The Life Of Art, Reimagined
Number three in a five part Intentional series.
Reflection, click here:
Meditation, click here:
(Photos courtesy Wiki Common Use license.)
This week’s reflection and meditation are sponsored by an anonymous Zen donor.
Sponsorships help pay for web hosting, recording materials (music licenses, audio equipment), and the time involved to produce a weekly podcast. Please contact me at julia @ juliaharis. com if you’d like to become a sponsor. Thank you.
In the middle of our “Body” series, I get this year’s flu.
There’s a lot to think about in that — including the importance of rest and comfort to restore ourselves, as well as the reminder of how precious our bodies are.
My voice is trashed, my throat raw, and today will be the first day I’ve eaten since Wednesday, I think. Can’t be sure. The past four days are a blur, between fever and sleeping and aching discomfort. Every minute aching.
My baseline health is great. Lots and lots of fruits and veggies, vegan, low processed foods, good activity levels, so I feel for those who can’t bounce back fast.
The CDC says this year’s influenza is hitting infants, toddlers, and kids the most and the hardest — which breaks my heart.
Another factoid: this year’s flu vaccine was way off, easily verified with a quick google.
Today’s entry is a therefore a brief pause in our series. Though I’m thrilled we’ve been meeting weekly for months and months now, steady as a stream. Or, perhaps, water.
I’m also elated to announce that I have my first patron, an anonymous donor who loves what we’re practicing and doing.
If you would like to become a patron, please free to contact me: julia @ juliaharis. com. (I cannot publish the address without the spaces or as a link, as bots flood my inbox.)
Thank you for subscribing or following.
Until next week, when we continue our series.
Body II, click for audio reflection:
Body II, click for audio meditation:
Readings:
Waldemar on the Ice Age exhibition at the British Museum (and The Venus of Willendorf)
How This 30,000-Year-Old Figurine Continues to Captivate Today at My Modern Met
The first in a five part Intentional series on connecting to the body.
To listen to this week’s discussion, click here:
To join this week’s meditation, click here:
Wiki entry: Study of a Kneeling Nude Girl for The Entombment
Audio meditation, click link to listen:
“The wave does not need to die to become water. She already is water.” — Thich Nhat Hahn
Solstice, the longest night, light’s rebirth.
Audio meditation, click here:
“The danger is not that the soul should doubt whether there is any bread, but that, by a lie, it should persuade itself that it is not hungry.” — Simone Weil
Intention IV audio. Click here to listen:
CAC Daily Meditations sign-up.
It may be important to great thinkers to examine the world, to explain and despise it. But I think it is only important to love the world, not to despise it, not for us to hate each other, but to be able to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration and respect.” —Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
”In the beginner’s mind there is no thought ‘I have attained something.’ All self-centered thoughts limit our vast mind. When we have no thought of achievement, no thought of self, we are true beginners. Then we can really learn something. The beginner’s mind is the mind of compassion. When our mind is compassionate, it is boundless.”
I like these words. Also very important for Advent. Open, free, flexible, receptive. That is the attitude that makes us ready. I realize that in Zen you are not expecting anything or anyone. Still, it seems that all the things Shunryu Suzuki tells his students are important for Christians to hear and realize. Isn’t a beginner’s mind, a mind without the thought “I have attained something,” a mind opened for grace? Isn’t that the mind of children who marvel at all they see? Isn’t that the mind not filled with worries for tomorrow but alert and awake in the present moment? — Henri Nouwen
Intention III meditation. Click to listen:
Intention, Part Two, click to listen:
David Whyte excerpt on Facebook
Thanks from ‘Migration: New & Selected Poems’ by W.S. Merwin, Cooper Canyon Press (affiliate link)
“At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.” — Lao Tzu
First in a series. Meditation, click here:
