lara simmons

Once upon a time there were two brothers who lived together in their father's house. Upon the death of their father they were to split all of his assets fifty-fifty. When the time came, they divided his houses, his livestock and his money equally. After this was done, however, they discovered two rings which had not been included in the estate. The first ring was made of pure gold and encrusted with diamonds, which sparkled from a great distance. The second ring was made of silver. It was old and scratched and any shine it had once had was long gone. The older brother immediately took charge and said, "As the oldest male in the family the gold ring should be mine, I will give it to my oldest daughter when the time is right." The younger brother did not complain and so he received the silver ring. Many years passed. The older brother had made a great fortune out of what his father had left to him and yet he was dissatisfied with his life. The younger brother st...

"Wherever you are, be all there." --Jim Elliott on http://www.thehappymovie.com/ One of the things that came up for me when I started this 40-day meditation challenge was TV, one of the primary ways I go unconscious. After a long day or a busy day or a large group social event I just need to relax my mind and unwind with something totally mindless. Sometimes a book will do the trick, but most often this is when I start to jones for some bad TV. I know it's a problem (and also one of the reasons why I struggle so much with my kids' need for screen time - gotta love those mirrors!) because it is the primary way I escape from what is really going on. From my fears and my hurts, my frustrations and insecurities. I use TV, and to some extent books, to go unconscious, to black out and to escape my reality. So I half-heartedly committed to "no TV" during these same 40 days. I lasted about 36 hours. On Tuesday afternoon, my son asked me to watch something...

“...[H]armony requires us to change along with the whole. If you open yourself to the hum of the world—if you live in the present rather than in your idea of it—it will change you." -- Philip Shepherd , author of New Self, New World , interviewed in The Sun

"When it comes to parenting, the practice of framing both mothers and fathers as good or bad is both rampant and corrosive—it turns parenting into a shame minefield. The real questions for parents should be: 'Are you engaged? Are you paying attention?'” -- Brené Brown , from her book Daring Greatly

"The only rule is to suffer the pain." --Rumi I have been immersing myself in Pema Chodron lately. Taking the Leap is on my nightstand. The Three Commitments on my iPod. Pema's voice in my head when I sit down to meditate. (I have even been experimenting with an "eyes open" meditation technique, completely anathema to me in the past.) One of the things I have learned - and am practicing - is what she calls "the 90-second thing." This technique comes via Jill Bolte Taylor (whose brilliant TED talk " My Stroke of Insight " is in the top twenty of most-watched TED talks ever) a brain researcher who studied herself as she had a stroke. One of the things Dr. Jill observed was that her emotions, when not fueled by thoughts, lasted only about 90 seconds and then dissipated. In The Three Commitments, Pema shares this discovery as a technique to use in your spiritual practice. As a way to train in being present, in resisting what she cal...

"Just follow the day and reach for the sun!" --The Polyphonic Spree from their song, "Light and Day," as quoted in "Wonder" by R.J. Palacio

In session three, we worked on bringing more presence into our lives. We began with a forty five-minute full body meditation . Taking a few deep breaths and then bringing awareness to each part of our body, starting with our toes. Feeling into each part of our bodies, feeling its structures, its movements, its energy. After the meditation we began to explore the concept of small stones. This exercise was created by Fiona Robyn a writer in England whose website is called Writing Our Way Home .  A small stone is "a very short piece of writing that precisely captures a fully-engaged moment." Writing small stones can help us be more present to our lives and to our writing. We read some examples of small stones from Writing Our Way Home, then we went out and wrote small stones of our own for 15-20 minutes before coming back together to share our experiences and our small stones. HOMEWORK: Write at least one small stone every day. It can be short or long, perfec...

"When one is rising, standing, walking, doing something, stopping, one should constantly concentrate one's mind on the act and the doing of it. " -- Aśvaghoṣa I burned the sausages again today. It's the second time this week that I've burned the sausages because I wasn't paying attention . Here's my morning routine: I get up, take the dog for a walk, wake the kids for the first time and then start breakfast. My kids do better with a bit of protein in the morning, so I try to make bacon or sausage or eggs for them most mornings. I throw some meat in a pan and then I feed the dog, set the table, make lunches, wake the kids a second time and check the sausages .  But sometimes I get....distracted. Usually by my email. "I'll just check it 'real quick'," I say to myself. And the next thing I know the fire alarm is going off and breakfast is ruined. The thing is, I know this . I know that the secret to life is to stay p...

In today's session we worked on bringing more presence to our lives and to our writing. Class began with a ten minute full body meditation . Taking a few deep breaths and then bringing awareness to each part of our body, starting with our toes. Feeling into each part of our bodies, feeling its structures, its movements, its energy. After the meditation we began to explore the concept of small stones. This exercise was created by Fiona Robyn a writer in England whose website is called Writing Our Way Home .  A small stone is "a very short piece of writing that precisely captures a fully-engaged moment." Writing small stones can help us be more present to our lives and to our writing. We read some examples of small stones from Fiona's small stones blog , her blogzine a handful of stones , as well as from my own small stones blog pebbles are small stones . Then we went out and wrote small stones of our own for 30-35 minutes before coming back together to share our...