When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
…
I Will Keep Broken Things by Alice Walker
Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
A Reflection on Michael Pollan's New Book: How to Change Your Mind- What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression and Transcendence.
Last month, I talked about New Year’s Resolutions and Our Immunity to Change so I was very intrigued when I read the title of Michael Pollan’s new book: How to Change Your Mind- What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression and Transcendence. Michael Pollan has written 5 New York Times best sellers including Food Rules; In Defense of Food; and The Omnivore’s Dilemma. He teaches at Harvard and at U.C. Berkeley; he presented his book last May at Talks at Google and he has been selected to speak at the 2019 edition of Wisdom 2.0 conference which I will be attending next March. So despite my initial reluctance to engage with the topic, I not only read the book but I am now writing about it here.
At the End of the Year- Blessings by John O'Donohue
New Year's Resolutions or How to Make Changes Stick?
As we approach the end of a year and the beginning of a new one, it’s typical and traditional to reflect on the year past (see this blog post) and to set goals and resolutions for the new one.
New Beginnings and Habit Change Meditation from The Mindful Movement
Start Close In- A poem by David Whyte
Self-Reflection for the End of Year
On The Wisdom of Walking in the Woods
“When the eyes and the ears are open, even the leaves on the trees teach like pages from the scriptures”
If you have visited my website, you may have been intrigued by my Medicine Walk offering called (Inner Compass) Wisdom Walk. Or, if you are a client, I may have suggested that you take on a walk as a new practice for your coaching program: labyrinth, hike or meditation walks are some of the practices I recommend often. But why? I strongly believe in the benefits of walking in nature to reconnect with oneself and the world. In this newsletter, I want to share some texts that point to the same conclusion.
Much has been written over the years about the physical, emotional and spiritual benefits of walking in nature (Thoreau: “An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.”, Muir: "In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.", Rousseau: “I can only meditate when I am walking. When I stop, I cease to think, my mind only works with my legs.”), but in recent times, nobody has written more beautifully and more completely on the subject than Rebecca Solnit in her 2000 masterpiece Wanderlust: A History of Walking.
She writes: “Walking, ideally, is a state in which the mind, the body, and the world are aligned, as though they were three characters finally in conversation together, three notes suddenly making a chord. Walking allows us to be in our bodies and in the world without being made busy by them. It leaves us free to think without being wholly lost in our thoughts.[…]
Walking itself is the intentional act closest to the unwilled rhythms of the body, to breathing and the beating of the heart. It strikes a delicate balance between working and idling, being and doing. It is a bodily labor that produces nothing but thoughts, experiences, arrivals.[…]
The rhythm of walking generates a kind of rhythm of thinking, and the passage through a landscape echoes or stimulates the passage through a series of thoughts. This creates an odd consonance between internal and external passage, one that suggests that the mind is also a landscape of sorts and that walking is one way to traverse it. A new thought often seems like a feature of the landscape that was there all along ..“
When you go on a Medicine walk, this is exactly what happens. Your mind, heart and body are in a conversation with the world. Your body relaxes, your mind slows down, your heart opens. You suddenly hear a message that you had missed before. Your attention is drawn by a natural element and you inquire: “what is this?”, “why am I receiving this now?”. As Kabir, a 15th-century Indian mystic poet and saint, says: When the eyes and the ears are open, even the leaves on the trees teach like pages from the scriptures.
Further proof of the benefits of being in nature with or without walking, can be found in the book The Nature Fix by Florence Williams. The Nature Fix demonstrates that our connection to nature is much more important to our cognition than we think and that even small amounts of exposure (just 5 hours per month according to the author) to the living world can improve our creativity and enhance our mood. Earlier in the year I wrote about Shinrin-Yoku or Forest Bathing and I was excited to read about it again in this book The Nature Fix- Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier and more Creative by Florence Williams. Written in a journalistic style with tons of supporting evidence, scientific data, anecdotes and well told stories, Williams explores different beneficial aspects of Nature and takes us on world tour starting with Japan, then Korea, Finland and Scotland. She also takes us on a tour of our senses: starting with our sense of smell (aromatherapy in Japanese cypress forests), our sense of hearing (bird songs in Korea) and our sense of sight (fractals in Finland). Her book brings a global perspective on the status of the latest studies of nature practices and their alleged benefits. She affirms that 5 hours a month immersed in nature is enough to make a difference to our well-being. The best summary of the book is given in this YouTube video created by the author.
So remember: “Go outside. Go often. Bring friends. Breathe”.
An Apple Tree Was Concerned- A Poem by Hafez
An apple tree was concerned
about a late frost and losing its gifts
that would help feed a poor family close by.
Can't the clouds be generous with what falls from them?
Can't the sun ration itself with precision?
They can speak, trees,
they can say the sweetest things
but it takes special ears to hear them,
ears that have listened to people
with great care.
The Power of Reframing
In film, reframing is a change in camera angle without a cut and often changes a scene’s focus. Bill Burnett and Dave Evans from the d.school at Stanford University mention reframing as one of the five principles of Design Thinking that is useful when applied not just to product design but also to the process of designing one’s life. In their best-selling book, Designing Your Life, How to Build a Well-lived, Joyful Life, they define reframing as follows: “Reframing is how designers get unstuck. Reframing also makes sure that we are working on the right problem. Life design involves key reframes that allow you to step back, examine your biases, and open up new solution spaces”.