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24444 |
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Date: August 30, 2023 at 08:14:46
From: Nevada, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Extraordinary Ordinary Moments that never leave us... |
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Extraordinary Ordinary Moments
Spiritual teacher and CAC friend Mirabai Starr
poetically describes the contemplative experience that
is stirred through regular lives, whether in nature,
through relationships, or our suffering:
Contemplative life flows in a circular pattern: awe
provokes introspection, which invokes awe.
Maybe you’re making dinner and you step outside to snip
chives from the kitchen garden just as the harvest moon
is rising over the eastern slopes. She is full and
golden, like one of those pregnant women who radiates
from within. Suddenly you cannot bear the beauty.
Scissors suspended in your hand, tears pooling at the
corners of your eyes, you nearly quit breathing. Your
gaze softens, and the edges of your individual identity
fade. You are absorbed into the heart of the moon. It
feels natural, and there is no other place you’d rather
be. But the onions are burning, and so you turn away
and cut your herbs and go back inside. You resume
stirring the sauce and setting the table.
This is not the first time you have disappeared into
something beautiful. You have experienced the
unfettering of the subject-object distinction while
holding your daughter’s hand as she labored to give
birth to your grandson; when curled up in bed with your
dying friend …; while yielding to your lover’s lips.
You have lost yourself in heartbreak, then lost the
desire to ever regain yourself, then lost your fear of
death. You long ago relinquished your need for cosmic
order and personal control. You welcome unknowingness.
Which is why seemingly ordinary moments like moonrises
and lovemaking undo you. The veil has been pulled back.
Everything feels inexhaustibly holy. This is not what
they taught you in the church of your childhood. Your
soul has been formed in the forge of life’s losses,
galvanized in the crucible of community, fertilized by
the rain of relationship, blessed by your intimacy with
Mother Earth. You have glimpsed the face of the Divine
where you least expected it.
Starr connects these moments of awe to a renewed
commitment to contemplative practice:
And this is why you cultivate contemplative practice.
The more you intentionally turn inward, the more
available the sacred becomes. When you sit in silence
and turn your gaze toward the Holy Mystery you once
called God, the Mystery follows you back out into the
world. When you walk with a purposeful focus on breath
and birdsong, your breathing and the twitter of the
chickadee reveal themselves as a miracle….
So you sit down to meditate not only because it helps
you to find rest in the arms of the formless Beloved
but also because it increases your chances of being
stunned by beauty when you get back up. Encounters with
the sacred that radiate from the core of the ordinary
embolden you to cultivate stillness and simple
awareness. In the midst of a world that is begging you
to distract yourself, this is no easy practice. Yet you
keep showing up. You are indomitable. You are thirsty
for wonder.
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[24450] [24454] [24456] [24462] [24455] |
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24450 |
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Date: August 30, 2023 at 22:16:32
From: Kat, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Extraordinary Ordinary Moments that never leave us... |
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This is beautiful Lee! Thank you for sharing.
There have been moments in my life where I’ve felt like I knew what was
down the road.the buildings, homes were all familiar to me. Never have
been on that road before. My first time was at the tender age of 6. It has
stayed with me all these years. My batteries get charged in the quiet.
Then I’m ready to be with people. I so enjoyed this post. Happy Bopp
allows you here.
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Responses:
[24454] [24456] [24462] [24455] |
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24454 |
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Date: August 31, 2023 at 08:38:10
From: Nevada, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Extraordinary Ordinary Moments that never leave us... |
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I had many such moments not far from where you live Kat,
just past Bitney Springs on a hill above Deer Creek
Falls where I was nurturing a very small spring I had
discovered. I was interrupted by a rattlesnake that had
obviously been visiting the spring daily long before I
arrived on the mountain.
When it noticed I was there, it cautiously moved around
me and went about it's way. I'm pretty sure it returned
later for a drink and I went my way as well.
I've been much friendlier to snakes since that day.
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Responses:
[24456] [24462] [24455] |
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24456 |
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Date: August 31, 2023 at 22:32:48
From: Kat, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Extraordinary Ordinary Moments that never leave us... |
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Well familiar with Bitney Springs. The water is still the best. We try to
make coffee it. So cold yr. Around. I love that area.
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[24462] |
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24462 |
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Date: September 01, 2023 at 07:52:33
From: Nevada, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Extraordinary Ordinary Moments that never leave us... |
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Responses:
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24455 |
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Date: August 31, 2023 at 19:25:09
From: Kat, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Extraordinary Ordinary Moments that never leave us... |
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On my Grandma’s farm where I spent most of the summer. We made our
own fun. Cardboard flatten out climbed the high hill behind her home and
slide all the way down to the creek! Once my cardboard slipped out, I
kept going. By the time I reached the creek there was a hole in the
backside of my jeans! To top it off my cousin heard the rattle we both
never ran so fast ever & We didn’t stop till we hit the back porch!
My Dad’s mother made us go to church every Sunday as well. I remember
ed a scripture everyday for 2- weeks. Won a bible still have it. Nice to
pause rest in the past then look forward to a new day.
Another great share Lee. Thanks 🙏
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