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Listen ~ 10 minutes
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Kimiko Karpoff - 2022-02-17 sunset daisy
I almost didn't go. I had just returned home, taken off my shoes and jacket. While putting away bits of food I looked out the window. The sky didn't look that interesting at that moment. There were few clouds, no colour, the sun was still fairly high. And I thought that I would simply leave it for today. I could sit and maybe relax, turn on the fire, check messages since I've been out all day.
Yet as I sat down something kept .... poking at me really .... I think it was my head that said stay home but something else knew better. Ultimately I went back into the kitchen and wondered .... Deciding ultimately to go put my boots back on, put on a jacket, grab my camera. Checking the time of sunset it seemed like there was just a good enough amount of time to walk down towards the water and reach there in enough time to see what was going on.
Part of my resistance, to be honest, was that It seems as if, in the past 2 years, I have photographed from that same spot over and over and over. I have literally hundreds of photographs of the setting sun. What more could it say to me, I wondered. Knowing that of those hundreds of photographs that exist they are all different, that's why I keep taking them.
Wandering through the park I noticed that there were flowers starting to bloom. I stopped and took some photos of early Tulips, little tiny ones. And wandered closer and closer to the edge of the water ....
With that sense in mind of not just continuing to take the same photograph again and again I used a slightly different route ending up a little bit more south than I normally am. It's not an ideal place to walk in this day and age, a little bit too close to the American border, but I walked over towards the shore along that route. And there noticed in the lawn, the tiniest most beautiful little Daisies.
The Sun had dropped so the angle was starting to create a golden yellow light. The Universe knew, knew better than I did, why the notion that going to the same spot would render the same result was wrong. Because everything continually keeps moving. Seasons move, the Sun moves. This is the beauty of the Earth. And I know this. I know that it is for me to see what is there today, what is there now, in this moment. How can elements align to create beauty right now .... ?
It's an interesting perspective to see the world eye level to those Daisies, these miniature Daisies centimeters high .... Without the camera I wouldn't have done that. The camera invites me to see from different angles, to see in different ways. Even things that are present so often that in most times we walk right by them .... ....
It was a beautiful quiet moment. Sacred. To see the Sun setting while the flowers grow. Their faces turned towards the light and the small amount of warmth that comes from the February Sun ....
At a certain spot it's as if the dipping becomes faster .... And at the same time the movement seems almost imperceptible until you notice the horizon and the Sun have connected .... This is my signal that it's time to go because the park will be closing. Before I go I walk north a little bit towards my usual spot before heading back home and notice that indeed there are no Daisies growing there .... ....
~
Twice each week I hold On-line Healing Circles centred on evocative and deeply healing guided meditations. Join me Monday mornings at 9 a.m. and Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. pacific. Learn more at the Good Vibrations: the Energy of Resilience facebook page, check out the Healing link on this site or drop me a note by e-mail. I always love to hear from you.
Twice each week I hold On-line Healing Circles centred on evocative and deeply healing guided meditations. Join me Monday mornings at 9 a.m. and Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. pacific. Learn more at the Good Vibrations: the Energy of Resilience facebook page, check out the Healing link on this site or drop me a note by e-mail. I always love to hear from you.
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There is a path that winds along the shore of Mud Bay from South Surrey to Tsawwassen. It's a goodly stroll for somebody just out for a casual walk although not a challenging one. It's a fairly flat path, well kept. Many people walk and cycle on it.
Last Sunday afternoon it was sunny and warm for February and relative to how the weather has been so grey and foggy and rainy. I and many other people had the same idea to walk along that path. When I arrived there the parking lot was full to overflowing ....
Walking there just observing the families, the couples, people walking their dogs, I was struck by this notion of how our paths cross those of other peoples. How our lives touch, in small ways for sure, but somehow touch. It could be a shared moment like enjoying a sunny afternoon. But there was something about meeting people's eyes, nodding heads as you walk past each other going opposite directions, acknowledging someone in that small way. Sharing a moment just for the moment. It makes me thoughtful about all the ways our lives touch each other, the way they intertwine.
That's not always in ways that elicit that sense of wonder that I was feeling on that sunny afternoon walking on the shores of Mud Bay. Sometimes that is people whose cries out into the world touch us or challenge us. Sometimes it is the person in the grocery store who can tell you that that produce, that plant that you were not able to identify is lemongrass and that it's used as seasoning but you don't eat it, you chop it up and pound a bit just to allow the flavors to release ....
Last Sunday afternoon it was sunny and warm for February and relative to how the weather has been so grey and foggy and rainy. I and many other people had the same idea to walk along that path. When I arrived there the parking lot was full to overflowing ....
Walking there just observing the families, the couples, people walking their dogs, I was struck by this notion of how our paths cross those of other peoples. How our lives touch, in small ways for sure, but somehow touch. It could be a shared moment like enjoying a sunny afternoon. But there was something about meeting people's eyes, nodding heads as you walk past each other going opposite directions, acknowledging someone in that small way. Sharing a moment just for the moment. It makes me thoughtful about all the ways our lives touch each other, the way they intertwine.
That's not always in ways that elicit that sense of wonder that I was feeling on that sunny afternoon walking on the shores of Mud Bay. Sometimes that is people whose cries out into the world touch us or challenge us. Sometimes it is the person in the grocery store who can tell you that that produce, that plant that you were not able to identify is lemongrass and that it's used as seasoning but you don't eat it, you chop it up and pound a bit just to allow the flavors to release ....
I wonder how we allow ourselves, or don't, to flavor each other's lives in our crossing with each other. Sometimes the unexpected is the thing that brings out the delightful essence. It's the touch of sugar that brings out the spice .... Sometimes the flavour doesn't sit well with us at all ....
Our lives are intertwined, our paths do cross. How will I be with that? I wonder, if that spice that doesn't sit well with me in one dish might bring something to a different situation. I wonder if I were to sit down in conversation with it, with the person who is offering it, whether I would find out something unexpected ....
I have never walked that path along Mud Bay all the way from South Surrey to Tsawwassen. It seems like the kind of path that you would want to have a car at each end if you were walking it unless you had a full day to spend .... Most of my time there I spent simply watching. Watching the people go by. Watching the scenes emerge. Noticing the Pussy Willows opening, the first signs of Spring mixed amongst the brown leaves still hanging from Autumn and Winter ....
All lives intertwine somehow. And seasons come, Winter passes. People pass us. I guess my hope for myself is that I don't simply let those moments go by unacknowledged, if only to myself. If I can I might meet someone's eye and just acknowledge that we're sharing this moment of sunlight. That I appreciate the joy their dog is showing on that walk. That I noticed the anguish of their tears without interfering with them. That I can celebrate the joy of their engagement as the photographer takes their picture.
But it is I who am moved by this, I have no expectation that the other person has the same reaction. I'm simply enfolding it into who I am now hoping that it doesn't simply disappear, but in some small way becomes part of the fabric of my being ....
~
Twice each week I hold On-line Healing Circles centred on evocative and deeply healing guided meditations. Join me Monday mornings at 9 a.m. and Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. pacific. Learn more at the Good Vibrations: the Energy of Resilience facebook page, check out the Healing link on this site or drop me a note by e-mail. I always love to hear from you.
Twice each week I hold On-line Healing Circles centred on evocative and deeply healing guided meditations. Join me Monday mornings at 9 a.m. and Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. pacific. Learn more at the Good Vibrations: the Energy of Resilience facebook page, check out the Healing link on this site or drop me a note by e-mail. I always love to hear from you.
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Listen ~ 4 1/2 minutes
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Kimiko Karpoff - 2022-02-02 rain and fire ~ Homophony
Through the open window I listen to the cadence
And crackle of the rain falling from eaves onto the ground
It reminds me of the campfire, the same song somehow
Created by an opposite. Of water gathering and falling
Of wood, a flame rising upwards, reaching, releasing ....
I feel this sound settle in my body .... .... It's a comfort
Reminding me of carefree moments, of joyful abandon
I guess the way good music makes me feel when I can sing
It, feel it vibrating through the guitar at rest against my body ....
There is a freshness associated with both the sound of the falling
Rain and the campfire. It draws me out of these walls to open air ....
Behind both sounds I can hear the geese call, the wind ripple
Strange how that works that water pouring down and fire reaching
Up can create in me that same draw to aliveness, energy, connection. (Huh!)
And so I close my eyes, feeling the cool air from the open window, and listen ....
~
Twice each week I hold On-line Healing Circles centred on evocative and deeply healing guided meditations. Join me Monday mornings at 9 a.m. and Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. pacific. Learn more at the Good Vibrations: the Energy of Resilience facebook page, check out the Healing link on this site or drop me a note by e-mail. I always love to hear from you.
Twice each week I hold On-line Healing Circles centred on evocative and deeply healing guided meditations. Join me Monday mornings at 9 a.m. and Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. pacific. Learn more at the Good Vibrations: the Energy of Resilience facebook page, check out the Healing link on this site or drop me a note by e-mail. I always love to hear from you.
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Listen ~ 5 minutes
we mark things
with numbers
50, 5, 200
on your birthday
I think of you
a Beloved baby held with delight
celebrated
celebrated again and again as the years pass
your smile
your laughter
the beauty of you that you bring to the world
the way that you offer it
the way that you have offered it to me
and how much that has made me
who I am in this moment
on your death day
I remember the moment of the last breath
the way you exhaled
like a kiss to the universe
and then succumbed
and that I continued to hold your hand
in gratitude for all that you had been to me
for the way you offered your gifts to the world
and the ways that shaped who I am in this moment
and we’ve gathered many, many times
this community, these beautiful beings
who come to connect, to offer love
to bring gifts together and to offer them to each other
and to the world
and we remember the gathering
we remember the ways we have been touched by this
and how much this has made us
who we are in this moment
why do we mark birthdays
count years gone by
count footprints in the snow
breaths gathering
to remember to remember
~
Twice each week I hold On-line Healing Circles centred on evocative and deeply healing guided meditations. Join me Monday mornings at 9 a.m. and Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. pacific. Learn more at the Good Vibrations: the Energy of Resilience facebook page, check out the Healing link on this site or drop me a note by e-mail. I always love to hear from you.
Twice each week I hold On-line Healing Circles centred on evocative and deeply healing guided meditations. Join me Monday mornings at 9 a.m. and Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. pacific. Learn more at the Good Vibrations: the Energy of Resilience facebook page, check out the Healing link on this site or drop me a note by e-mail. I always love to hear from you.
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When beauty opens her arms
Stop in your tracks
pull over
run back and dart through traffic
perch on the edge of the drainage ditch
braced against the drag of passing trucks
and fall into her embrace ~
Beauty is everywhere. Often in our lives it seems we are on the move from here to wherever we are going, so focussed on the road or on our thoughts that we miss the world unfolding around us. It might not be a spectacular scene where the mountain is both beautifully lit and the sky clear enough to see it. It could be a dandelion growing by the path, a colourful splash of graffiti, live music or bird song heard through your kitchen window, the sound of rain on an awning as you walk down a city street. My invitation is simply to pause, to notice.
Like taking time to focus on breathing, it draws you into the moment, heightens your awareness for beauty and delight. We all have had an experience of being appreciated and know how good that makes us feel. Although it may seem like there is no one receiving the recognition, the energy of it filters out. It also filters in. Try it and see if it isn't so. Then send me a note sharing your experience. I love hearing from you.
Stop in your tracks
pull over
run back and dart through traffic
perch on the edge of the drainage ditch
braced against the drag of passing trucks
and fall into her embrace ~
Beauty is everywhere. Often in our lives it seems we are on the move from here to wherever we are going, so focussed on the road or on our thoughts that we miss the world unfolding around us. It might not be a spectacular scene where the mountain is both beautifully lit and the sky clear enough to see it. It could be a dandelion growing by the path, a colourful splash of graffiti, live music or bird song heard through your kitchen window, the sound of rain on an awning as you walk down a city street. My invitation is simply to pause, to notice.
Like taking time to focus on breathing, it draws you into the moment, heightens your awareness for beauty and delight. We all have had an experience of being appreciated and know how good that makes us feel. Although it may seem like there is no one receiving the recognition, the energy of it filters out. It also filters in. Try it and see if it isn't so. Then send me a note sharing your experience. I love hearing from you.
~
Twice each week I hold On-line Healing Circles centred on evocative and deeply healing guided meditations. Join me Monday mornings at 9 a.m. and Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. pacific. Learn more at the Good Vibrations: the Energy of Resilience facebook page, check out the Healing link on this site or drop me a note by e-mail. I always love to hear from you.
Twice each week I hold On-line Healing Circles centred on evocative and deeply healing guided meditations. Join me Monday mornings at 9 a.m. and Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. pacific. Learn more at the Good Vibrations: the Energy of Resilience facebook page, check out the Healing link on this site or drop me a note by e-mail. I always love to hear from you.
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We are trained to look past the window.
Portals through which to see out.
And in.
Most often we overlook the glass.
What might we find if we take a moment to observe
the thing we think of only as means, if considered
at all?
What might it teach us about the world?
~
Centred on evocative and deeply healing guided meditations, Kimiko holds On-line Healing Circles Monday mornings at 9 a.m. and Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. pacific. Please join us. Learn more at the Good Vibrations: the Energy of Resilience facebook page, check out the Healing link on this site or drop her a note by e-mail.
Centred on evocative and deeply healing guided meditations, Kimiko holds On-line Healing Circles Monday mornings at 9 a.m. and Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. pacific. Please join us. Learn more at the Good Vibrations: the Energy of Resilience facebook page, check out the Healing link on this site or drop her a note by e-mail.
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With a sheath of snow, the world looks so beautiful. As it does in the glory of greenery. But this in-between time as the quilt of white becomes worn and threadbare and the frozen, sodden grass wears through the clean, fresh cover, this is not so lovely.
It’s another of those in-between times, a transition. And I feel like I should pay more attention. I’m inclined to try to ignore it, sit here by the fire. Not because it’s so cold out. It’s just. . . a bit unpleasant. Muddy, patchy ground. Slush. Not so frigid as the deep winter, but somehow more chilling, more grey. I’m happy to hunker in and ignore it. Yet today, as I sit here hiding away, I sense that there’s something profound going on that I’m missing.
Each movement of the seasons is important. Metaphorically as in nature. We tend to highlight the highlights ~ the pristine beauty of fresh snow, glorious colours of cherry blossoms and rhododendron, sunshine and abundant gardens, and the glory of trees just before the orange and yellow leaves fall. That and critical events like fire and flood. Those same kinds of moments are what we also focus on about our lives.
Yet so much of life is movement through transitions. The in-between are their own season. The melt time, the browned and rotting petals, burnt grass and starkness. And it’s not even that there is no beauty at these times, more that we have to shift our gaze to see it. We learn to see what is, not what is no longer. There can be green grass and snow. We just have to figure out how to walk in it.
This space of thresholds is sacred, delineating places, acting as portals between moments and dimensions. But in nature, in life, unlike in houses, they’re more than brief passageways. More like a hallway than door jam, although even a door jam is significant.
So I am looking at this like a passageway. At basic, passageways get us from one place to the next. Ideally they are honoured in their own right and invite us to observe their unique beauty, their invitation to consider their place in time. They guide us between two moments and to reflect on the significance that may hold. What will be revealed as the snow melts? What thrives in mud? Who am I as I walk toward that door?
With a sheath of snow, the world looks so beautiful. As it does in the glory of greenery. But this in-between time as the quilt of white becomes worn and threadbare and the frozen, sodden grass wears through the clean, fresh cover, this is not so lovely.
It’s another of those in-between times, a transition. And I feel like I should pay more attention. I’m inclined to try to ignore it, sit here by the fire. Not because it’s so cold out. It’s just. . . a bit unpleasant. Muddy, patchy ground. Slush. Not so frigid as the deep winter, but somehow more chilling, more grey. I’m happy to hunker in and ignore it. Yet today, as I sit here hiding away, I sense that there’s something profound going on that I’m missing.
Each movement of the seasons is important. Metaphorically as in nature. We tend to highlight the highlights ~ the pristine beauty of fresh snow, glorious colours of cherry blossoms and rhododendron, sunshine and abundant gardens, and the glory of trees just before the orange and yellow leaves fall. That and critical events like fire and flood. Those same kinds of moments are what we also focus on about our lives.
Yet so much of life is movement through transitions. The in-between are their own season. The melt time, the browned and rotting petals, burnt grass and starkness. And it’s not even that there is no beauty at these times, more that we have to shift our gaze to see it. We learn to see what is, not what is no longer. There can be green grass and snow. We just have to figure out how to walk in it.
This space of thresholds is sacred, delineating places, acting as portals between moments and dimensions. But in nature, in life, unlike in houses, they’re more than brief passageways. More like a hallway than door jam, although even a door jam is significant.
So I am looking at this like a passageway. At basic, passageways get us from one place to the next. Ideally they are honoured in their own right and invite us to observe their unique beauty, their invitation to consider their place in time. They guide us between two moments and to reflect on the significance that may hold. What will be revealed as the snow melts? What thrives in mud? Who am I as I walk toward that door?
~
Centred on evocative and deeply healing guided meditations, Kimiko holds On-line Healing Circles Monday mornings at 9 a.m. and Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. pacific. Please join us. Learn more at the Good Vibrations: the Energy of Resilience facebook page, check out the Healing link on this site or drop her a note by e-mail.
Centred on evocative and deeply healing guided meditations, Kimiko holds On-line Healing Circles Monday mornings at 9 a.m. and Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. pacific. Please join us. Learn more at the Good Vibrations: the Energy of Resilience facebook page, check out the Healing link on this site or drop her a note by e-mail.
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While Winter Solstice turns us back toward the light, we're asked to wait a little longer through cold and dark.
Listen ~ 10 minutes
Tuesday night we come to a turning. It is Solstice, when the longest night Shifts and we start to see the days grow longer again. This is a movement towards Spring. But not yet. It is officially when we move from Autumn to Winter. It seems almost strange that it is in the Winter that we grow towards the light because it will remain dark and cold. In many places colder than it has been up until now .... ....
Winter is the time that we understand when many hibernate -- many animals many plants. This is the time of quieting .... They spent the summer and the autumn storing extra, preparing, harvesting, gathering the abundance. And then at the same time releasing that which was no longer of the moment, in order to just hold fast through this dark and cold time ....
Even though we don't see it things
are happening under the ground
that only happen in Winter
are happening under the ground
that only happen in Winter
Even though we don't see it things are happening under the ground that only happen in Winter .... We know this because as we move towards the end of this season we will start to see green shoots, and buds. And although it will appear as if they're there all of a sudden, in fact already many plants are preparing for that time of opening. I noticed that some of the plants already have almost like a bud on them, closed tight and waiting ....
This is such an amazing time of year I'm so grateful I live in a place where the seasons are so well defined. It is rich in Energetic shifting. But rich also in the story of Creation the movements of life. It helps me understand my own self, in the ways that my body matches this rhythm. In our modern society we have found ways to subvert it to some degree. We don't have to follow the rhythm of darkness in the same way, with electricity. The isolation that happens in Winter if you are in a place where snow makes travel difficult, now our technologies allow us to connect ....
There are places I know that rely on the Winter as a point of connection. And many of those communities are challenged by the shifting of the temperature of the Earth because Winter doesn't happen in the same way for them anymore .... .... ....
The focus is to the Ancient.
The ground is where we find ancient,
ancient wisdom held in the Stone,
the very substance of the Earth.
The ground is where we find ancient,
ancient wisdom held in the Stone,
the very substance of the Earth.
I know I’ve been talking about this quite a lot over the last few weeks. And I think it's because I can feel this draw to step even more boldly in, to focus more on this work I am called to do. And I feel that. As if a rootedness is drawing ever deeper, and so the focus is under the ground. The focus, in some ways, is to the Ancient. The ground is where we find ancient, ancient wisdom held in the Stone, the very substance of the Earth.
And so now is the moment, where our focus, my focus, can be more to that place without the distraction of what is going on above ground. So even as the light begins to turn, we do not immediately shift away from the darkness, from the Earthiness. We have more time. More time to sit and listen to this deep Wisdom. And Solstice reminds us to simply be in this moment.
I know I’ve been talking about this quite a lot over the last few weeks. And I think it's because I can feel this draw to step even more boldly in, to focus more on this work I am called to do. And I feel that. As if a rootedness is drawing ever deeper, and so the focus is under the ground. The focus, in some ways, is to the Ancient. The ground is where we find ancient, ancient wisdom held in the Stone, the very substance of the Earth.
And so now is the moment, where our focus, my focus, can be more to that place without the distraction of what is going on above ground. So even as the light begins to turn, we do not immediately shift away from the darkness, from the Earthiness. We have more time. More time to sit and listen to this deep Wisdom. And Solstice reminds us to simply be in this moment.
~
Centred on evocative and deeply healing guided meditations, Kimiko holds On-line Healing Circles Monday mornings at 9 a.m. and Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. pacific. Please join us. Learn more at the Good Vibrations: the Energy of Resilience facebook page, check out the Healing link on this site or drop her a note by e-mail.
Centred on evocative and deeply healing guided meditations, Kimiko holds On-line Healing Circles Monday mornings at 9 a.m. and Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. pacific. Please join us. Learn more at the Good Vibrations: the Energy of Resilience facebook page, check out the Healing link on this site or drop her a note by e-mail.
- Published on
Listen ~ 7 minutes
The call of a Seagull drew my attention this morning. I live near the ocean so Seagulls are hardly an unusual occurrence. Something that I hardly noticed from moment to moment. So I was curious, what about the call of this Seagull this morning caught my attention?
I wonder if it's because I have been in a time of quiet, of internal reflection and the Seagull and the distant sound of the train going by seem more notable within that drawing me back out of myself and into the world. This is not a bad thing. In fact a good reminder that I am in and of the world and not to forget that, not to leave it behind in my internal reflecting ....
It's more than being simply drawn into the world though. Seagulls and trains are out in the world in a way that I am not right now. Flying, going from place to place. And in some way this draws my imagination. I felt the Seagull’s call in my belly as much as I heard it. The Seagull was calling me .... deep inside. And I wonder what that’s about.
Today the skies are blue and the sun is shining. It’s been so grey here, so much rain. And yet I haven’t been outside further than the front porch where I stood in my bare feet greeting the day.
Outside, as I quieted myself I could hear other birds, like the gentle chirping of songbirds even though it's December and Winter is almost upon us. I note that the Hummingbirds are still visiting the hummingbird feeder and so I've kept it filled. People are out on the street walking .... The world continues to be ....
And perhaps the Seagull was simply speaking to my desire to not simply be in and with myself .... But to be part of the bigger, to be part of the Whole .... To remember that all this work of wintering of quieting, is important. Ultimately it is something that we do as part of the rhythm, the natural rhythm, that all of us live in to. All of us being the Plants, the Creatures, those Beings that are beyond us. Earth herself lives through these rhythms. And just to remind me that it's all part and parcel, it's all of a whole ....
.... And that I can take my stillness with me as I step out into the world ....
~
Centred on evocative and deeply healing guided meditations, Kimiko holds On-line Healing Circles Monday mornings at 9 a.m. and Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. pacific. Please join us. Learn more at the Good Vibrations: the Energy of Resilience facebook page, check out the Healing link on this site or drop her a note by e-mail.
Centred on evocative and deeply healing guided meditations, Kimiko holds On-line Healing Circles Monday mornings at 9 a.m. and Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. pacific. Please join us. Learn more at the Good Vibrations: the Energy of Resilience facebook page, check out the Healing link on this site or drop her a note by e-mail.
- Published on
The season has been pulling me in. It’s been a lesson and curiosity to me to note my resistance. Not my body but my mind. As much as we talk about the value of being rather than doing, it is contrary to what our culture teaches us. It’s 3 o’clock and I’m thinking, “What have I been doing today? What have I accomplished?”
My current morning routine includes staying in the bed for engaged, intentional breath-work and a meditation on “waking words.” It can take up to 45 minutes. When I started this practice it was much shorter because it felt too much like lying around when I should be getting up and getting to things. I suppose in a way the intentionality of it is technically doing something. What’s perhaps different is there is no tangible accomplishment. The cat is not fed, nor coffee made. I have not checked or responded to any messages or planned the day. I’m simply there with my breath.
There are days when I won’t have the luxury of that much time in the morning unless I wake up much earlier. For now part of this practice is not setting an alarm if I don’t have to and including at least some time for the practice if I do. And on a day like today simply letting things unfold after that.
This is not solely a spiritual practice, although it is that. This is an intentionality practice of shifting my own paradigm, of living into the understanding that our value, my value, is not based on accomplishments. Those things can speak for themselves, but my intrinsic me-ness is more central and internal. This is a lesson of the cherry blossom tree. The tree IS, even now without blossoms or leaves.
An embodying practice, daily morning breath-work has also helped me feel calmer and more centred throughout the day. I find myself more able to feel into what my body needs in the moment, what food, what movement. And I find I’m enjoying those things more. It’s quite lovely.
Winter, in the rhythm of seasons, is the slow time, a time of quiet tasks and inward focus. Many animals move into hibernation and plants go dormant. So I’m embracing this slower pace and breathing into what it’s like to simply be.
My current morning routine includes staying in the bed for engaged, intentional breath-work and a meditation on “waking words.” It can take up to 45 minutes. When I started this practice it was much shorter because it felt too much like lying around when I should be getting up and getting to things. I suppose in a way the intentionality of it is technically doing something. What’s perhaps different is there is no tangible accomplishment. The cat is not fed, nor coffee made. I have not checked or responded to any messages or planned the day. I’m simply there with my breath.
There are days when I won’t have the luxury of that much time in the morning unless I wake up much earlier. For now part of this practice is not setting an alarm if I don’t have to and including at least some time for the practice if I do. And on a day like today simply letting things unfold after that.
This is not solely a spiritual practice, although it is that. This is an intentionality practice of shifting my own paradigm, of living into the understanding that our value, my value, is not based on accomplishments. Those things can speak for themselves, but my intrinsic me-ness is more central and internal. This is a lesson of the cherry blossom tree. The tree IS, even now without blossoms or leaves.
An embodying practice, daily morning breath-work has also helped me feel calmer and more centred throughout the day. I find myself more able to feel into what my body needs in the moment, what food, what movement. And I find I’m enjoying those things more. It’s quite lovely.
Winter, in the rhythm of seasons, is the slow time, a time of quiet tasks and inward focus. Many animals move into hibernation and plants go dormant. So I’m embracing this slower pace and breathing into what it’s like to simply be.
~
Centred on evocative and deeply healing guided meditations, Kimiko holds On-line Healing Circles Monday mornings at 9 a.m. and Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. pacific. Please join us. Learn more at the Good Vibrations: the Energy of Resilience facebook page, check out the Healing link on this site or drop her a note by e-mail.
Centred on evocative and deeply healing guided meditations, Kimiko holds On-line Healing Circles Monday mornings at 9 a.m. and Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. pacific. Please join us. Learn more at the Good Vibrations: the Energy of Resilience facebook page, check out the Healing link on this site or drop her a note by e-mail.
