Wisdom Moments

There is wisdom everywhere.

There is grist for the mill everywhere.

There is light for the next right step everywhere.

Pause now and listen.

What is asking to speak?

What is the voice that seeks being heard?

Sit here for awhile

  river’s edge, shoreline, or open field,

  mountain top, or forest path.

Open to the beauty that is shining here.

Open to the mirror of yourself

     Seeing you.

          richard hammer

               5-27-20

This time of CV Lock Down - March 2020

This time of CV Lock Down - March 2020

I have been pulling a card each day of the CV lock down from the Gabby Bernstein deck of cards titled Miracles Now.  Yesterdays card was – “When I fell blocked, emotionally distressed, or overwhelmed – I turn to my breath”.  Today’s card is “I am ready to receive love”.

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There’s a current Oprah-Chopra 21 Day Meditation ongoing series titled Hope In Uncertain Times. Currently on Day 8 – Activating the Hope Inside You. There’s a five day look back (free) to catch up. I have done most their 21 Day series but am finding this one to be one of the best.   Go to https://chopracentermeditation.com/experience

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Yoga International offers many free very good  programs.  

General areas of interest are in the categories of 

Move – Meditate – Relax – Breathe, 

They also have many very good courses to spend time on. 

See at  https://yogainternational.com 

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Then there is exploring the world with Kelly Wendorf and EQUUS.

Today's email article from her is noted below. You might like to subscribe.

15 WAYS I'M STAYING SANE IN LOCKDOWN  (today’s email from Equus)

https://mailchi.mp/equusinspired.com/15-ways-im-staying-sane-in-lockdown?

Kelly Wendorf is an ICF Certified Master Coach. a spiritual mentor, facilitator, horse-woman, published author, poet, mother of two astonishing people, and courageous life explorer. She is the Founding Partner of EQUUS, and the author of the new book Flying Lead Change (Sounds True), released in October 2020.   -https://equusinspired.com/

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And then there is this from poet and writer Jeff Foster for readers this week.

NONE OF US ARE IMMUNE  -- - Jeff Foster
It’s going to be okay.
It really is.

We will face this situation together with love, humour and patience.
We will weep together, we will laugh together.
We will discover togetherness in our apartness.

And the worst of it will end one day.
And we will have learned so much by then.

We will now be called to face very difficult feelings inside of us.
Fear. Grief. The loss of an old way of life. Our devastated plans.
We will learn to face ourselves. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
Nowhere to go except within.

A sacred quarantine.

We will learn to face our boredom. Our restlessness. The part of us that wants to be somewhere else, with someone else, doing something else, having some other experience, in some other Now, living in some other life.
We will let go of the wonderful future we had planned.
We will let the fantasy future die, release it, and grieve it.
We will return to the solidity and warmth of the present.

We will make the present into our home.
We will begin again, here, build a new house on new soil.
We will explore a new way of life.
Strange, at first. But full of possibility.
Slower. Kinder. Quieter.

We will talk to each other honestly about death, and life, and impermanence, and how we feel about all the changes that have come to us and our loved ones.
We will learn to value life a little more.
Yes, perhaps we will learn to value life a little more.

And live with our hearts cracked slightly open to the elements.
And lean into uncertainty, and find our salvation there.

None of us are immune to change.
To rupture. To the shattering of old, familiar forms.
This is the way of things, this has always been the way of things.

From this perspective, nothing has gone wrong.
Crisis simply means “turning point”, and none of us are immune from the turning.

The breaking of the old makes way for the birth of new.
It has always been this way.

Love. Humour. Patience. With these things, we will come through.
Stronger than before. Renewed. Ready.

I am sending you all my love, my friends.

- Jeff Foster 

~~~~~~~~~  

May you be safe and know love this day.

May you pass it forward seeing others being safe and knowing love. 

Richard  

2020 Change and Being

 2020 Change and Being

There’s a time for change,

  and a time for standing still

A time for wandering,

  and one for cultivating

A time for creating and manifesting

  and one for resting and resetting.

What kind of time is it for you today?

Let it be one of mindful inquiry

  and even of allowing the unknowing

One of accepting the grace that

  the universe has in store for you.

Take time now to write to inspire

  your vision for action.

Visual acuity is graded as 20/20

  when there is clarity near and far.

What is it inside that is clear, your inner vision?

What do you see beyond you that is clear?

What work, or action, is calling you forth in

  both fields of seeing, inner and outer?

Call it educated intuition, a stirring of the pot

   to see what rises to the surface

Then savor and serve it to the world. 

            richard hammer

                1-6-20

For 2020 - Do These Write Outs

For 2020  - Do These Write Outs 

(make it a game with yourself)

An Opening of Doors for establishing insights and thresholds

Name 20 Things to be Grateful for.

   It could contain things that went really well for you, or someone you love,

    in the last year. Gratitude helps establish clarity.

Name 20 Things to do in 2020 to raise your energy level ….

     and the level of you appreciating your being alive, of being “Here Now”.

Name 20 things you can/will do to “Pay Forward” to help others in 2020.

  Your time at a charity, a note of Thanks to someone who needs to be “seen”,

  perhaps some gift from your heart that would be unexpected by the receiver,

  a monthly monetary  contribution to an organization that is helping others, …

Name 20 things you could create or develop in the coming year.

  These could be things you will learn, such as cooking a recipe, developing a new craft  or skill, or visiting a new place that you have never been to before.

  It’s a cultivation of self exploration and the elements around you. Life is a gift to be discovered, enjoyed, and appreciated….. and shared with others.

A Practice for You

Adopt an Essence word for you for 2020 that will help guide you.

It is an alignment word. A word that brings you back on track for 2020 endeavors when you have wandered off.  It is a word that has a feeling to it that inspires and leads you on the year’s journey.  It can be two or even three words. Like a mantra, repeat it to yourself mentally upon rising as a remembering. Write it out and post it somewhere for you to see.

In 2018 my Essence words were Simplify-Clarity-Trust.  The gift is that they continue to stay with me even two years later and I take on a new set of words for a new year.

~~~

Establish a plan of daily self care that includes

The Daily Triple 20 -  each is for 20 minutes, or more.

1. Walk outside, in the sun. Perhaps in bare feet at the beach for earthing benefits.

2. Exercise - specific movement: yoga, pilates, QiGong, physical strength training, weight lifting, swim, bike, run, fitness classes with others or following online.

3. Meditate – a formal seated practice (your style), or just sit quietly (maybe in nature), could include journal writing.  

ॐ

The Lens - Ram Dass

The Lens

by Ram Dass

Lens 1 shows you a balding old man - my physical being. Lens 2 is my personality and social responsibility - father, student, meditator. Lens 3 is my mythic identity- Jung's archetypes that are bigger than life. Lens 1, 2 and 3 identify the differences between us. How I differ from you and you from me. Lens 4 allows you to look into the eyes of another. There is another awareness looking back at you. It's another awareness witnessing the scene.  But Lens 5 takes you somewhere else. You look and you see yourself looking at yourself by looking at yourself. There’s only one of us in Lens 5. if you get down into the smallest units of matter – the quarks and electrons and sub-neutrinos, all that stuff way down there behind the patterning of stuff – it’s all the same stuff.

It’s all homogeneous and moves in and out of everything. There’s only one of it. You can call it the One in the spiritual unity that lies behind the diversity. You can call it God if you want to. There’s no name for it, and many names.

In Lens 6 you disappear. I disappear. Even the lens disappears. I am nothing more and nothing less

RAM DASS

Love – Serve – Remember

Today's Blessing

What is the blessing that you are inviting to be received today?  

In my short journaling prompt this morning I began it with "A better day begins."
... because yesterday was an out of sorts day, a not truly me day, a hard to recognize the authentic me foggy day. 

Then later this morning this prompting. "The word that is floating on consciousness is UNPLUG. Could this be the Word of the Day for me today, this week?   What if we could make a deck of 3x5 cards with a separate word on each that you could randomly draw to see how wisdom (Jhana - or as noted in Buddhism, dhyāna) is inviting you to open to the path for the day.  

Words such as Discipline, Community, Inspire, Create, Balance, ... 

And then coming into today's email from my Penzu online journal was a noting of what I had written three years ago on this date titled Flourish.

"The opportunity to flourish in your life is now.  This moment.
Why put off or delay it?   What is wanting to arise and be present now?

Life is meant to be lived with Purpose, Love, and Joy....
with connection, with authenticity, with creative curiosity.

It starts with acknowledging peace within. To find a stillness there, to  find an alignment there that allows a moving into your soul's calling.

It then requires connection. Intimate, mindful contact. Requires being vulnerable, but from a place of trust.  An allowing yourself to know another and to be known my them.

Then to move. Let the movement be with Grace, Ease, and Elegance.
This is the G.E.E. factor.  Learn to cultivate the GEE factor in your life." 

What is your word of the day for today?

~~~~~ 

Ziva Meditation

https://zivameditation.com/

In the event you are not already familiar with the practice of Ziva Meditatio by Emily Fletcher

check on her Three M style – Mindfulness, Meditation (includes 2x breath), and Manifesting.

Her recent book is Stress Less, Accomplish More 

The Four P's and Right Action

We are here to play, breathe, contribute, savor and sample, create and evolve the uniqueness that is you.   And give the permission of that gift to others!  This requires of us to develop those skills that nurture and nourish our being. Cultivation of presence. Seeing with eyes of love. Developing your own unique agenda of action without being attached to results (Let the ego rest.  See Don Miguel Ruiz “Four Agreements”).  

Once you rest into your Four P’s of
Presence (just this now, mindfully embraced),
Power (your life stream, Prana, Qi, energy ),
Purpose (your Soul’s directives),
Passion (your energy and drive for good and creating)
the Fifth P of Possibilities opens to you.  Right Attention and Intention breeds Right Action. The A.I.A. formula. The by-ways and path opens for what it is for you to do this day, week, year. The cohorts begin to recognize themselves in the other.

by Pompe Strater-Vidal
Zen Sensei and founder of Relax Breathe Flow

It’s the first week of autumn here. Days are getting shorter and nights longer. Leaves are changing color, and starting to fall. It’s the season of letting go.

In meditation, we let go of our focus on our thoughts and emotions, coming back gently to our breath. But sometimes it’s hard to let go. Very. Challenging. Persistent patterns circle in an endless loop, keeping us stuck in our head, our feelings or both.

When this happens, it’s helpful to understand why you’re stuck. What you’re attached too.

Here are nine common negative emotional patterns:

1. Anger. Attached to being right, and resentful about what’s wrong.
2. False pride. Refusing to ask for attention, help and support when needed.
3. Vanity. Attachment to your image, instead of being authentic and real.
4. Envy. When the grass is always greener, underneath there’s a sense of lack.
5. Hoarding. Collecting stuff like a squirrel, afraid of never having enough.
6. Fear. Identifying with fears, instead of reality testing them.
7. Gluttony. Seeking pleasure compulsively to avoid experiencing pain.
8. Lust. Overindulging. A lot.
9. Indolence. It’s more comfortable to stay stuck. Change is risky.

Unless you’re a saint, some of these patterns will sound familiar. This is not a new way to criticize your self:) This is about awareness. Being aware of how you’re stuck is important. It’s the first step out of the loop. Here’s the next.

A list of the positive qualities that get us unstuck, moving forward into the light:

1. Serenity happens when you let go of anger and being right.
2. Humility opens the door to receiving support with love.
3. Honesty is the real you, the good, the bad and the ugly.
4. Equanimity comes from being grateful for what you have.
5. Nonattachment is about letting go.
6. Courage is moving forward through fear.
7. Sobriety is accepting your pain.
8. Innocence is simple enjoyment, the wonder of a child.
9. Right action comes from being centered in the qualities above.

Once you identify which negative loop you’re stuck in, you can consciously work on developing the quality that antidotes it.

Let me know your thoughts on this process, stepping out of negative patterns to move forward with awareness and love.