Day 8 Mindful Moments Challenge

Slow traffic near Harvard Square in Cambridge Massachusetts today gave me the opportunity to notice the trees by the side of the road from my car window. Observing the bark of the old sycamores reminded me of the apt name my kids used to call these trees -- "cartoon trees" because they looked like the kind of trees a child would draw as a cartoon. This mindful moment gave me a pause and a smile in an otherwise busy day.

Mindful

Thank you to one of my readers, Dee, for "re-Minding" me of this lovely poem by Mary Oliver. So perfect for our month of Mindful Moments


Mindful

by Mary Oliver
Everyday
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for —
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world —
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant —
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these —
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean's shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

"Mindful" by Mary Oliver from Why I Wake Early. © Beacon Press, 2005. Reprinted with permission.

Happy New Year...Welcome to a Month of Mindful Moments

Good morning 2014! As we enter a new year we are filled with resolutions for big changes in our lives, and generally these changes are unsustainable over time. Let's do something a little different this year, what about setting the bar lower and just noticing one thing mindfully each day? I am calling this the Mindful Moments Challenge. I invite you to participate during the month of January as I post a daily mindful moment from my life and hope you do the same. Expect to see 31 daily posts this month, with a thought, a photo, a description, or a poem about something that I noticed in a way I hadn't before. I welcome and encourage you to post your mindful musings -- feel free to use the comment section on my blog for your thoughts. Let's see how this evolves and see what mindful moments we can share.

Ready, set, go........

January 1 The friendly face of a paperwhite narcisus

Mindful Moments Challenge

"Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans."~ John Lennon

snowflake-cookies.jpg On the eve of a new year, it seems especially timely to reflect and consider the wild ride we are on together called life.  Mindfulness teaches us that it is the moments, sometimes hidden within the busyness, that give our life richness and meaning. Often we project into the future, as in "when (fill in the blank) happens, then I will be happy", and new year's resolutions can push us toward this way of future thinking by negating the present moment.  Consider making 2014 a year of mindful moments, continuing to have overarching goals, but also honoring the present moment by noticing it as it unfolds; and not observing your life in the rear view mirror or as a mirage on the distant horizon.

As a way of embracing this rather radical idea of mindfulness, I invite you to join me during the month of January in a Mindful Moments Challenge: Let's work together and help each other in learning to slow down to the speed of life in the new year. Beginning tomorrow, January 1,  I encourage you to join me in capturing a mindful moment in a word, poem, photograph, drawing, description, etc. Let your imagination take flight! You can post your mindful moments in the comment section of this blog.  I hope it will serve as inspiration and will be interesting to see what others notice and share. Remember to look for those small, seemingly inconsequential moments that are really the essence of our life.

Happy new year and may this year bring many mindful moments your way,
Pam

Haiku Rally #30 Holidays

Today is the last day of November and the final day of my month-long Haiku Rally. I have enjoyed my challenge and have found that I became more mindful as I created a haiku from my day to day experiences. Thank you to those of you who contributed your own haiku creations to my blog. While the official Haiku Rally is over for this year, I welcome you to continue to create and post your mindful haiku to the comment section of my blog at any time.

As we enter the holiday season full steam tomorrow the calendar turns to December, I encourage you to practice the fine art of wabi-sabi (the beauty and wholeness of imperfection) and remember to breathe....

Holidays
Holiday bustle
Practicing wabi-sabi
Noticing the breath

Haiku Rally #29 The Village

Shortly after Thanksgiving each year basement boxes get carried upstairs and the annual creation of "the village" begins by my daughter, Jen.  Some of these figures were my grandmother's but many are new additions, combined with the older ones to create a magical scene. I love the old and new coming together to create an ever changing landscape!


 The Village
The village appears
Emerging from the boxes
Each year magical



Engage with Grace this Thanksgiving


Each Thanksgiving since 2008 I have donated my blog to an initiative called: Engage with Grace. This year is no exception. There is never the perfect opportunity to talk about end of life issues and it may seem especially incongruous on a holiday set aside for giving thanks, yet why not Thanksgiving? End of life discussions shouldn't be one size fits all or even one time conversations, they should evolve and change as life changes. They are talks from the heart, conversations about the values we hold dear, an opportunity to share our life narrative with our loved ones -- what better time than Thanksgiving weekend to share this gift of listening and sharing? So I invite you to do something a bit unconventional this Thanksgiving, perhaps begin a new tradition, alongside the green bean casserole, share Engage with Grace and let the conversation begin.
Happy Thanksgiving,
Pam


Most of us find ourselves pretty fascinating… flipping through photos and slowing down for the ones where we’re included, tweeting our favorite tidbits of information, facebook-ing progress on this or that…

We find other people captivating as well.  In fact, there’s a meme going around on facebook where people share a handful of things that most people don’t know about them – and there’s a great joy in learning these tidbits about the friends and family we think we know so well.
This Thanksgiving, we’re asking our friends and family to try this exercise, but with a twist – we want to know how they’d answer just five questions on their end-of-life preferences.


theoneslide

What? Are you CRAZY? Talk about how you’d want to die over Thanksgiving?  Yup – that’s exactly what we’re suggesting.   You know why?  Because this is a conversation you absolutely want to have exactly when you DON’T need to have it… and it’s a conversation you need to have with your loved ones.   Our hope for you this Thanksgiving is that you’ll have the luxury of checking both those boxes.

As humans, we’re all pretty fascinating, and exploring what matters to each of us under different circumstances can be a captivating conversation…and captivating conversations are part of what turkey dinners are all about.  It’s also a vital one – there will be few times in our lives where ‘getting it right’ is more important than at the end of them.

There are also few greater gifts you can give to your loved ones, and they to you, than making sure these lives we are living with such ferocious intent have the luxury of ending the same way.
Engage with Grace is a way to help get the conversation about end of life started – a way to Engage in this topic with Grace.  Just five simple questions about our end of life preferences that we can all commit to being able to answer – for ourselves, for our loved ones.  Take a quick look – do you know how you would answer?  Could you answer for your loved ones?   There is no wrong answer – It’s only wrong if you don’t know your answers … or if you haven’t shared them.

Coming together over the dinner table to talk about the important stuff is part of our DNA…and it’s where so much of the good stuff happens.  We connect, we share, we learn, we laugh, we fall in love, out of love, we fight and make up, we celebrate, we (maybe even) cry.  If this Thanksgiving turns out not to be your thing, then pick another dinner.  Check out the genius Death over Dinner movement started by our dear friend Michael Hebb to help make that happen.  Thousands of dinners happening across the country – from cool hipsters to the very dearest grandparents coming together to think hard, eat well, and make sure we nail this end of life thing by making sure we’re talking about it.  We double dog dare you to have a Death Dinner – and not enjoy it.

Know what else?  What we want at the end of our lives often changes as we go through them… a mum of toddlers may find she’d opt for more intensive treatment options, while a great-grandfather may feel more comfortable choosing quality of life related treatment… so have this conversation once, then keep having it.

None of us are planning for anything less than living forever – so until one of us is smart enough to make that happen (go Google!) – let’s at least commit to this: we live our life with intent – we can end our life with that same honor.  70% of us want to die at home, only 30% of us do.  Each of us will only die once – make sure you get to die the way you want. Then make sure that’s a gift you give to your loved ones as well.

Just five questions.  Just get started.

Could there be a more important conversation to have this Thanksgiving? Nope. Maybe that’s why they call it talkin’ turkey.