We have an Art of Hosting event coming up in February 23-26 on Bowen Island. This is my home based offering, which I have been doing for nearly ten years with friends Tenneson Woolf, Teresa Posakony and Caitlin Frost, and lately with our new colleague Amanda Fenton. All of these folks are incredible facilitators and teachers and great humans.
Another one today from whiskey river:
Today I want
to resolve nothing.
I only want to walk
a little longer in the cold
blessing of the rain,
and lift my face to it.– Kim Addonizio
New Year’s Day
Tell Me
Happy New Year.
Excellent stuff.
Think about your thinking. Happy New Year.
One of the practices I have cultivated for many years is the art of rock balancing. I was initially inspired in this by watching rock balancing artists along the waterfront in Vancouver in the mid nineties. I was amazed at the serene beauty of large rocks balanced at improbable angles.
When I began trying this for myself, I discovered that the practice is deeply reflective and highly instructive. It is a calming meditation, inviting rocks to find a balance with one another, and it is a lovely metaphor for the leadership qualities of facilitating and holding space. Often, as part of the Art of Hosting workshops I help teach, I offer rock balancing as a morning practice, to bring presence and calm to the day ahead.
If you would like to join me for an hour or two of rock balancing on Bowen Island or elsewhere, please feel free to contact me. I’m always up for play. I can also offer short workshops in conferences, gatherings and retreat.
Since 2007 I have begun taking photographs of rocks I have balanced in various places to which I have travelled. I invite you to enjoy a slide show of my collection at my flickr gallery.
Good old whiskey river:
Mindful
Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less
kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle
in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for –
to look, to listen,
to lose myself
inside this soft world –
to instruct myself
over and over
in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant –
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,
the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help
but grow wise
with such teachings
as these –
the untrimmable light
of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?
– Mary Oliver
Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less
kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle
in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for –
to look, to listen,
to lose myself
inside this soft world –
to instruct myself
over and over
in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant –
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,
the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help
but grow wise
with such teachings
as these –
the untrimmable light
of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?
– Mary Oliver
Yesterday my five year old son and I went for a walk in a remote and wild part of our island to a point where the waves riding the southeasterlies up the Strait of Georgia break on a basalt reef littered with driftwood. And in that place, in that moment, with rain washing our faces and wind lashing at our ears, we talked about seeing with the close-seeing eye that watches where we step and seeing with the long-seeing eye that knows where we are in the forest. So turning, we made our way back through the trees with our close-seeing eyes and long-seeing eyes both tuned. We learned that it is important to stay aware of our feet below us and the turns in the forest path ahead of us, and that getting lost is a result of losing the manner of both modalities.
Such a trove of teachings in a simple, slippery path on a rainy day.