Grounded

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Our bodies know they belong,
It’s our minds that make our lives so homeless.

John O’Donohue

An active state

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People of our time are losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained. Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation. To be entertained is a passive state – it is to receive pleasure afforded by an amusing act or a spectacle…. Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one’s actions.

Abraham Heschel

…or failing to notice

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The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice.

And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice there is little we can do to change

until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds.

R.D. Laing

Just being fully present

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Here it is – right now.

Start thinking about it and you miss it.

Huang Po, Chinese Zen Master,  died 850

A mind that is astonished

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Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous to be understood.

 How grass can be nourishing in the mouths of the lambs.

How rivers and stones are forever in allegiance with gravity

while we ourselves dream of rising.

How two hands touch and the bonds will

never be broken.

How people come, from delight or the

scars of damage,

to the comfort of a poem.

 Let me keep my distance, always, from those

who think they have the answers.

 Let me keep company always with those who say

“Look!” and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads.

 Mary Oliver, Mysteries, Yes

Conscious breathing

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Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky.

Conscious breathing is my anchor.

Thích Nhất Hạnh, Stepping into Freedom