30 Day Meditation Challenge [Begins Nov 1!]

A 30 day Meditation Challenge?! Who's with me?!!

When: Nov 1 - 30, 2013
Where: Wherever (or at home in a designated spot)
Time: Whenever. Same time everyday (or first thing in the morning/last thing at night)
How Long:  15min (or longer)

Part of the challenge is to meditate and then write a short reflection on the experience. 15 minutes of meditation followed by 5 minutes of writing.

Sign up: Send me an email, like/friend me, and join the 30 Day Meditation Challenge group for inspiration, motivation, and encouragement.

Yeah.

A million birds and unexpected sun.

Who actually knows how to take time and live with soul and body and God all in sync?

The iPhone weather forecast said rain all day, like 100%, so when the sun unexpectedly came out during Brendan's nap, I stopped all to-dos and perched myself in the sun with a chai, a pen, and paper. The door is open and Coco and I are sitting in the doorway feeling the heat and listening to a million birds in the big oak tree in the front yard.

Right now, my spiritual practice is to observe. Be present to the fullness of life all around me and rest in the heat of the sun before the moment passes.

It has. The clouds have rolled in, the rain returned.

I invite you to find a moment to observe today.

Here-time asks me to do the hardest of all: just open wide and receive. -from One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

The Journey by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knewwhat you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice - though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles.

"Mend me life!" each voice cried. but you didn't stop. you know what you had to do, though the wind pried with it's stiff finger at the very foundations; though their melancholy was terrible. it was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones.

But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the starts began to burn through the sheets of clouds;

and there was a new voice which you slowly  recognized as

your own,

that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world; determined to do the only thing you could do - determined to save the only life you could save.