Check back at that link for future offerings.
Irene Bailey, of Temenos Rising (who mentored my own learning on forest bathing) in partnership with the Columbia Slough Watershed Council (and the Willamette Partnership) is offering a guided forest bathing walk on Sunday, April 10th, with another walk on Sunday of May 8th and one on May 15th at Smith and Bybee Wetlands.
On that same Sunday of April 10th and May 8, May 22, and May 29 Misako Yamamato, also in partnership with the Columbia Slough Watershed Council, is offering Nature Connection Walks specifically for the BIPOC community that incorporates Qigong with sensory practices to support connecting to the natural world. These are also free events.
A few non-profits offering events to increase safety and access that I support include People of Color Outdoors, Wild Diversity, and The Bronze Chapter, check them out and share their work!
Love for Your Inner Science Activist Nerd
It’s difficult to understand relationships when much of your childhood is spent socially isolated. So when someone I admire recommended this book on friendship building I ordered it STAT. I read a lot of books that don’t make it here; please know if I recommend it that means I learned a great deal. Author Kat Vellos is an expert in designing user experiences and has extensive research acumen. An extension that many people might not take was to incorporate multiple identity perspectives in the book that helps us build bridges across differences. I feel like people need to understand that they have this capacity, and flex it, to build a world with less division.
The author heavily researched this topic with interviews, surveys, a literature review and their own on-the-ground experience developing programs focused on building connections among strangers.One of my favorite sections of the book is a series of 300 “Conversation Starter” questions that encourage people to move beyond small talk and share about their perspectives and experiences.
The questions range from areas that involve more vulnerability (e.g. what’s a music memory that you really love?) to those that require less (e.g. what are three headlines you’d love to see on the front page of the newspaper?). I field tested many of these during spring break road trips of 5+ hours each day. My group of friends noted how the questions supported our learning not only about our ideas and preferences, they also revealed how each of us learns, thinks, process information, and grows.
If you’re looking to understand why some friendships fizzle and how to build robust ones that last for years, I recommend this book!
Get Your Park Groove On
My partner and I have a bucket list that’s more of a commitment to one annual adventure than it is a list. We aim to visit one national park a year (doesn’t have to be this nation). This year we went to Sequoia National Park and Kings Canyon. This is the original homeland of the Mono (Monache), Yokuts, Tübatulabal, Paiute, and Western Shoshone. Tribal members have been working with the National Park Service to bring fire back intentionally to avoid extremes like the one last year after so many decades of fires suppression. It was an emotional trip…and I recommend you go if you can.
It’s not really possible to describe being in the presence of these giants and their tremendous life capacity. Fire is part of their way – their seeds are more likely to sprout after a fire has moved through and their bark grows over burned areas…folding over the scar neatly and lovingly. I was grateful in an area that had been intentionally burned several years prior how many seedlings were thriving (so many!).
Prepare yourself for the burn scars from last year’s forest fires. For the…devastation of these giants that the early settlers wielded for dollars. And for the incredible ongoing vibrancy of life continuing onward. I found that I needed to take a break and simply sit and listen and send waves of love and appreciation to the forest floor. It’s the only thing I knew to do as a witness in that moment (beyond voting for climate adaptation related policies). Accessibility varies heavily from one section of the park to another, so research ahead of time. I recommend going in spring as the volume of visitors is less than half of what it is during the summer season.
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