Standing Series

Hello Friends.
The video last posted is being updated. My teacher asked me to slow the video down so it is easier to see the essence of the practice.
This is a theme that keeps coming up these days. The feeling of having so many things to do, so many scheduled events, moving out of my home, planning a wedding, planning work... planning a life. The challenge is to keep the stillness underneath all of the twirl and whirl of the moving world. Having a practice to slide into has been so fundamental. And the practice is sometimes just stopping and smoothing out the mind. Four deep breaths and a feeling that all the activity... doesn't mean anything at all?
I am amazed at the mind's ability to say... "ah hah! This must be important!" over and over again.

In the mean time,
here is a poem I like.

WHEN I AM AMONG TREES

by Mary Oliver

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks, and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.

I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”

The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,”
they say, “and you, too, have come
into the world to do this, to go easy,
to be filled with light, and to shine.”