A Spiritual Return to School

Tags

autumn, curiosity, delight, discovery, school

The first day of return to school is often a shock to the system. No matter how much you prepare for it, the fact is that you are jolted out of the long sleep of ten or so weeks of summer. The signal of change is unmistakable as all the lights that had been flashing yellow over the past week or so suddenly change to green… it’s time to move forward and meet the early waking hour again.

There is a certain stillness about the world in the new waking hour that I am glad to welcome back. There is a return to a routine, a structure, a familiar purpose that I am glad to return to. And it isn’t just me. The entire household, including the puppies, seem to have been jolted into the ‘return to school’ mode.

Like many mornings this summer, it’s humid, warm, gray and overcast today. It doesn’t quite feel like autumn yet, but our bodies and the trees outside seem to be ready for it. We are ready to welcome the change in color and the chill in the air that makes you clasp your hands around the mug of tea a bit tighter as you first walk out onto the deck to check what kind of weather is approaching from the west.

She is more than ready, though. The excitement of a new grade, new teachers, new subjects, new friends and much more has her bubbling over with enthusiasm. We take our “first day” photos at the top of the steps overlooking the lake — her puppy joins in and they both enjoy some special moments. And then, just like that we’re off for the ride to school.

It’s one of those days where I wish the car ride was a bit longer. She is talking a hundred miles an hour about the subjects and her new teachers – Math, History, Chemistry and more. It’s all pouring out and I’m happy to watch the resumption of flow that had been seemingly at a standstill for the past few weeks.

As I drop her off with a quick goodbye, she has a quickness in her step that I haven’t seen in a while. As much as she looks forward to the beginning of summer every June, she looks forward to her return to school in August even more. It is a sign that the village is raising her well, and that return to school is much more than just the academics, the sports, the extra-curricular and such.

How does all this connect to our inner spiritual life?

Return to school can be a reminder of an embrace of possibilities, adventures, and detours that await us when we are dunked into the alphabet soup of human beings and their variant personalities. It is an invitation to remain young at heart, to embrace every new day with freshness, curiosity and preparedness for the possibilities that will unfold.

We are ready for our return to school. We’ve been ready for a while. A new inner awakening is just a sunrise or moonrise away for us. Let’s simply choose to return to it with childlike joy and delight!

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly chat on Twitter – Sunday Aug 22 at 9amET / 630pm India in #SpiritChat. Bring your open mind and heart. I will bring the tea and cookies and school syllabus 🙂 – @AjmaniK

A walk around the school campus on the first day back..

Rediscovering Joy and Wonder by @AwakeningTrue

Tags

discovery, joy, spirituality, wonder

Rediscovering Joy and Wonder

I was about 5 years old, staring into a bassinet where a newborn baby was sound asleep.  She was lying on her back and I was as mesmerized by her stillness as I was by her tiny hands.  Soon, I became aware of someone standing behind me.  It was not my Mom or one of my aunts because I knew that if it were, I would feel a hand on my shoulder or hear a familiar voice speaking to me.  I continued to stare at the sleeping baby, and then she made a small sound and she smiled.  I was totally amazed,  but not by the baby.  It was these words, “She is talking with the angels,” that amazed me.  The woman standing behind me spoke these words so softly – not to me but to herself.  Even at 5, I understood when someone was speaking to me and when she was not.  It was not the woman’s words that amazed me – they seemed true enough to me – it was the way she spoke them.  It was, I realized many years later, a tone that was full of wonder.

Joy and wonder!  I link these two words because there seems to be something magical when we experience joy and wonder in the same moment.  So, how do we rediscover joy and wonder when we are not watching a newborn talk with the angels?  Times when you have experienced joy and wonder may have just immediately come to mind.  When we are prompted, that often happens.  We think about a gorgeous sunrise after a storm, or the first fireflies of summer, or splashing in the ocean, or some moment when we felt sheer, unbridled joy AND a sense of awe and wonder.  A more important question is this – how do we rediscover joy and wonder in our day-to-day lives even as we live in these very challenging times?  How do we experience joy and wonder every day?  Every day.

I believe in the magic of everyday life, and believe we can choose to notice the magic within us and around us.  We can pause for a few moments to notice the glistening dew on the grass, the way the light seemed to flash just as our eyes rested on those sparkles.  We can drink in the beauty of the light reflected in the dew, knowing that it will shift and disappear in a few moments, and realizing that if we had not glanced in this direction in this exact moment, we would have missed this light entirely.  Joy in the beauty, wonder in the timing, gratitude for the magic of the moment.

I hope you will join the #SpiritChat conversation this Sunday, and share your insights about rediscovering joy and wonder in our daily lives.  Has this ever seemed more important to us than it is now?

Sharon Kathryn D’Agostino — @SharonDAgostino, @AwakeningTrue and @SayItForwardNow 

Author’s bio: I believe in the power of love, compassion, kindness, forgiveness, and gratitude. And I believe that each of us has an important role in shaping a kinder, gentler, more compassionate world for all. 

Kumud’s note: I am delighted that Sharon will be hosting #SpiritChat for all of us on Sunday, October 4 at 9amET on twitter. I am so looking forward to “Joy and Wonder”, and all that emerge from our rediscovering them. Thank you, Sharon!

Fireflies evoke joy and wonder – photo by Dave Burwell

 

Finding Our Own Path

Tags

discovery, freedom, walking, zen

Walking in nature has grown to be one of my favorite outdoor activities over the past four or five years. This invitation to walk the local reservation came about suddenly one day as I was driving to work. That was then, and this is now. Hundreds of miles and thousands of photographs later, there are still new paths that remain to be walked and new experiences to be had on the frequently traveled ones. 

Nature has taught me much about life and shown me some glimpses of its inner workings during my walks. The variations of the seasons and how one season’s end is a preparation for the next. The contrast between the stillness of the water in the lagoons and the rush of flow in the river after the snow melts. The trees that grow taller every year so that they can carpet the ground with leaves every autumn to provide fuel for the forthcoming spring. This, and much more, has unfolded on the many paths for me. 

Such is the nature of the physical paths that have unfolded for me over time. It is hard to imagine that one could really walk in deep harmony with nature without experiencing a parallel spiritual journey within. Nature does not promote any path to the walker. It provides a new canvas every day and invites the sojourners to bring their imagination to paint a new path with every step. Some of my most satisfying walks have been where I simply wandered and let the sounds of the river and the play of sunlight among the trees be my guides. May every day bring a new way — that seems to have become my mantra.

According to Osho, ‘The Way’ is a good description of the philosophy of Tao. There is no goal — there is only the way or the path. 

Each moment, wherever you are, you are at the goal if you are on the path. In Tao, there is no talk about moksha, nirvana or enlightenment. The spiritual work is that you have to find the path, the Way. 

So, what does the Way look like? How do we find it? How do we know that we are on it? The challenge of this approach, if we choose it, is that we have to find our own path before we can start walking it. It cannot be given to us by anyone, or walked for us by anyone. There are no footsteps to follow, or leave for others. This may be disconcerting to many who have had a ‘religious’ upbringing, and yet it is an opportunity for great freedom of exploration. The variables are courage, risk, and adventure. An adventure of self-discovery, and of the path itself. 

There is a blue heron that I have often stumbled upon during my walks. She shows up at different locations in the reservation depending on the season and the hour of the day. She invariably sees me before I see her, and starts to leave before I can take a picture of her. So, I stopped trying to photograph her. Then, one day, without preamble, there she was. Standing still on a log in the lagoon, for what seemed like an eternity. It was as if she knew that I had stopped trying to ‘capture’ her, so she stopped trying to escape from my presence. That was a really good moment on the journey, for I felt that I was one with the goal and the path. 

And so, we keep walking, keep discovering, keep on letting the curves and bends of our path unfold before us. We draw from nature as we learn more about ourselves and our heart’s capacity through direct experience every day. It’s a great way to feel alive, isn’t it? 

Kumud

Join me and the #SpiritChat community, Sunday August 16 at 9amET as we continue our journey and cross paths on twitter yet again. Namaste – @AjmaniK

One of the sights on one of the many paths in the Valley Reservation

Spirituality and Exploration

Tags

discovery, exploration, realization

Our existence is closely connected with our spirit of exploration. Ever since we were born, or ever since we developed an awareness of our individuality in the universe, exploration has perhaps been an integral part of that which defines us. The inquisitiveness of infants is essential to their learning and education and identity. The discovery of cause and effect, colors, shapes, patterns, textures and the like, become the toddler’s playground.

As we grow a bit older and traverse through grade school, middle school, high school and college education, our desire for exploration of the world around us often expands. The more we know, the more we often want to know, for we discover that we know but little. It is this innate internal programming which is connected to our survival as a species, that inspires us to send probes, robots, and humans to explore space, our own moon, moons on other planets, and the planets themselves.

Fifty years ago, in what was then a ‘race to the moon’, we saw human beings and human teams undertake an exploration journey that still inspires many. The landing of Apollo 11 on the lunar surface was an event that crossed national and continental boundaries in its impact. Humanity at large, believed a bit more in themselves, in their ability to dream big and achieve those big dreams. The event brought us closer to the stars. More importantly, when the lunar explorers looked back at earth from far off distances, their photographs of earth brought us greater awareness of our own planet.

It is human nature to stretch, to go, to see, to understand. Exploration is not a choice, really; it’s an imperative – Michael Collins, Apollo 11 Astronaut

And that is the serendipity of exploration. The lunar missions were primarily focused on going further than humans had ever gone before. They were, in a sense, outwardly directed, away from earth. However, the farther outward they traveled, the greater awareness, appreciation, and reverence they developed for ‘home’. Many an astronaut has often remarked about the sense of Oneness that they feel with Earth when in orbit. This cognitive shift in awareness is called the overview effect. Exploration is perhaps akin to having a spiritual realization, a kind of enlightenment, about the connectedness of it all. It ought to be no surprise that those who have traveled beyond, are often the greatest proponents of exploration.

As we celebrate Apollo 11 fifty years on, it is reasonable to ask – why did we stop? Why haven’t we returned, or even gone beyond? Did we lose our desire, our will to keep exploring? Perhaps it is no different than when we reach a certain ‘milestone’ in our inner exploration. We start thinking that we have ‘arrived’, and that we don’t have much more to discover. Distractions and complacency sets in, hubris grips us, and ‘fifty’ years may go by before we realize that we took just one small step… an important step, but it is time to awaken and take the next giant leap.

Kumud @AjmaniK

P.S. Join us for our weekly gathering on twitter – Sunday, July 21 at 9amET in #spiritchat. We will share stories about exploration, discovery, the explorer’s spirit, and much more. Namaste – Kumud.

“We set out to explore the moon and instead discovered the Earth.” – Bill Anders, Apollo 8 Astronaut (‘Earthrise’ photo by Bill Anders)

Harmony and Color

Tags

color, discovery, diversity, harmony

Dear Kumud,

   I was in a school band concert yesterday attending my step-son’s Spring band conert. The auditorium was filled with the music of clarinets, flutes, trumpets, saxophones, drums, xylophones, and probably a few more instruments that I missed. Today I am reminded that beautiful symphonic music cannot happen by chance. I recall the quote by Carl Sagan, “If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, first you must invent the universe.” Applied to the concert last night: “If you want to invent a symphony, first you must invent the universe, and then human beings to communicate and create culture and art, and then instruments, a composer and so on …”

   The music depends on the composer, who is depends on instruments. Music that sounds “just so” here in the States would sound different if it were imagined in Tibet or Madagascar or Southeast Asia. I spent some time in Indonesia and there is nothing in the world like the sound of gamalan, with anywhere between five and fifty circular gongs of various sizes played by five to fifty performers. Put together, gamelan is symphony with essentially one instrument and a wide array of tones.

   The symphonic band I heard last night, here in the States, consisted of brass, wind instruments, percussion, and strings. The conductor stood at the front, animated and dressed in black, and we were even fortunate to have a student teacher conductor lead one of the songs.

   Every composer is ideologically, culturally, unquestionably trapped by the instruments that swirl around in their heads and sometimes around their studio. They can be exposed to instruments and music from other cultures (and even compose in that style, as did Paul Simon in Graceland), but they are predominately influenced by their home base. Their schema.

   Schema refers to the structures in our brain that classify how we perceive concepts, especially new concepts.

   And yet the metaphor of the day isn’t simply to say that a symphony is a collection of various instruments that make beautiful music. Or that beautiful music is the result of the structures fixed in the composer’s brain. This isn’t what I was thinking yesterday when I sat in the school band concert. Rather than thinking about specific instruments, I was thinking about the kids playing instruments. Their make-up. Their color. Their background, identity, orientation, gender, and the tone of their skin.

   This was not a diverse band. I am remarried and at this event, I observed 3 bands and at least 180 performers who, in terms of the tone of their skin, look predominantly like me. I can observe but I can’t judge. This is just where we live.

   My son goes to school 30 miles to the south and I’ll be attending his band concert next week. I’ll sit next to a diverse collection of parents – at least in terms of the tone of their skin – and the band members will look like they are painted with a different brush. Hues of white and brown and shades in between. Along with diverse colors comes diverse family background, diverse heritage, diverse religion. Again, I can’t judge. This is just where he lives.

   Symphony and color. Instruments and skin. My son goes to a relatively diverse school and I appreciate that he sits next to kids who look different and who come to class with different heritage, different religious backgrounds, and ultimately different perspectives.

   We live in a diverse world. The spiritchat community spreads across the states and across the globe. Call me crazy, but I believe we should seek out and embrace differences – skin, culture, background, and every difference that makes someone unique. A mosaic. A symphony.

   I am going to challenge myself during the next week to have one meaningful conversation with someone culturally different than myself. During the next 7 days, I want to encounter someone who is culturally different than myself and with a healthy dose of empathy, risk being changed. Feel free to share with me in this small challenge. Bring new color to your life. Create a mosaic. Create a symphony.

   One thing we know: the spirit is happy with color. Or rather, the spirit is happy with colors.

   It is in differences that we grow our perspective, our schema. And this is not just a good thing, it is a necessary thing.

David

Today, listening to Tambazako and Tsy Ferana.

David Tumbarello is a technical communicator with over 50 years in the growth industry, with 49 of those years communicative and on two feet. When he is not technically communicating, he enjoys hiking, biking, and writing. Feel free to connect with David on LinkedIn.

The Spirit of Curiosity

Tags

curiosity, discovery, science, spirituality

The Spirit of Curiosity – by Christy Johnson

Recently I had yet another conversation about how radical it was for me to quit engineering to start an energy healing practice, which made me curious about the differences and similarities between my two professions. After all, if my soul embraced both for me as part of who I was and who I was becoming, are they that incompatible?

Science and Spirituality

My musings led me to realize that spirituality and the forefront of science both spring from unconventional thought and result in new awareness. We may perceive science and engineering as solid, knowledge-based, and quantifiable. Yet while science pertains to what is already known it also explores what is unknown and uncharted, inviting us to be curious about possibilities and to let go of old certainties and beliefs. Both science and spirituality help us expandour understanding via curiosity.

Curiosity and Serendipity

I realized they also both have an element of serendipity.  An extraordinary shift happens when we surrender to divine timing and divine intelligence, curious to see what might occur beyond our own limited imagination. The discovery of penicillin is a prime example of this considering what revealed itself was not part of the original experimental design. Surrendering with curiosity leads us to truth.

 

Children arrive on the planet naturally curious. They come from a place of awe and wonder which happens also to be where spirituality arises. When we tap into curiosity, we can connect more deeply with nature, our selves, and others because we’ve released judgment and have embraced being present.

Engaging Curiosity

Returning to my own life, asking what, why, and how questions in the Akashic Records soul database or seeking a supportive Jin Shin Jyutsu flow for clients leverages my curiosity — just as it did when I used to use transmission electron microscopes to investigate why computer chips failed. Why do I see this and not that? What does this finding mean? How do we explain and resolve our thorniest problems?

 

Now my curious mind is engaged and more questions arise. What happens when we approach spirituality, and even life, with curiosity? What happens when we move beyond expectations and beliefs? What happens when we start asking questions instead of making statements? What’s the connection between curiosity and creativity? What relationship does curiosity have to healthy relationships, intelligence, and even longevity? How do we restore our curiosity? What hampers it? What is possible?

 

Please join us this Sunday, January 6th, 2019 at 9 A.M. EDT/7:30 P.M. India in #SpiritChat on Twitter, as we explore The Spirit of Curiosity. Please come to connect, learn, and share how you welcome curiosity into your outlook and your life. What magic might happen when spend an hour being curious together?

– Christy Johnson (@IntuitiveHeal on Twitter)

Host Bio: Dr. Christy Johnson quit her decades-long engineering career in 2010 to open her own integrative energy healing practice. She helps clients create love and compassion inthe relationships with themselves and others via soul level information, energy healing, and empowering self-help tools. You can connect with her via her website www.intuitiveheal.com , on Twitter @IntuitiveHeal and on her new YouTube channel.

On Death and Discovery

Tags

death, discovery, spiritchat, spirituality

The Indian Epic, Mahabharata (one of the longest poems in the world) is the story of the lives of two families – the Pandavas and the Kauravas. It has many fascinating characters whose lives mirror ours in many ways, and describes their struggles and victories.There are many episodes in the Mahabharata which involve conversations between Kings (or Princes) and their advisors and teachers. Every conversation seems to carry an underlying message about life… and sometimes, about death. 

Death is a vast subject which has an air of inevitability about it, and that is perhaps why we often do not talk about it. We have all experienced ‘physical’ death in some form – of either a parent, a spouse, a friend or a relative. We all have our own way of dealing with Death (or, in some cases, not dealing with it) depending upon our station in life at the moment that we encounter it. The Mahabharata makes two observations,  about Death. The two (related) observations are…

“Even though we see people dying a physical death all around us, we ignore the fact that we are ever going die” – Mahabharata

“One of life’s greatest mystery is that we all know we are going to die some day, but we often behave like we are going to live forever” – Mahabharata

So, why do we often behave – towards our own selves and towards others – as if, we are destined to live forever? Is it because we are living in the past or the future, and not in the present? Or is it because we live on autopilot, even when we are living in the present? Is it because of a lack of… you name it. As we reflect deeply on these two seemingly interrelated mysteries about living and dying, we may discover some new truths about ourselves. We may even discover some hidden fears which are preventing us from experiencing the blessings of love, of grace, of peace. 

Of course, physical death is only one aspect of death. Our physical body is only one of the five layers (the others being the mental, intellectual, energy layer, and the spiritual) that can be subject to death. In our lives unto this point in time, we have accumulated a lot of experiences and habits which tend to define us. Some of these may not be serving us well any more. How do we arrive at the discovery that some of these habits and thought processes may need to die in order for us to live better?

If you have read this far, I hope I have given you reason to pause, reflect, consider, and maybe, even change how you think about death. Regardless, I invite you to join me and the #SpiritChat community in a conversation about “Death and Discovery” on Sunday June 1st at 9amET (USA) / 2pm UK / 6:30pm India. 

Namaste, and be well,

Kumud

P.S. Join us next Sunday as our long-time friend, Meredith Bouvier (@merryb923) will co-host on the topic of “On Living Well”…

P.P.S. We also welcome your thoughts on this topic in the comments, if you are/were unable to join us in the chat on Sunday June 1st…

Q1. Take a moment to visualize the process of Discovery. What do you see/feel/hear? #SpiritChat

Q2. In the midst of Life and Discover, is it even necessary to discuss ‘Death’? Why? #SpiritChat

Q3. What is the opposite of death? Is it really Life? Or… #SpiritChat

Q4. What needs to ‘die’ within us, for us to ‘discover’ our Truth? Thoughts… #SpiritChat

Q5. The grief that may accompany death (of ego)… What are some ways to deal with it? #SpiritChat

Q6. “Death. The undiscovered country of no return.” Agree or disagree? Why or why not? #SpiritChat

Q7. What kind of courage does it take to die? To live? Or does it take more… #SpiritChat

Q8. What inner discoveries tend to hasten ‘Death’? What slows it down? #SpiritChat

Q9. For the path of Death and Discovery… What resources would you recommend? #SpiritChat

Final Q10. To those trying to discover Life, and the Art of Living, you would say… #SpiritChat

Here is the Full Transcript and the Storify Summary

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A Spirit of Serendipity

Tags

discovery, serendipitiy, spirituality, travel

It has been a year full of wonderful travel opportunities for me, whether they be for ‘work’ or ‘leisure’. My most recent trip was to the country of Brazil, and to what seems to be a country within a country – the southern state of Rio Grande de Sul. The primary purpose of this trip was to attend a family wedding, and it was a beautiful affair indeed. I had no idea what to expect, for I had never been to a “farm” wedding before, so I simply went with an open heart and mind – going with the flow. And I am so glad that I did go, for some of the lessons that I learnt after the wedding was done, will stay with me for a long time.

The simple, matter-of-fact, understated elegance of this family wedding in a rural area was very (refreshingly) different from the loud, over-the-top affairs that I have been witness to many a times in the USA and in India. Like every day of the year, the cows on the farm were milked by 5:30pm, and then, the father of the groom “cleaned up” (really well!) and drove us to the church so he could bless his son for his new journey in life. If he was nervous about the fact that his son was getting married, he barely showed it. He seemed to go about his business with nary a furrow in his brow, as if he had nothing to be concerned about. Everything was going to be okay – that seemed to be the message of his countenance, his attitude.

I decided to watch this man – my wife’s Dad’s brother – for the rest of the evening, and, for that matter, for the rest of my stay on his farm. I consider the lessons that I learnt from observing him, a beautiful serendipity of this trip. I went to participate in a wedding – I ended up learning so many practical life lessons from him. Sixteen hour work days, 365 days a year, with nary a complaint – getting up before dawn, milking cows, working the farm, milking cows again – the man never seems to stop. Some of you may remember that “Farmer” commercial during Superbowl 2013 – it was probably based on Ricardo’s life of hard work, simplicity, humility, self-sacrifice, respect for life, and devotion to his family and community – “somebody who would bale a family together with the soft, strong string of sharing…”

So, what does all this have to do with #SpiritChat and serendipity anyway? Well, let me try and tie it together. One definition of Serendipity is “a fortunate occurrence that happens to us when we are not expecting it”. We go in search for something, but end up finding something totally different in return – and that something different is our “reward” for having taken the journey in the first place. While it is good to live our lives with our beliefs, our values, our thought processes and our well-constructed plans, perhaps, we ought to leave room for serendipity – for it is in those moments that we have the potential to leap forward in our spiritual growth. How would you define ‘spiritual’ serendipity? Have you experienced it recently?

I hope that I have given you a little bit of insight into this week’s #SpiritChat topic of Serendipity. The word may be “one of the ten toughest words to translate” in the English language, but never mind. We were never afraid of tough challenges, were we?! So, I invite you to join us in #SpiritChat at our regular hour of 9amET on Sunday, October 27th. You may come primarily for a twitter chat, but who knows what you may leave with? 🙂

Kumud

P.S. And yes, his son – the one who got married – was milking cows and working on the farm the very next day after his wedding… walking his father’s footsteps!