As I said in earlier posts, I'm sure I learned more during my semester of teaching middle school than my students did. And a lot - probably most - of what I learned was about myself. In this post, I'll share one of the "good" things I learned. I learned that I am a great deal more … Continue reading My Middle School Experiment: What I Learned, Part 2. Less ego, more patience.
meditation
My MRI Experience Last Week: Claustrophobia & Meditation
I start to feel panicky. I'm sweating. And I have to calm myself again.
What’s Important: Some of What I’ve Learned from My Father
Humility and service and dependability and respect. Some of the qualities my father taught me - taught not with words but in daily life lived. I like to use Father's and Mother's Day to reflect on my parents' lives. To think about what I learned from them, to appreciate the foundation they laid for me and … Continue reading What’s Important: Some of What I’ve Learned from My Father
My Silent Retreat: The First Day of the Rest of My Life
So when you experience a shift, a rebirth, your life suddenly becomes all rainbows and unicorns, right? Wrong. After my shift, my rebirth, I wanted to pack up and get in my car and go home because I had had this experience. It felt like a culmination. Instead, I stayed through the rest of the … Continue reading My Silent Retreat: The First Day of the Rest of My Life
My Silent Retreat: Reframing
I returned home from my eight-day silent retreat at the Benedictine Sisters Retreat Center (at Sacred Heart Monastery) in Cullman, Alabama on Friday. It was a powerful experience, lots of shifting energy, some opening and some closing. The first evening was one of talking until after dinner, when silence began. The retreat group, about 20 … Continue reading My Silent Retreat: Reframing
Into the silence again
So it's time for me to take another silent retreat. Silent retreats do my soul so much good. I leave tomorrow for an eight-day centering prayer retreat and will be in silence about five and a half days of it. Three hours each day of centering prayer/meditation. No internet or online access. No phone calls. No … Continue reading Into the silence again
Walking a labyrinth
Part of my celebratory mini-retreat last week included walking the labyrinth. I discovered labyrinths over a decade ago at a workshop, and I was hooked. Labyrinths aren't mazes. You simply follow the path in and then follow it back out. For me, walking a labyrinth is moving meditation. It's a way to let go of … Continue reading Walking a labyrinth
Choosing silence
As a part of my healing from breast cancer and its treatments, I'm taking a silent retreat this Monday through next Monday. It's a centering prayer retreat, and about six days of it will be silent. I'll be there with other centering prayer practitioners, and we will meditate together, eat meals together, stay in dorms … Continue reading Choosing silence
Settling some. . . .maybe
I was less tense when I woke up today than any day since the breast cancer diagnosis. Is it because my sister is here? Because I'm finally getting used to the idea that I have cancer and all that goes with it? Because prayer and meditation are changing me? Maybe it's all of the above … Continue reading Settling some. . . .maybe
Cancer treatments and waiting
Tomorrow I have an echo cardiogram to make sure my heart is okay for the chemotherapy treatments and a PET scan to see if the cancer is anywhere else. The PET scan procedure is a long process of waiting an hour or more for the radioactive injection to go throughout the body. I'll have to … Continue reading Cancer treatments and waiting
eddies and currents 