Cultivating Wonder

Day 4 #Reverb10 – How do you cultivate wonder?

It seems to me that wonder is a natural state of being.

Wonder comes when I am deeply present.

When I am in the past, my wonder becomes wandering. I get lost in what was. I am not with what is.

When I am in the future, my wonder becomes worrying and hoping. I get lost in what might be. I am not here.

I cultivate wonder by nurturing truth, integrity, beauty and presence.

Wonder is a garden. I weed.  I feed. It’s a labor of love. It’s a practice.

I pull the weeds of:

• Judgment (as much of me as of others)
• Fear (move toward anxiety)
• Ostrich behavior (changing don’t see: doesn’t exist to being with what is)
• Shadow projections (bring it on home)
• Blame (bring that one home too)
• Urgency (there is plenty of time – step into the flow of Divine timing)
• Dis-ease and dis-harmony (bring awareness to it)

I feed and receive truth, integrity, beauty and presence by:

• Opening my senses
• Sowing seeds of happiness
• Engaging with dogs, cats and wild creatures big and small.
• Communing with trees
• Receiving the gifts of flowers
• Getting up close and personal with the world through the camera’s macro and telescopic lenses

Pin-sized mushroom

• Cloud gazing
• Watching the sun rise and set

• Meditation and grounding daily, engaging soul, body mind spirit heart, and Divine Essence
• Remaining ever curious (Who is that person across from me, really? I look beyond my assumptions and I open to be with who he/she is.)
• Reading Rumi, Hafiz, David Whyte, Mary Oliver
• Cultivating magic and miracles
• Playing with messages from the Mystery
• Stargazing and contemplating infinity
• Watching the moon rise and set

Venus and the crescent moon

• Walking a path of Beauty
• Receiving Grace
• Living in the question
• Dawdling
• Singing the song that asks to be sung in the moment
• Falling into the silence that follows the song
• Listening to music, traversing the pathways of melodies and bathing in colorful harmonies

And you, dear reader, how do you cultivate wonder?

Copyright© Dec 2010, Kathy J Loh, All Rights Reserved

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Singing to the Dawn

I meditate.

I contemplate.

I have great internal Board of Directors meetings.

I sing and chant and sometimes even rant.

I fill my heart and empty my mind.

I follow my mind and empty my heart.

Dance with my spirit and inhabit my body.

Sometimes I am guided. Most often, I dance alone.

This morning the sunrise was a sight to behold. Clouds to the west kissed illuminated hills and homes. I could not sequester myself in my meditation room and miss the morning.

 

Where does the pathway in the clouds lead?

 

Jackhammers abused concrete somewhere in the valley below. A steady stream of cars snaked its way up Wolfe Grade and silver jets left vapor trails between the clouds…so many people going somewhere.

Is this how we honor the dawn?

Is this how we honor all beginnings?

I don’t know. I only wonder.

Not wanting to miss the changing colors and shapes of the clouds; not wanting to miss the flocks of crows (and one tiny hummingbird) that traverse the skyscape, I began to sing, as I always do to begin meditation.

At first I was aware of my voice and the wending of the melody. Soon enough, I was absorbed by the pastel hues, absorbed by whatever it is that absorbs me, of which I am a part, to which I belong, and the song emerged as a completely self-organized melody; my morning song; this morning song.

Or is it mourning song, like the dove in the pine outside my window? For the tears come as my heart cracks open and I don’t really know what is sad or what is too much to hold.

Perhaps it is gratitude.

Perhaps it is Beauty.

Surely it is Love.

And, it doesn’t need a name.

When I retreat to my mediation room each morning, supposedly to ground myself so as to be more present during the day, to what have I become un-present? Where have I gone and how much of the day already missed?

This “being present to”… this offering of lullaby to the dawn and all the weary travelers, this is what grounds me now.

What is your morning practice?

copyright(c) October 2010, Kathy J Loh, All Rights Reserved

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