FLOW - Meditation by a River

(When it's my turn to host a meeting of my men's group, I like to offer some kind of calming, centering exercise to help everyone shed the stresses and concerns of the day and be fully present in the here and now. This time, I've been unable to find just what I was looking for...so I wrote my own brief, guided meditation.)

Your life’s wanderings have brought you to a small river. You sit on a large deadfall—oak, perhaps—whose body time has stripped of bark. The dry wood is warmed by late May sun.

Better than silence, the place murmurs with comings and goings of countless living things. You watch life’s drama play out, as if unreeled slowly, frame by frame, by the passing water.

A kingfisher laces the far bank of the river, dipping and rising from one vantage point to the next. The filament of his presence passes from riverine space into that of your soul, seamlessly, and back out again, then slowly out of sight down around the bend.

       You imagine the thoughts and concerns 
       of your day, like these other living things, 
       coming into view.

Just below you, a school of redhorse works the shallows, vacuuming the sandy bottom. You marvel at the interplay between each purposeful individual and the seeming randomness of the group. It, too, swirls slowly past with the current and disappears.

You imagine the thoughts and emotions of your day, like these other living things, coming into view in and over the water. They too fly and swim and pass through, from the unimaginable expanse of the cosmos, into and through the slice of it that is your consciousness, and then back out again to join the eternal flow of life.

You sit there, as aware as one can possibly be of the simple joy of this place of calmness and connection. You glow with gratitude for the fact that your presence, your being, is solid and true, informed, but not defined, by concerns of the mind. You sit…and feel…the smooth, warm wood under your seat.

RECLAIM WONDER – Take the Pledge

YEARNING FOR SUBSTANCE
In this increasingly sped-up, dumbed-down, 140-character world, are you starting to hear, as I am, that little voice of unease from somewhere deep in your soul?

Doesn't some part of you just want to say no to all that virtual "reality," all the quick, shallow relationships this digitized culture expects us to buy into, and get back in touch with more real-life, first-hand experiences? Don't you yearn to recapture that sense of wonder we all felt so naturally when we were kids?

Use the ideas as goals, resolutions, or just occasional affirmations of your intention to live      a more attentive, curious and grateful life.

That's what my Reclaiming Wonder Movement is all about. It's recognizing that yearning, and beginning to make our own choices as to the kind of depth and substance we want in our relationships with ourselves, each other and Nature.

THE RECLAIMING WONDER PLEDGE
The movement can start philosophically and leads, most likely, to lifestyle changes, but it's inevitably a spiritual journey. Lots of people want to take part in this journey, but don't quite know where to start. That's why I've crafted the Reclaiming Wonder Pledge.

Think of it as a list of first steps and/or mileposts to guide you on your quest for more mindfulness. You can use the ideas as goals, resolutions, or just occasional affirmations of your intention to live a more attentive, curious and grateful life.  
You • can • do • this!!

Framing example only; frame not included in offer.

 
ORDER YOUR FREE, FRAMABLE, FULL-COLOR 
PLEDGE DOCUMENT WITH A SIMPLE EMAIL.
(Before ordering, you can review content in a non-framable form - CLICK HERE)

To receive your framable, print-quality digital file just send me an email - jeff@willius.com - with the words "Reclaiming Wonder" as the subject line of
your email.

Print it out, frame it, or make it the background of your computer desktop. Feel free to share it; why not give a framed copy to someone you know who's also yearning to reclaim wonder in his/her life?

Thanks for taking the Reclaiming Wonder Pledge! Have a wonder-full day!

FIELD OF INTENTION – Doorways to Destiny

Mindfulness...wakes us up to the fact that our lives unfold only in moments. If we are not fully present for many of those moments, we may not only miss what is most valuable in our lives but also fail to realize the richness and the depth of our possibilities for growth, and transformation. ~  From Wherever You Go, There You Are by JON KABAT-ZINN

So many of the truly memorable experiences in our lives occur accidentally. Sure, we can make plans for a project or a trip—or a lifetime for that matter—but isn’t it the delays, the unintentional side trips, the unexpected encounters that make the deepest impressions? Now I have nothing against planning—in fact, I’m a bit of a control freak myself—but, frankly, far more interesting stuff has happened in my life by coincidence than by intention.

ACCIDENTALLY ON PURPOSE
It may sound strange, but I don’t think coincidence necessarily happens all by itself. Haven’t you known people who seem to live charmed lives, for whom everything always just seems to fall into place? You know, the proverbial golden boy or golden girl? Is there something about them that influences that roll of the dice the rest of us depend on for our fortunes?

James Redfield, author of The Celestine Prophecy, sheds some light on this phenomenon:

For centuries, religious scriptures, poems, and philosophies have pointed to a latent power of mind within all of us that mysteriously helps to affect what occurs in the future. It has been called faith power, positive thinking, and the power of prayer. We are now taking this power seriously enough to bring a fuller knowledge of it into public awareness. We are finding that (it) is a field of intention, which moves out from us and can be extended and strengthened, especially when we connect with others in a common vision.

OPEN HEARTS, OPEN DOORS
Redfield refers to coincidence as the opening of a door. He says that, when we're at our best—operating from our most secure, creative, aware inner core—we give off a sort of cosmic aura that everyone and everything responds to, and that this causes possibilities to open spontaneously for us.

For example, at times when he’s been searching for something (an idea, an inspiration, a helping angel), often, he says, that very thing has miraculously presented itself to him, without his having taken any conscious action to find it.

It may sound strange, but I don’t think coincidence necessarily happens all by itself.

ILLUSTRATION: Katy Farina

This kind of magic can occur for us at any time. I experience it most often when I’m in Nature, but it can also happen in our travels, while we’re at work, even in our relationships. The key is our willingness to deviate from the script and surrender to impulse.

For some people this is easier said than done, but when you come right down to it, it takes only two things: curiosity and faith. For it’s only when we’re curious that we notice those little doors of opportunity that open for us; and only faith tells us it’s okay to venture through them.

Occasionally the rewards of such spontaneity are small ones, modest gifts like surprise or delight. And then there are occasions—more than you might realize—when one surprise leads to another, and that to yet another and, eventually, you look back and say that was life-changing. Life’s complicated, so it’s not always easy to trace such a series of events back to that opening of the original, serendipitous “door,” but I can think of a few that have proven life-changing for me. Do any come to mind for you?

You’ll see them in the movement of a twig, the 
waft of a new smell, or in any of a thousand 
little questions that invite themselves into your consciousness.

HALF OPEN OR HALF CLOSED?
What coincidences have changed your life? Will your eyes, your ears, your heart and, perhaps most importantly, some sixth sense be aware of the next door that opens for you? It may appear in as obvious a form as an invitation to try something new, like a job, a volunteer position or a hobby.

Or it might be just a shift in your usual routine or a new acquaintance in your life. Sometimes it’s something even subtler, like that little voice we keep hearing from some corner of our consciousness urging us to do or say something.

Remember, opportunities sometimes come to us disguised as defeats, like getting laid off or divorced. How you perceive such setbacks depends, in part, on the lens through which you view them. If the doorwa seems mostly closed, try to keep your focus on the fact that it’s also partially open.

Even if the door appears to be swinging shut, sometimes that little pulse of positive energy is all it takes is to reverse its direction and change the sequence of events. From perception to belief; from belief to action; from action to reality.

Of course, there’s a parallel to all of this in our relationship with Nature. The opportunities, the doorways, are everywhere. You’ll see them in the movement of a twig, the waft of a new smell, or in any of a thousand little questions that invite themselves into your consciousness.

All it takes to see the sliver of light shining through is your surrender of mind and spirit. As I’ve said so many times, you cannot make it happen. You must let it happen. There's a big difference.