Parinama

  The prayer flags I bought in Katmandu and strung across the apple trees in my yard are unraveling.   Thread by thread unwoven by winds, rain, and snow, the passing of time. Not unlike myself.   Praying can do this to you.   Unravel you.   Make you lighter, more open and tender fragile with each releasement.   I am not talking about the kind of prayers for things or outcomes although I still do pray in this way. No, this is the kind of unraveling prayer that is pulled from your body when you do not know what else to do and have no hope.   When you are being asked to let go of something that you are not nearly ready to let go of. When the suffering of the world no longer bounces off so easily but flows into your tender heart space.   When you realize with more and more fascination the utter awesomeness and mystery of this life that has been gifted to you, but how often you still fail to be more generous. This is the prayer o...

    As a spiritual practice, discernment asks us to consider why we act the way we do and what effect our actions have in the world. Are we unleashing confusion, discord, separation through our actions or solidarity, hospitality, and caring?   Discernment often requires a holy grace of pausing before reacting so we have a chance to consider things from a larger perspective and can act with more wisdom. In the pause, we might find layers of complexity that we did not initially see, depths of emotions and feelings that are not easily understood, confusion and grief. Pausing requires sitting with difficulty before acting which can be hard when we are in pain and fear. When pain arises, lashing out can feel easier if it numbs pain even if it does not resolve the root cause of the pain in the longer-term. There is so much that I cannot control now with my mother.   Her mind has been weakened by dementia.   It has taken her short-term memory, ...

  Your life is the holy book. Mirabai Star Where do you find the will to change, grow, evolve? The will to learn something new, take better care of the body/mind, deepen in relationship with friends, family, community, the divine? In yoga philosophy, the path towards change requires Tapas, Svadyaya, and Ishvara Pranidana. Tapas is the sustained and devoted effort of practice over a long period of time.   Svadyaya is the self-study required along the way to discern what the heart is longing to bring forth into the world, the inner obstacles like fear, shame, and despair that need to be navigated, the search for light in the darkness of the unknown.   Ishvara Pranidana is the surrendering of the smaller egoic goals and outcomes to the divine so that we might be sustained in the kiln of transformation. Meaningful transformation takes a long while even when we long to make changes. That first important step is the yearning for something different (Ishvara Pranidana). ...

  I have been thinking about love lately, what it is, how it feels like, what it means to say that “God is love”? I am not talking about sentimental, romantic, or erotic love here, not the kind of love that predominates our culture, is conditional and more about getting than giving.   This is the commercialized love that corporations force feed us to make billions convincing us that their lotion, pills, home insurance will bring us a love that will shield us from loss, pain, loneliness, illness, and aging. Men will be made brave and virile, women irresistibly beautiful and these are the most important goals in life. Because of the way that love has been hijacked and distorted by our culture, the word itself has lost real meaning.   I come closer to knowing what loving is through the terms compassion and tenderness.   Love here as a tenderness of heart as much a practice as a stance. Real love is not about hoarding, collecting, or accumulating a...