books

Armstrong, Lance. It’s Not About the Bike
Beck, Martha. Expecting Adam: A True Story of Birth, Rebirth, and Everyday Magic
Bryson, Bill. A Short History of Nearly Everything
Chodron, Pema. The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times
Cope, Stephen. Yoga and the Quest for the True Self
Cope, Stephen. The Wisdom of Yoga: A Seeker's Guide to Everyday Living
Dr. Seuss. Oh, The Places You’ll Go!
Faulds, Richard. Kripalu Yoga: A Guide To Practice on And off The Mat
Gilbert, Elizabeth. Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything
Across Italy, India, and Indonesia
Goodall, Jane. Reason for Hope
Groopman, Jerome. The Anatomy of Hope: How People Prevail in the Face of Illness
Heffernan, Deborah Daw. An Arrow Through the Heart: One Woman's Story of Life, Love, and Surviving a Near-Fatal Heart Attack
Ladinsky, Daniel. The Gift: Poems By Hafiz
Houdsen, Maria. Hanna’s Gift: Lessons From a Life Fully Lived
Jermijenko, Valerie. How We Live Our Yoga: Teachers and Practitioners on How Yoga Enriches, Surprises, and Heals Us.
Kornfield, Jack. After the Ecstasy, the Laundry
Levoy, Gregg. Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life
Salzberg, Sharon. Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience
Sanford, Matthew. Waking: A Memoir of Trauma and Transcendence
Schaeffer, Rachel. Yoga for Your Spiritual Muscles
Silverstein, Shel. The Giving Tree
Trungpa, Chogyam. The Sacred Path of the Warrior

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music

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quotes

When you walk to the edge of all the light you have and take the first step into the darkness of the unknown, you must believe that one of two things will happen: There will be something solid for you to stand upon, or you will be taught how to fly. — Patrick Overton

There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is transferred through you into action; and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. If you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. You must keep that channel open. It is not for you to determine how good it is, nor how valuable. Nor how it compares with other expressions. It is for you to keep it yours, clearly and directly. — Martha Graham

Be patient with all that is unresolved in your heart, and try to love the questions themselves. Do not seek for the answers that cannot be given, for you wouldn’t be able to live with them, and the point is to live everything. Live the questions now, and perhaps without knowing it, you will live along someday into the answers. — Rilke

Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brakes. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Refuse to entertain your old pain. The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life. — Mary Manin Morrissey

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are born to manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. — Marianne Williamson

If a man wishes to be sure of the road he treads on, he must close his eyes and walk in the dark. — St. John of the Cross

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. — Albert Camus

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stories

Fear of Transformation

Sometimes I feel that my life is a series of trapeze swings. I’m either hanging on to a trapeze bar swinging along, or, for a few moments in my life, I’m hurtling across space in between trapeze bars.

Most of my time I spend my life hanging on for dear life to my trapeze-bar-of-the-moment. It carries me along a certain steady rate of swing and I have the feeling that I’m in control of my life. I know most of the right questions and even some of the right answers. But once and awhile, as I’m merrily swinging along, I look ahead of me into the distance, and what do I see? I see another trapeze bar swinging toward me. It’s empty, and I know, in that place in me that knows, that this new trapeze bar has my name on it. It is my next step, my growth, my aliveness coming to get me. I know in my heart that for me to grow, I must release my grip on the present well-known bar to move to the new one.

Each time it happens to me, I hope or pray that I won’t have to grab the new one. But in my knowing place I know that I must totally release my grip on my old bar, and for some moments in time I must hurtle across space before I can grab onto the new bar. Each time I am filled with terror. It doesn’t matter that in all my previous hurtles across the void of unknowing I have always made it. Each time I am afraid I will miss, that I will be crushed on unseen rocks in the bottomless chasm between the bars. But I do it anyway. Perhaps this is the essence of that the mystics call the faith experience. No guarantees, no net, no insurance policy, but you do it anyway because somehow, to keep hanging onto that old bar is no longer on the list of alternatives. And so for an eternity that can last a microsecond or a thousand lifetimes, I soar across the dark void of “the past is gone, the future is not yet here.” It’s called transition. I have come to believe that it is the only place that real change occurs. I mean real change, not the pseudo-change that only lasts until the next time my old buttons get pushed.

I have noticed that, in our culture, this transition zone is looked upon a “no-thing”, a no-place between places. Sure, the old trapeze bar was real, and that new one coming towards me, I hope that’s real too. But the void in between? That’s just a scary, confusing, disorienting “nowhere” that must be gotten through as fast and as unconsciously as possible. What a waste! I have a sneaking suspicion that the transition zone is the only real thing, and the bars are illusions we dream up to avoid the void, where the real change, the real growth occurs for us. Whether or not my hunch is true, it remains that the transition zones in our lives are incredibly rich places. They should be honored, even savored. Yes, with all the pain and fear and feelings of being out of control that can accompany transitions, they are still the most alive, the most growth filled, passionate, expansive moments of our lives.

And so, transformation of fear may have nothing to do with making fear go away, but rather with giving ourselves permission to “hang out” in the place between trapeze bars. Transforming our need to grab that new bar, any bar, is allowing ourselves to dwell in the only place where change really happens. It can be terrifying. It can also be enlightening, in the true sense of the work. Hurtling through the void, we may just learn to fly.

© From the Essene Book of Days

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The Inmate and the Pigeon

“This story is about a spiritual man serving time on Terminal Island (a California prison located on the water’s edge). This man was fortunate enough to have a cell with a window; most cells don’t have windows. And so, he spent hours sitting by the window observing birds in flight. As luck would have it, he began to befriend a pigeon who called his window ledge home. With bits of bread he saved from his meals, over time, the inmate coaxed the pigeon to allow himself to be held as a pet.

As the story goes, it was quite a sight to see. The pigeon allowed the inmate to hold and stroke him. The pigeon cooed. The inmate loved the pigeon. Every morning the pigeon visited the inmate. Unfortunately, there are no secrets or pets kept in prison. In time, the guards decided that the inmate was not seeking companionship from the bird, but contraband instead. And so they took his friend away and moved the inmate into solitary confinement for a week.”

My husband on occasion likes to comment that “no good deed goes unpunished,” but I have to disagree with him. I think that kindness, compassion, and grace are worth any risk. After all, we are not promised tomorrow so we need to seek out life’s connection every moment in every day. Grace often appears in the moment we least expect it. I pray that your moments, minutes, hours, and days are filled with kindness and compassion and are blessed by grace.

© Megan McCarver Living Practice, May 2002

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The Starfish

In the realm of action, not every gesture must be grand. Small acts are equally important, as can be seen in the story of an old man who was walking along a beach in Mexico after an unusually strong spring storm. The beach was covered with dying starfish tossed up by the waves, and the man was tossing them back in the water one by one. A visitor saw this and came up to him. “What are you doing?” “I’m trying to help these starfish,” the old man replied. “But there are tens of thousands of them washed up along these beaches. Throwing a handful back doesn’t matter,” protested the visitor. “Matters to this one,” the old man replied as he tossed another starfish into the ocean.

© Jack Kornfield. After the Ecstasy, the Laundry p. 273

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