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Posts Tagged ‘mindfulness’

The Mindfulness Bell

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 30, 2025| 8 Comments »


“You might consider your own minor annoyances and turn one into a bell … let it be a bell to remind you to come back, and remember, soon all of this will be gone.” —David Keplinger, Another Shore (May 30, 2025)
 
 
And so today when the very slow driver
in front of me starts going ten miles
over the speed limit right when we get
to the passing lane, I imagine
my frustration is a bell. Instead
of calling him an idiot, as usual,
instead I think, Ding. Can you be
grateful to be alive right now?
Ding. Can you bless this body?
Delight in this canyon? Find joy
in the burgeoning green of spring?
Ding. Ding. Ding. Can you come home
to this moment and realize all belongs?
Even slow drivers who speed up.
Even your impatience. Ding.
Here’s your chance to imagine whatever
provokes you becomes a mindfulness bell.
There will come a time when you think
oh, what a lucky woman you were
to drive these roads at all. Could that time
be now? Ding. Ding. Oh that idio—. Ding.
Please, let him pull over. Don’t honk. Please.
Ding. Ding. Ding.

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One Deepening Connection

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on December 27, 2024| 2 Comments »


 
each breath
a sanctuary
I carry with me

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On Drinking the Last Cup of Mariage Frères Marco Polo Tea

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 24, 2023| 12 Comments »




I didn’t stop what I was doing
to enjoy the exotic red fruity notes,
didn’t pause my busy mind
to cherish the bold dark leaves.
That’s not to say I didn’t love drinking the tea.
I did. Every velvety sip.
And as I pulled the final muslin sachet
from the classic black box lined with gold foil,
I thought of the woman
who had bought me such extravagant tea
and I fell even more deeply in love with her.

I tell myself it’s not wrong
I divided my attention
between the delicate tea
and the generous sun
and the work that I love.
I tell myself they spoke to each other
in the most beautiful morning voices—
all of them conspiring
the way a violin and cello and piano conspire,
the way a poet and a pianist and an artist conspire,
the way strawberry and cocoa
and dark leaves conspire
to create something more from the moment—
an alchemy that only comes when we say yes
in the moment to everything.

Now, when I read those words I wrote,
I taste in them Tibetan flowers.
They wear the fragrance of sunshine,
the bouquet of exotic lands.
Now when I see the empty drawer
where the tea is not,
I dream of how I drank the last cup
as if it would last forever.

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One Cleaning the Closet of the Mind

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 8, 2023| 6 Comments »


 
 
how threadbare these thoughts
I’ve chosen to wear every day—
replacing them with nothing

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Filling My Purse with Commas

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on June 26, 2019| Leave a Comment »

 

 

 

All afternoon, each time

I think I should hurry,

I pull out a comma,

such humble punctuation,

and invite it into the moment—

and the comma does

what it always does, which

is to invite a pause, a small pause,

of course, but a pause long enough

to breathe, to notice what else

is happening, a slight

suggestion that right here

is a perfect place to rest,

yes, how funny I never noticed

before that the comma itself

looks as if it’s bowing, nodding

its small dark head to what is,

encouraging us to find

a brief silence and then,

thus refreshed, to go on.

 

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One Slow and Steady

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 3, 2018| 5 Comments »

 

 

 

how to erode

this growing wall of anger—

one breath at a time

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