Stillness in motion....
— An on-going hiker's meditation and journal—
Friday, June 29, 2012
Friday, June 15, 2012
Friday, June 8, 2012
June 8, 2012 Lakewood, CO
09:58:49, hours MDT
...continued hiker’s meditation…
Remember it is not what we become saturated with— that becomes the growth and turning points in our living...BUT... how much of this saturation we are able to lay by the wayside as we practice coming into the moment. Our creativity relies on the latter and for some gives the practitioner an inner living that becomes unmistakably rich— with feeling and depth.
This practice is truly REMARKABLE…
Meditations from the Mat, Rolf Gates, Katrina Kenison
Day 170
The conjunction of the seer with the seen is for
the seer to discover his own true nature.
Yoga Sutras
“This is good news. We’ve heard the bad news: we don’t know who we are, which gives us an exaggerated sense of I-ness and pride, which in turn tethers us to an endless round of fear and desire. And if that’s not bad enough, we’re not even supposed to be afraid of death. So, what’s the good news?
The good news is that all of this, every last aspect of this experience called life has only one purpose: our spiritual growth. The intersection of the spiritual with the physical, energy with matter, life with the lifeless, all has evolution as its aim. It is all about evolution, and we are invited to the party. That is, if we choose to go.
Krishnamurti said that we do not learn from the experience; rather, we learn from the experiences we choose to learn from. It’s all about evolution— if we are willing to see it that way. We have free will. The eight- limbed path’s solutions to life’s difficulties offer us a means for making systematic our choice to learn from experience. Yoga is a means for cultivating personal responsibility for our growth. The practices, the yamas, the niyamas, asana, pranayama, and meditation are merely invitations to partake more fully, more completely, in the divine dance.
We have a sense of the problem, and if you are at all like me, you have more than a sense that you have lived it. Now, let’s embrace the solution. Start where you are. Begin to see your entire life as your spiritual practice. Whether it is thanking the person, who opens the door for you,
giving a good tip to your waiter, or the hours you spend sweating on your mat, embrace your place in the moment with all your heart.”
Embrace your self where it is you find yourself dwelling on this type of I-ness or that category of righteous indignation or where energy meets matter and you sense you are truly carrying around the adipose tissues and sucking in your stomach every time you sense others staring at it.
Embrace your self at the intersection of energy and matter- at the intersection of self- centered pattern and the awareness, the wakefulness of the spirit when it comes to pass that you indeed choose to evolve.
The pathway is broad- for you this will be rewarding however fraught with unknown twists and diversions and back- tracking.
The solution will not be as straightforward in the false rewarding sense we all have come to know. With the bosses touting these “products”, financial, material, the cruises to so- called exotic spots of luxury or the ubiquitous entertainment of the social- media genre.
The solution lies within the framework of the yoga practice and in complimentary turn the meditation practice available to all – by choosing this pathway.
Otherwise the chooser has the alternative— more military strife, more political bosses turning down the heat for us in cold times and then gouging us all with their abilities to make us pay their way by making everyday sundries pricey.
This method of living turns off the opportunity to grow spiritually. Choose to learn from those experiences which maintain so- called free rent in your memories.
This method of living turns off the opportunity to grow spiritually. Choose to learn from those experiences which maintain so- called free rent in your memories.
Breathe deeply of the air, practice yoga and mediation to lessen your reliance on the succor and intoxicating effect of the Amenities Culture with allures us falsely into a basket of passive lethargy.
Make the time to have the time to be in sync with the time it takes to choose this path. It may mean reducing the business as usual, the false pretenses and the so- called shopping experience we all have come to know as the American Experience and obtaining some outside support along the way.
Yoga is best learned not from a DVD or practicing alone but in a group of like minded ones who will assist you along the way.
Am anticipating the trip onto the North Kaibab Ranger District for a period of reflection, rest and discovery.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
June 6, 2012, Lakewood, CO
07:47:59, hours MDT
...continued hiker’s meditation…
Am thinking of a trip into the Aquarius Plateau country in UT and then on south to NRIM… this NRIM- trip may be a walking/ camping thing on the Walhalla, Kaibab Plateaus and North Kaibab Ranger District with possibly the short part way in to Bruce’s house the few thousand feet below Bright Angel Point.
Zoom out a bit on the link and click on the ‘terrain map’.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
June 3, 2012
In another 25 or 30 years, not a living soul on earth will be able to say, “I saw Glen Canyon.” The stories and the memories will have been passed along from that last lucky generation to the ones that follow. I once dreamed of a movement to decommission the damn and drain the reservoir, but recently I’ve had second thoughts. I don’t know if we’re worthy of a “restored” Glen Canyon in these conflicted, contradictory, hypocritical days of the early 21st Century.
I wondered recently if its restoration would be anything but a cash cow for the “tourist/recreation/amenities economy?” Would it simply be the latest natural wonder to be exploited by thousands of entrepreneurs and trampled by millions of insensitive, thrill-seeking recreationists? Trying to protect Glen Canyon from a shameful greed-driven economy that wraps itself in the trite banners of the ‘green’ moral high ground, all the while looking to expand its bottom line, is as noble an effort as removing the dam itself.
Jim Stiles— author/ publisher
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