December

If it's December, it's time for my favorite part of it: The Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar.

Today's image: Part of the Carina Nebula

It's also time to keep something in mind that my yoga teacher shared on Saturday: "The theme for December is forgiveness." That's taken from this page, and the metaphor of "moving houses" really touched me, as did this:

This is the task this month: To forgive and let go. To release the unproductive partnerships and bad investments and stupid mistakes and all the guilt and shame around the ways that we were naïve or impulsive or addicted or ignorant.

...and as you release and let go and forgive, look at what may be coming to you that is new, innovative and exciting. Take a chance on something that feels right and inspires you. Now is the time to have the courage to make the changes you know are right.

And there you go. Space and hippies, brought together for your Monday morning. 

Gratitude

 

“Finding our attitude of gratitude may be a difficult task, but the more we learn to return thanks, the more space we make for new unexpected blessings to appear in our lives. There is no substitute for finally acknowledging the blessings that we have taken for granted. In this process we rediscover the magic and wonder of the most simple gifts. Do we have to suffer from emphysema before we can have gratitude for the precious breath of life? Do we have to lose our homes before we can return thanks for having shelter? If we have taken for granted all our blessings of health or a loving family, will we need to be reminded to be grateful through near tragedy or actual loss?”

(quote and image via Mystic Mamma)

 This weekend is for focusing on my blessings, and finally pruning the lavender, and Tofurkey. I'll be back Monday.

Bravery

I haven't had an inspirational hippie quote to start off the week in a while. Here's one for today (source):

The truth is that meaningful change is a process. It can be uncomfortable and is often risky, especially when we’re talking about embracing our imperfections, cultivating authenticity, and looking the world in the eye and saying, "I am enough."

However afraid we are of change, the question that we must ultimately answer is this: What the greater risk? Letting go of what people think or letting go of how I feel, what I believe, and who I am?

Wholehearted living is about engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness. It’s about cultivating the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think, "No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough."

OK. Let's do this.  

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Somewhat related to Wednesday's post about "the 47%" of Americans "who are dependent on the government": CNN featured a wrenching essay by John Scalzi about growing up poor. Just....go read it. It made me so ashamed of throwing around the term "the poor" without any real thought behind it.

2. It's the autumnal equinox tomorrow, and while one could be sad about the state of the world and the start of the long slide into darkness and everything else fall will bring, the hippies are telling us to take heart

Give the world ALL the LIGHT, LOVE and COMPASSION you have! Send your HEART out to humanity, the planet, and all life. Send your knowingness that paradise is here right now, and BE in the world as you want it to be. Use your highest, purest intentions, and remember that the truth is not out there; it is within YOU…GATHER TOGETHER and celebrate this beginning wave of your great transformation. Equinox will bring a much needed balance in your world

OK then. I love the caps; it's like a Dr. Bronner's soap label. 

Hippie Power, Now With Science

Here's something to ponder: "Listening to Complainers is Bad for Your Brain." The article summarized a book which sites "reasearch" saying that

exposure to 30 minutes or more of negativity--including viewing such material on TV--actually peels away neurons in the brain's hippocampus. 

As a worrier and a misanthrope, negativity is almost my natural state. But my inner hippie wants to change, and now my inner scientist has some proof that

Our actions and states of mind matter...Working on our own consciousness is the most important thing that we are doing at any moment, and being love is the supreme creative act.

(Ram Dass, via Mystic Mamma)

Hippie Quote Thursday

There's an ongoing "let's plan!" vs. "let's not plan!" debate between me and the significant other. Ironically enough, the hippie quotes seem to be supporting his (decidedly non-hippie) view:

When we stop trying to control events, they fall into natural order, an order that works. We’re at rest while a power much greater than our own takes over, and it does a much better job than we could have done. We learn to trust that the power that holds galaxies together can handle the circumstances of our relative little lives.

Is This Why Hippies Are Mellow?

This is the latest quote I'm trying to adopt during the Summer of Uncertainty, via Mystic Mamma (of course).

"...the search for security and certainty is actually an attachment to the known. And what’s the known? The known is our past. The known is nothing other than the prison of past conditioning. There’s no evolution in that.

When you experience uncertainty, you are on the right path – so don’t give it up. You don’t need to have a complete and rigid idea of what you’ll be doing next week or next year, because if you have a very clear idea of what’s going to happen and you get rigidly attached to it, then you shut out the whole range of possibilities.”

"When you get to the top of a mountain, keep climbing."

Saturday's hike was Gobbler's Knob via Alexander Basin in Millcreek Canyon--also known as The Steepest Hike In Millcreek, or Remind Me Why I Wanted To Challenge Myself?, or Oh God Oh God Thirty Percent Grade On A Scree Field.

The Knob is at the top right of this picture, I believe. The infamous scree field is below it, and I recommend finding the trail that goes through the patch of trees in the center of the picture rather than trying to scramble up the bare rocks. You may have a Kerouac moment on the slope: 

I looked back and like Lot's wife that did it... Supposing I'd start to slip back for good, these screes might start sliding any time anyway [...] Finally I came to a kind of ledge where I could sit at a level angle instead of having to cling not to slip, and I nudged my whole body inside the ledge just to hold me there tight, so the wind would not dislodge me, and I looked down and around and I had had it. 

It's hard to convey how steep this is, but here's the view back down from the saddle. (I didn't make the top of the Knob. My legs still had to get back down everything and I was proud enough about getting to this point.)

On the saddle facing the other way, still looking a little freaked out.

Looking into Big Cottonwood Canyon. 

This view inspired me to start singing hits from The Sound of Music. My hiking companion was not amused.

 

 A moose! On the loose! Seen on the way back down.

Summer Solstice

Happy Summer Solstice! I still struggle with seeing this as a moment of fullness and celebration and not just the beginning of the long slide into winter, but a year of steady yoga and the Mystic Mamma site have really helped. Here's a quote posted there in honor of the day:

And as we watch the field baking in the heat-–as we feel the sun's power to burn as well as to bless--we can feel our own gifts, our own special abilities as they ripen and swell, and know that we, too, have the power to make a difference for growth or for destruction in the world.

It is a time to mark peak moments, moments of warmth and growth [...], (it) is a time to invite fire into our lives-–fire to burn away all that we have outgrown and all that no longer serves us; fire that makes the wild things grow in us, for which our inner selves have longed. 

Cait Johnson and Maura D. Shaw from Celebrating the Great Mother

Two Quotes

I found the first quote on Mystic Mamma and thought, "What a nice and reassuring thought to re-post, wild horse picture and all." So here it is: 

“Make a pact with yourself today to not be defined by your past. Sometimes the greatest thing to come out of all your hard work isn’t what you get for it, but what you become for it.” 

Meanwhile, my brother sent me today's second quote, from American Beauty: 

Lester Burnham: "Brad, for 14 years I've been a whore for the advertising industry. The only way I could save myself now is if I start firebombing. " 

I guess the moral of these two quotes is that sometimes it's nice to give your inner hippie options (quotation-wise, that is; don't firebomb things).

Still Hiking

"As long as I live, I’ll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing. I’ll interpret the rocks, learn the language of flood, storm, and the avalanche. I’ll acquaint myself with the glaciers and wild gardens, and get as near the heart of the world as I can.”

John Muir from Journal, 1871.

(The view from as far up Thaynes Canyon as I got yesterday. I still sometimes sing this song to myself when I have to turn around.)

Re-Reading The Dharma Bums

I'm not doing so well on my goal to read a new book a month, but I'm hoping to catch up by the pool when it's full summer. In the meantime, there's The Dharma Bums to re-read. This is from their backpacking trip to the Sierra Nevadas: 

Now the mountains were getting that pink tinge, I mean the rocks, they were just solid rock covered with the atoms of dust accumulated there since beginningless time. In fact I was afraid of those jagged monstrosities all around and over our heads. 

"They're so silent!" I said. 

"Yeah man, you know to me a mountain is a Buddha. Think of the patience, hundreds of thousands of years just sittin there bein perfectly perfectly silent and like praying for all living creatures in that silence and just waitin for us to stop all our frettin and foolin."

Camping!

For the weekend, I went and slept in a tent for the first time in about five years. The trip was to Capitol Reef, where I'd never been, and that is some lovely country.

There were pictures taken from passenger windows: 

There were pictures taken from the back:

There were side canyons:

There were views to admire:

There were trails that turned out much longer than we thought they'd be: 

There were miles to go before we slept: 

There was golden desert light:

Needless to say, it was a good weekend for my inner hippie.

Something To Ponder

(Via Pinterest. In my head, I hear this being read by Master Yoda.)

Trying Times

I have felt off for the last few weeks, and I can't tell if it's because of the unsettled weather, having less time to myself, professional issues, or just not going to enough yoga classes with my awesome teacher.

For times like this, there are hippie platitudes--I mean, quotes from The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying:

Above all, be at ease, be as natural and spacious as possible. Slip quietly out of the noose of your habitual anxious self, release all grasping, and relax into your true nature.

Think of your ordinary emotional, thought-ridden self as a block of ice or a slab of butter left out in the sun. If you are feeling hard and cold, let this aggression melt away in the sunlight of your meditation.

Let peace work on you and enable you to gather your scattered mind into the mindfulness of Calm Abiding, and awaken in you the awareness and insight of Clear Seeing.

And you will find all your negativity disarmed, your aggression dissolved, and your confusion evaporating slowly like mist into the vast and stainless sky of your absolute nature.

(From here, via said awesome yoga teacher. Yes, I visit that site nearly every day.)

Reassurance From The Beatles

Oh yes, I'm still getting my hippie on with late Beatles tunes. I never cared much for this one until I listened to the lyrics (past the "love, love, love" part); now, I like hearing that there's "Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time" and there's "Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be."



Bonus Ringo at the end. Mr. Conductor!

Happy Birthday, Ti-Jean

It's Jack Kerouac's birthday today, in 1922 (his parents were French Canadian, so "Ti Jean" was the family nickname for him).

I blame Kerouac (and Salinger) for nurturing my hippie tendencies--open any page of The Dharma Bums at an impressionable age, read about hitchhiking and backpacking and mountain climbing, and then throw in something like this? No surprise there.

There were now early spring mornings with the happy dogs, me forgetting the Path of Buddhism and just being glad; looking around at new little birds not yet summer fat; the dogs yawning and almost swallowing my Dharma; the grass waving, hens chuckling. Spring nights, practicing Dhyana under the cloudy moon, I'd see the truth: "Here, this, is It. The world as it is, is Heaven, I'm looking for a Heaven outside what there is, it's only this poor pitiful world that's Heaven."

Courage

Here's some Rilke to get your inner hippie on board for the week. (My new thing is trying to trust the universe, so of course I liked this):

We have no reason to mistrust our world, for it is not against us. Has it terrors, they are our terrors; has it abysses, those abysses belong to us; if there are dangers at hand, we must try to love them.

How should we be able to forget those ancient myths that are at the beginning of all peoples--the myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses. Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are waiting for us, beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. For cat lovers and font lovers: 20 Cats as Fonts. Including:




2. Comic Sans Cat looks like I feel after this week.

3. I continue to cope with hippie songs. Any song where you can sing "Om" is a good one:

The Universe Loves You

The little space within the heart is as great as the vast universe. The heavens and the earth are there, and the sun and the moon and the stars. Fire and lightning and winds are there, and all that now is and all that is not. --The Upanishads

(Image from the Heart and Soul nebulae via Bad Astronomy; quote via my inner hippie. )