This is a mindful writing exercise for peace. Take out a pen and a piece of paper or a notebook. Write what is weighing down your heart. Now imagine what would need to change in order for peace to take hold. You can make a difference. Breathe in the possibilities.

Mindful Writing For Peace

This is a practice to draw natures increasing light to the parts of us that we long to grow and nourish. It is super simple.

Daily 6 minute self nurture practice (winter to spring)

This is a sneak peak at my online 21 Writing Meditation course through DailyOm. Listen to the first meditation and read the first writing exercise below.

Through daily sitting, writing, and listening, this course will teach you how to deepen your attention and create a space for your writing. 

Writing meditation can be a powerful way to bring the active mind in closer alignment with the mind of meditation. This course will help you develop tools and insights for overcoming habitual mind states, self-sabotaging thoughts and behaviors. After about only one week you will feel yourself opening up to others and to your creativity and imagination.

Lesson One
I initially came across the expression “first thoughts” in Nathalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones, Freeing the Writer Within. In her book she counsels to keep writing even when you feel like stopping to read what you’ve written. Allow the pen to continue across the page and don’t cross out anything. Goldberg’s “first thoughts” or what other writers might refer to as “free writing,” helps you trust yourself and open to the creative process. This exercise allows you free reign to write and not worry about what you are writing.

More precisely, what you are doing here is connecting to the ‘original mind’ or your true self as your ‘first thoughts’ come before you have a chance to censor yourself or rethink what you’ve written. These thoughts are important information for you to deepen your awareness of who you are but also to trust in the process and not worry about the outcome.

In this lesson you will practice ‘first thoughts’ and begin with a meditation to help free your mind and prepare the ground for deep creativity. Meditation can help you give way to the mystery of existence by allowing you to encounter your core consciousness. In wisdom traditions we often hear of the space between thought as a window to God, our spirit or our truth. This space is an area of infinite possibility but also of unbridled creativity and imagination.

In this first meditation you are going to practice saying a mantra, which will enable you to focus more easily. The word “mantra” is a Sanskrit word combining the words “man” which refers to “mind’ and “tra” which means “instrument.” This “instrument of the mind” is a tool, which yogis used to go from a place of scattered thought to a place of stillness.

Before you begin the meditation make sure that you have a pen and paper or notebook beside you as you are going to begin the writing exercise shortly after. 

(Listen to the meditation, then do the exercise.)

Exercise
Going back to the idea of “first thoughts” and connecting to your core consciousness, pick up your pen and begin to write down the first thought that comes to you. Keep writing, staying with that first thought, and not looking back to judge whether what you wrote was good or bad. Enjoy the flow of the thoughts that are coming to you and just write them down. Try to stay with this burst of thought for as long as it carries you. It might last five minutes or it might only last 60 seconds. Once you feel that the first thought is complete, put the pen down.

You can check out the course here: http://www.dailyom.com/cgi-bin/courses/courseoverview.cgi?cid=563&aff=

Writing Meditation (excerpted from DailyOM)

1 Sertão

Pre-order Inkswel's BBE20 Anniversary Mix here: https://bbemusic.lnk.to/inkswl4
Continuing a prolific procession of releases on BBE, Australian producer and DJ Inkswel provides the 4th opus for our anthology of 20th Anniversary mixes. Since joining the label in 2014, Inkswel has delivered three volumes of his retrospective album series 'Superfoods', multiple remixes and even a solo LP (last year's 'Unity 4 Utopia'). Showcasing his distinctively smooth, laid back and highly musical DJing style, Inkswel's BBE20 mix takes a journey from chilled hip hop and nu-soul, through disco and broken beats, finally arriving at a rock-solid house groove. Featuring Pepe Bradock, Kon and 4 Hero's Marc Mac among many others, the package also includes a previously unreleased Soulparlor Remix of Inkswel's underground hit 'Together ft. Colonel Red', available exclusively as part of this compilation.

BBE20 Anniversary Mix Series #4 by Inkswel

Visioneers - Shine feat. John Robinson and Jimetta Rose

During a weekend retreat in Michael's honour, Carina Stone speaks about how practice shows up as both a scaffolding for loss and as the path forward. She responds to the questions what do we do now and why do we practice in light of his unique struggles and death. Recorded in Victoria, BC on Oct 8, 2017.

Togethering

Bandcamp: https://tooattached.bandcamp.com/album/angry
All other streaming: https://ffm.to/angry

Performed by Too Attached.
Produced by Too Attached and James Bunton.
Mastered by Emily Lazar at The Lodge, NYC.

Artwork by Michael DeForge.

This project has been generously supported by the Ontario Arts Council. We also acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country.

Stay connected:
http://tooattached.com
http://twitter.com/tooattachedpop
http://instagram.com/tooattachedpop
http://facebook.com/tooattachedpop

Angry

Veins

Sharon Blackie speaks with writer Paul Kingsnorth.

The Hedge School Podcast

Paul Kingsnorth podcast

This full moon is called Natural Intimacy, and it is a gentle, guided drop into more intimate, conscious relationship with softening, feeling, allowing and receiving. It can be so much easier to tense up than to open and allow ourselves to feel, and yet the act of feeling is a moment of intimacy with the life that is living you and the nature that is pulsing through you. 

As many of us crave the holding that can allow our nervous systems to let go, this meditation is a gift through which you can give that to yourselves. Let’s breathe with the trees and flow with the breeze. Let’s surrender our closedness to the warmth of the sun and the tenderness of the earth. Let’s allow a softening that can help our bodies hydrate themselves with sensuality.  

Feeling brings clarity. If you are still tired and wondering how to reboot, if you are feeling alone or stuck or tense, then give this gift to yourself. Together in reverence to nature, our combined presence brings a potency and power that is greater than we would ordinarily be able to access ourselves. It is healing.

Natural Intimacy ~ February Full Moon Retreat 2019

The Beyond Limitless full moon series is an invitation to move beyond what it means to be human, and to enter into the realms of what it means to be part of Nature. Natural. Elemental. Vibrantly alive and connected to all that is.
This full moon we open into an embodied dance with the element of fire - passionate and dangerous, undeniable and alchemical, cleansing and transformational. This is a force of elemental potency and totalness That invites us to let go completely, to give up what is no longer needed, to transform through fire and allow the Phoenix of the new to arise out of the ashes of the old.
This is both pleasure and daring. The wild and uncontrolled force that would roar its truth through our souls and burn away all that stands in the way of our most authentic selves.

Beyond Limitless ~ Fire ~ Late November Full Moon Call

Is trying to de-stress stressing you out?

Have you tried different ways to feel less stressed (e.g., yoga, meditation), yet still feel overwhelmed? Is your to-do list getting longer, yet you've little fuel in the tank to tackle it? 

All you need to start is a pen and paper or a notebook. Do these writing meditations at your own pace and on your own time.

Writing Meditation (excerpted from DailyOM)

Write to Calm

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