Don't Miss the Love-Messages Flashing From Every Eye

The world is an open green
in the middle of a garden

Beings in various forms
see their reflections and laugh,
love-messages flashing from every eye

~Rumi

photo by divyanshs

Children Keeping it Simple, Teaching Simplicity

A few inspiring comments from my teachers in simplicity, children.

• I was participating in Seattle’s Martin Luther King, Jr., March and Rally this year with some of the faculty, students and parents from the school I work at. During the march one of our first graders looked up at me and said, “Oh, I know why you’re here today, Ashley.” “Why?” I asked. “Because this is all about friendship… and you’re the friendship teacher.”
  
  (fyi: I host Friendship Groups, a class that all the students in the class participate in just like math or reading. The aim is to help students deepen their ability to connect with and understand themselves and others. It's all about friendship... with ourselves, others and the world around us!)
  
  
• During Obama's presidential inauguration Rev. Joseph Lowery was talking about love,
  "And now, Lord, in the complex arena of human relations, help us to make choices on the side of love, not hate; on the side of inclusion, not exclusion; tolerance, not intolerance."
  
  I looked in front of me as a Kindergartner was staring down at his little hands, shaping them into a heart. That image summed up where my hope for our future lies... in love.
  
  
• After the inauguration we hosted an Open Space with the 3rd graders. One child's closing remarks, "I learned that when everyone pitches in just a little bit, it can make a giant difference."
  
  
• Words of wisdom that a 2nd grader told me over lunch one day that I am practicing and trying to better embody, "Just listen until your mind gets deeper and then you'll understand."

I am so grateful for all the gifts that are bestowed upon me by these wise humans who are so willing to share their world.

heart photo by samantha celera

Keep Your Brain Entertained

An interesting npr segment on how active our brain gets when we are bored. Daydreams can suck us into an ever-interesting world of distraction. According to this article, if you want to stay engaged with the content at hand, keep your body engaged on something such as doodling. Don't let the mental activity get the best of you if you want to continue focusing, give your hands something else to do.

When the brain lacks sufficient stimulation, it essentially goes on the prowl and scavenges for something to think about. Typically what happens in this situation is that the brain ends up manufacturing its own material.

In other words, the brain turns to daydreams, fantasies of Oscar acceptance speeches and million-dollar lottery wins. But those daydreams take up an enormous amount of energy.

The function of doodling, according to Andrade, who recently published a study on doodling in Applied Cognitive Psychology, is to provide just enough cognitive stimulation during an otherwise boring task to prevent the mind from taking the more radical step of totally opting out of the situation and running off into a fantasy world.

When I host small Friendship Groups with students, I often put a bowl of rocks, shells, stick, cones into the middle of the circle in case anyone needs something to fiddle with. A group the other day began building with the objects while we were discussing some of their problems and concerns. Their sculptures were beautiful and inspiring and a nice example for this article! One child preferred the erasers!

Good Being is Contagious

“Good being is contagious.”

~ Brandon Leonard, Youth Mentor

I met Brandon at workshop during a mentoring conference. His bright spirit and
compassionate perspective was the highlight of the workshop. This comment rocked my world!

Photo by carf from a powerful story that is part of their Children At Risk Foundation. This organization is an incredible example of using social media to invite involvement for a meaningful cause. I just stumbled upon them because they have very moving pictures that are all under a creative commons copyright. I'm in awe as I look more into this rabbit hole of goodness I've just discovered. It's true, good being is contagious.

Your Story Grows My Story

There are times when someone shares a story with me and it pops me open, spurting me out of the narrowness of my lived world and bursting me into an ah-ha that there are ways to experience the world that I’ve never imagined. I expect these experiences when I travel to new places or immerse myself into new cultural experiences. I love it when this happens and I’m not expecting it… which it did twice the other day. I'm so grateful to these beautiful souls who showed me something new and insightful.

One woman shared an experience of when she was in college and was in a class where part of their grade was based on class participation. She and another woman in the class were very shy and never chose to spontaneously participate. Every couple of weeks or so they would get together and intensely study the material for that class and plan for their ‘spontaneous class participation.’ She said it was always surprising to the professor that the two quiet women in this relatively small class would have something to add on the same day!

Another woman told me about her experience of being in a room filled with people that were passionately involved and invested in the work they were doing in the world. She had never experienced being surrounded by so many people that were passionate about their work. It was an eye-opening and seemingly body igniting experience for her.

There are so many different ways to live in and engage with the world. There are so many different types of people with whom to surround ourselves. In every moment we’re making a choice about how to engage, how to contribute, how to receive, what to offer, what to follow, what to be… so many choices and so many beautiful kaleidoscopic combinations of ways to live.

It humbles me to hear experiences like these, to have other people’s stories shake me awake to realities I didn’t know existed. It makes me stop and take a moment to reflect upon who I am, feel grateful for some of my ways of being and opportunities I’ve had, and recognize areas where I can grow.

I have largely taken granted my ability to jump in, ask a question and engage something or someone that interests me. This is a way of being that has come naturally to me… but doesn’t come naturally to everyone. In my narrow world, I hadn’t thought about the idea of actively planning ahead to participate in a conversation. It makes total sense and I feel such respect for this woman who recognized what she needed and wanted to do and took actions to help herself get there. In our conversation she taught me a lot about planned spontaneity and has opened my world to that pathway for growing spontaneity.

The woman in a large hall surrounded by people passionately living their calling told me, “I’ve been surrounding myself with the wrong people!” I took a moment and imagined myself in a world where people around me were going through the motions, doing what they do because it’s what they do. I felt the sparky pulse of passion and purpose ooze out of the living beings, that reflection and light around me growing dimmer. And, as you might imagine, a gushing wave of gratitude swept in and swallowed me. I was gifted the opportunity, from a new perspective, to stop and really feel my deep gratitude for all the people that I know who live their life’s passion and choose to share that with the people around them. If you’re blessed enough to be one of those people, thank you for letting others know how deeply you care about, believe in and are willing to take action to do what your body, mind, heart and soul asks of you. And if you’re one of the many people who continue to listen to yourself, trying to discover what that sparky pulse of passion and purpose is for you, please don’t give up… it’s in you and you’ll find it. And whoever you are, please share your stories with others.

I am immensely grateful to people like these two women who share little snippets of their life story with me… and thus help me live more consciously my own life story.


photo by //amy//