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2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
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Inner Fire Aspirations
{Please read the full post on Elephant Journal}
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May our minds be clear and discerning.
May our efforts be focused and balanced.
May we allow our emotions to flow.
May we honor our physical and subtle bodies.
May we bring love, freedom, and truth into everything we do.
May we be present.
May we awaken.
May we live from the heart.
We can’t revolutionize a…
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Do you have trouble sitting still sometimes?
Modern life is super busy with a seemingly endless list of tasks, commitments, priorities, and responsibilities. The breakneck speed of technological development and the rushed pace of urban life create the perfect storm. In summation, many of us are currently more productive—and more stressed out—than ever.
The human mind entertains an incredible 50,000 thoughts each day. In the Buddha dharma teachings, the concept of the monkey mind relates to the unsettled, restless, grandiose, confused, and/or uncontrollable aspects of the mind. The myriad thoughts passing through the untrained mind constantly jump all over and swing from branch to branch like a monkey.
Monkey mind wants to multitask. Of course, when we do many things at once, nothing gets done well. Our inner monkey does not want us relaxing or meditating; it will always choose instead to plan and predict, wonder and worry, approve or deny, project and analyze.
Sitting meditation is difficult for folks who can’t sit still. Luckily, there are many dynamic methods of mindfulness.
Here are five great hobbies you can take up to calm down a restless mind. May they be of benefit!
Keep Reading
5 Dynamic Meditations for Busy People Do you have trouble sitting still sometimes? Modern life is super busy with a seemingly endless list of tasks, commitments, priorities, and responsibilities.
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My life has radically, gradually changed in the past ten years. Radical change takes its precious time. It happens a little bit every day. I am immeasurably more free than I was a decade ago, in many aspects. I still have a lot of work to do, lifetimes of it.
I used to drive a car and sit in traffic on the highway going to work in a gray office and sit at a gray cubicle on a computer doing boring ass work. Now I walk or take taxis and work at my home overlooking trees and lake—writing!
I used to teach 3rd grade in a classroom with many students and desks, chalkboards and overhead projectors. Now, our school is the world and our classroom our home and garden.
I used to teach yoga inside four walls inside rooms in gyms with the accompaniment of grunts, clanging weights and bad pop music. Now I teach on a wooden platform overlooking a pristine lake and volcanoes.
I used to be unhappily single; now I am not-unhappily married. Not always blissful, cause life ain’t a Hollywood movie. There are times of conflict and frustration, but there are more moments of contentment.
I used to be a prescription medicated or wild off-the-meds manic depressive living in the city, now I am a self-medicated meditator living in the woods.
I used to watch TV; now I watch the sun and moon traverse the sky.
I used to work for the weekend; now every day is a beautiful day.
*
Society tells us to hate Mondays and love Fridays. To “work hard” for a certain five days of the week and to “play hard” for two. And, in those five days, instead of merely working from eight o’clock to five-thirty or whatever, most people are working much longer hours and/or zoning out on their smartphones. They don’t have to clock in anymore because they never clock out.
Society tells us to have a house and a car, and lots and lots of things. Consumerism and capitalism are killing the earth. Would you rather have a bunch of pretty stuff now than a planet to live on later? Simply banning plastic is not enough. We have to stop producing it. We have to stop killing Mother Earth to create land for animals to be killed for their meat. We have to stop killing the oceans and all its inhabitants.
Society tells us to pay taxes, but those taxes are financing endless wars, endless terror, endless harm and pain. Those taxes are going into the wrong pockets. Most of the news aims to control and implant fear. Most churches aim to control and implant guilt and fill up those baskets of offerings in the name of Jesus Christ amen.
Society tells us that our vote matters but all the elections are rigged, and we can’t revolutionize the system within the same system. We need something totally different. And it is happening. It is happening all the time, every minute. Each moment is a choice. Each breath is a gift. Each declaration of truth is power. Each individual action matters. Each awakened mind and heart radiates out to inspire those around it.
So, please quit working for the weekend. Quit selling your soul. Quit waking up with dread on Monday mornings. Quit buying things to fill a black hole. Quit thinking you are anything less than enough. Quit believing what other people say about you.
Start now. Start in this moment. Start here. Start doing more of what you love. Start moving from a place of love. Start seeing love in everything, everywhere. Start living from your heart.
Please quit working for the weekend. My life has radically, gradually changed in the past ten years. Radical change takes its precious time.
Eternal Spring Cleaning
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There’s this sense I have arrived Silly, since there’s actually no destination Silly, since arrival would be stagnation I am in a place that prior only existed in my mind, in daydreams and visions Utopia, no, simply birdsong and water, mountains and sky all around A heart-centered home of trees and green and cats and smiles And sometimes tears and storms And…
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Phone Free, to Do what I Please!
Phone Free, to Do what I Please!
Read the full, original article here on Elephant.
The number one lesson I learned from spending the month of February without a phone is this:
Phones are not necessary to our survival. Living without them, or at least using them significantly less, is better for our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being.
Once you get used to it, it’s fun to pretend like it’s 1993 and read actual…
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How Life Improves when you Don't Have a Phone.
How Life Improves when you Don’t Have a Phone.
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A month ago, on a Wednesday morning on a crowded subway train in Mexico City, a pickpocket stole my phone.
I seem to have a knack for losing phones. This stolen one was a replacement of the one I drowned in the lake when it took an unexpected swim with me… when I fell off a dock on the winter solstice of 2O17.
As we were on our way to Frida Kahlo’s blue…
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4 Enduring Teachings from a Dearly Departed Energy Healer
4 Enduring Teachings from a Dearly Departed Energy Healer
{Read the full, original post on Elephant Journal.}
I pulled four Tarot cards that embody some of Kirsten’s greatest teachings and have included several quotes below from the book she gifted me, The Mythic Tarot by Juliet Sharman-Burke and Liz Greene.
May these symbols and messages be of benefit.
Ace of Cups
“The Ace of Cups heralds an outpouring of feeling, although this feeling has not yet…
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Our Lives were Better for Having Known Her.
Our Lives were Better for Having Known Her.
“Everything that has a beginning has an ending. Make your peace with that and all will be well.” ~ Gautama Buddha
A beloved sister, mother, healer and friend has died.
She could be free now from the cycles of birth and death and rebirth. Yet all who knew her know she will be back. She won’t stop helping and healing those who need help and healing in this dimension. We will meet again, and we…
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13 E - Reflections on the Journey
13 E – Reflections on the Journey
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Today is 13 E in the Mayan calendar.
E represents the path, the spiritual journey, the stepping stones of life and practice. 13 is the last number in the cycle, the day when the veil is said to be thinner between our mundane, everyday experience and the magical mystery of divine energy that animates the universe and each being in it.
It is a full circle day for our…
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This is not a story about lighter luggage or embracing minimalism.
While traveling with less stuff is great, I’ll be honest: my husband, daughter, and I are moving across borders with three stuffed suitcases, two backpacks, and a couple of handbags.
The past almost-three months have been beautiful and challenging, exciting and exhausting. We’ve explored new places, reconnected with old friends, celebrated the holidays in new ways, and redefined our day-to-day routines.
A solid six weeks of the trip was spent in my husband’s hometown in Colombia. We hadn’t been there in over four years. Back then, our then toddler daughter was walking but not yet talking. This time around, we celebrated her sixth birthday with a very pink, Hello Kitty-themed party thrown by her adoring relatives.
At birthday parties in Colombia, a photo is taken of every guest with the birthday girl or boy after the candle is blown out and before the cake is cut. After the cake, each guest is served a plate piled with popcorn, a couple of boiled potatoes, and a chunk of pork, along with a tiny plastic cup of soda. I offer these details as a tiny sample of how far from my comfort zone I, a mostly-vegetarian, earthy, yoga mama had traversed.
Of course, it wasn’t just the birthday parties that challenged my norms and prompted me to be more open-minded, accepting, and flexible—it was just about every aspect of every day.
This is the amazing thing about travel: we learn that we can adapt to anything. We are free to redefine our boundaries and recreate our ways of being in a novel setting.
Here are a few helpful ways to travel lighter—while letting our inner light shine. May they be of benefit!
Read full post: https://www.elephantjournal.com/2019/01/3-brilliant-ways-that-traveling-light-can-wake-us-up/
3 Ways to Travel with More Light This is not a story about lighter luggage or embracing minimalism. While traveling with less stuff…
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Throughout most of my 20s, I was plagued with chronic depression and anxiety.
I’m delighted to say that I’ve been free from those shackles for the past decade, other than the rare, mild bouts that come with the inevitable ups and downs of life.
This is largely due to the fact that for the past four years, I’ve been living in the woods. It’s not exactly Walden—what with the dog, three cats, husband, and young daughter sharing space. Still, residing in a tranquil forest has certainly altered my life in fabulous ways.
In the United States and other developed nations, while the sheer ease of doing everything has increased exponentially with the advent of so many apps for shopping, food delivery, taxi services, and meditation practices, so has the obvious toxicity of American culture. Wi-Fi microwaves, unlimited screen time, plastic disposable everything, rampant consumerism, invasive advertising, pharmaceutical addiction, all-you-can-eat GMOs and packaged junk masquerading as “food,” and endless media outrage broadcast in our living rooms are just the start of this list.
Here are a few of the most helpful habits I’ve found that led me to health and wholeness in a relentlessly toxic society. May they be of benefit!
1. Less meat, more vegetarian/vegan fare.
According to a GlobalData report, “70 percent of the world population reportedly is either reducing meat consumption or leaving meat off the table altogether.”
Are you among this majority? Eating less meat—or, better yet, skipping it altogether—is the most effective way we as consumers can help slow down and even reverse the tragic deforestation that causes climate change. A wise, longtime vegetarian friend explains his diet choice this way:
“It’s so people everywhere have access to food and no child starves because I have to have a meat-based diet. Those of us who have the luxury of eating whatever we want cannot ignore that our choices determine that some people will starve because most individuals are not willing to give up their cravings for meat.”
Can you reduce your meat consumption? Even if it’s just one or two days a week, that’s a start. Consider incorporating more delicious, nutritious superfoods into your diet instead.
Keep reading.
3 Super Powerful Ways to Heal in our Toxic World Throughout most of my 20s, I was plagued with chronic depression and anxiety. I’m delighted to say that I’ve been free from those shackles for the past decade, other than the rare, mild bouts that come with the inevitable ups and downs of life.
7 Practices to Start Borrowing from Latin American Culture
I love Mexicans.
My mom’s side of the family is Tex-Mex. They are a fun-loving, big-hearted, fierce and fabulous bunch of people. I also love Colombians, Guatemalans, Hondurans, El Salvadoreans, Nicaraguans, Costa Ricans, Panamanians, Ecuadorians, Peruvians, Chileans, Argentines, Uruguayans, Paraguayans, Belizeans, Bolivians, Cubans, Dominicans, Brazilians and Venezuelans–in other words, I love…
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Tarot Inspiration Cards for 2019
Tarot Inspiration Cards for 2019
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In late December each year, I do a Tarot reading for the coming year.
These cards serve as potent reminders of intention, rather than fortune-telling devices. These are the virtues and ideas we can strive toward throughout the coming months. Write any key words or phrases that resonate with you on your monthly calendar.
Each card is accompanied by a…
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The holiday season, for many of us, is a time of cookies, cakes, and other baked goods, both homemade and packaged.
All variety of rich foods, meat, cheeses, and eggnog are offered and consumed, often in excess, at Christmastime.
What if, instead, we could find some balance in our December diet by choosing to eat foods as close to their natural form as possible?
The more we change the food from its original form, the less “super” it is. The term “superfood” is a marketing buzzword that has become part of the vernacular.
Most natural foods are packed with vitamins and provide our bodies with high quality nutrition. Food, like air and water, contains life force. When we eat high quality foods, we are filling our bodies with more vitality and energy. Eating foods that are canned, boxed, prepared in a factory, or pumped with preservatives and other chemicals is not going to give us a whole lot of life force.
Many superfoods are exotic, expensive, and not practical to include in our everyday diet, such as acai berries, Moringa, chia, and bee pollen. While all of these are definitely worthy of your attention and consideration, this article focuses on foods that are accessible in any grocery store in the United States.
Here is the list; please read the full post on Elephant Journal for more details about incorporating these wonderful foods into your diet!
1. Sweet potatoes 2. Dark, leafy greens 3. Beets 4. Turmeric 5. Peanut butter 6. Avocado 7. Ginger 8. Garlic
Keep Reading
Detox from an Unhealthy Holiday Diet with these 8 Foods The holiday season, for many of us, is a time of cookies, cakes, and other baked goods, both homemade and packaged.
A Tribute to my Grandma
A Tribute to my Grandma
Letting the last breath come. Letting the last breath go. Dissolving, dissolving into vast space, the light body released from its heavier form. A sense of connectedness with all that is, all sense of separation dissolved in the vastness of being. Each breath melting into space as though it were the last. – Stephen Levine
I sat by my maternal grandmother’s deathbed on the Saturday after…
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Envisioning an Expansive 2019
Envisioning an Expansive 2019
Imagine your best possible self at the end of a year from now. In this case, imagine you are in December 2019 looking back upon how you have shown up for 2019. See yourself in a specific place as if you were looking back upon the year: maybe a favorite chair, a deck or balcony, a mountainside. As your best self “looks back” upon the year (2019), reflect upon and write in intimate…
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3 Calming Meditations for Creativity
3 Calming Meditations for Creativity
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Just sitting, practicing doing nothing, breathing, and paying attention to our breathing is fundamental to formal meditation practice. Yet, meditation and mindfulness can be cultivated through other methods, such as standing, walking, eating, communicating, etc.
Writing is also a wonderful, creative, grounding practice that can be meditative.
The act of putting…
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