touchstone

when I wake up

I realize I have a pattern of listing off all the things I have to do, fix and change about myself, my day, my life. A wave of overwhelm floods into my chest and pulls my enthusiasm and energy down before I've even started my day. No wonder I don't want to get out of bed most mornings.
  If my thoughts are powerful enough to pull me down every morning, then perhaps my mind is powerful enough to lift me up. So, today I am exercising my minds ability to be positive and enthusiastic about my life.

"Buddha for Mum" 08/24/2009. Ink drawing, Matchbox & Bottle Cap. by Jane Brooks

found

On a run this morning i looked to find a leaf that stopped me, I picked it up and carried it carefully between my thumb and index finger up hill and all the way down. I needed to share it with val, I knew she would love the circular patterns. As I ran down the hill i thought about the beauty of the disease that spotted the leaf. It was now an extraordinary leaf and stood out among thousands of fallen leaves on my run.

A perfect life looks good and might feel good to live. I don't know and won't know how it would feel. All I know is that my life among my friends and family is a mixture of perfect and imperfect, ease and disease and it is rich and swirled with extraordinary moments.

haikus

one of my favorite haikus from this morning.

The moon is up:

Plum blossom shadows

Fall on my pillow.

from Zen Haiku Poems and Letters of Natsume Soseki (lent to me by betsy haggerty)

………………………………&…………………………………

The sun just filled the room,

A dog naps behind my chair.

I feel a smile brewing.

a spontaneous western haiku by me jb.

honesty

today i slept til 10am
got up long enough to make coffee and an english muffin,
went back to bed read some haikus and finally glanced through sunday's nytimes (on tues morning).
it is now 12 noon and i feel like i can get out of bed.
some days i just want 'to do' absolutely nothing for myself or anyone else.
how do you 'do' nothing? it's still doing something.

val took roma for her day of acupuncture in san jose, then one-on-one yoga with susanna at yogasita. i have the house to myself, it is quiet, no phone calls or texts, it is a relief to have this simplicity.

val & I still struggle with how to flow in our life of caregiving, career building and settling in california. we struggle but we don't give up. so we struggle. and we don't give up.

For Celebration

Now is the time to free the heart.
Let all intentions and worries stop,
Free the joy inside the self,
Awaken to the wonder of your life.

Open your eyes and see the friends
Whose hearts recognize your face as kin,
Those whose kindness watchful and near,
Encourages you to live everything here.

See the gifts the years have given,
Things your effort could never earn,
The health to enjoy who you want to be
And the mind to mirror mystery.

by John O' Donahue

(poem sent to me from herb taylor)

To come home to yourself

”May all that is unforgiven in you
Be released.

May your fears yield
Their Deepest tranquilities.

May all that is unlived in you
Blossom into a future
Graced with Love.“

by John O’ Donohue

(poem sent to me from herb taylor)

breath

inhale exhale full deep breaths open energy flow

walk

walking among the trees

your lungs renew in the breeze

revive, release, relief.

by jane brooks