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Our 2026 Program Calendar is now available. This year marks another important milestone in our history as we launch new programming, products, and more in celebration of Br. David’s 100th birthday.
Be in the present moment! I’ve been in my head lately, worrying about the future. What will happen if X happen or Y? Well, I won’t know until that day happens so might as well enjoy my life right now!
Jennifer, I’m all too familiar with the many different ways the cookie crumbles. Enjoying the cookie in full is like enjoying the presence of life to its fullest.
Yes I can agree, what will happen if X or Y happens? old fearful thoughts. Still trying to let go of, although sometimes running into the same fears again and again, as it probably happens to many, and so to me also. There was no one other than me to protect me from harm. And I do fear more than anything else, it seems, to losing control over my life and through this to end up in the same of despair, which is almost unbearable already only when thinking this could happen. Thank you for your post, dear Jenifer.
No kiddin.
🙂
Appreciate more of things taken for granted! Thinking about the word of the day, I listened to a CNN medical podcast today about folks that lost their taste and smell senses during covid. I can’t imagine but did learn there was hope in gaining them back. A long process though!
Slow down and pay attention.
Yes!
To experience more awe and wonder in my daily life, I could pay attention to my senses and be curious and amazed by what I am perceiving. I will need to repeatedly step away from the loops created by my mind and step into the eternal now.
” I will need to repeatedly step away from the loops created by my mind and step into the eternal now.”
Well said,
dear Mary . . . ♥
When I can slow down and take a breath, and get outside of my head for a minute, I can see things freshly and appreciate the wonders around me. Big and small.
I don’t think more awe or wonder can be present. The “more” would come from me. I can look at the color of the flower but the more would be to see it’s gradation.
After you see the gradation,
dear Yram,
then what do you experience? ♥
This is beautiful. Wow
Flow
Thanks to all of you for your compassionate and loving messages. Today’s question speaks of awe and wonder. It reminds me that fear has been my companion the last few days. The experience of awe and wonder have been elusive. Life has taught me that fear clings and awe let’s go. I need to let go. In John’s gospel, Jesus is always inviting us to “come and see.” Sometimes my mind makes “seeing” extremely difficult. Pain, emotional and physical, makes it challenging. Gratefulness, which always opens my eyes, has been difficult to practice. I leave you with two quotes I found in my journal this morning. The first is all about the willingness to see and the second is about the willingness to risk. Know that I am deeply grateful for each and every one of you.
“For the world and time are the dance of the Lord [Life-giver] in emptiness. The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding feast. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness, absurdity and despair. But it does not matter much, because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things; or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there. Indeed, we are in the midst of it, and it is in the midst of us, for it beats in our very blood, whether we want it to or not.” Thomas Merton
“For a seed to achieve its greatest expression it must come completely undone.
The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes.
To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.”
Cynthia Occelli
Thank you for the quotes – I especially resonate with the 2nd one by Cynthia Occelli.
Me, too!
“fear clings and awe lets go.” That is really good… and so true when we think about it!
I also love that last quote. It relates to what I’ve been talking to my students about since the new year began. Rather than strict resolutions, we can set sankalpas, planting a seed, nourishing it, watching it grow, tending to when things don’t go quite right. And continuing to do our part to take care of what we have planted for our lives. It can definitely look rough at time, especially to others, but the work is still worth it if it is a heartfelt intention.
Patti, I needed your words of wisdom this morning. Thank you very much.
🙏🏼🕊️
I have the above quote written by Cynthia Occelli in my notebook of quotes.
I love that quote…and needed it at this time.
I too,
am grateful for you,
dear Carol Ann,
and for everything you bring here . . .
you speak sometimes
what I can’t.
The latter quotation
makes me think of something Annie Dillard wrote
about the moth emerging from its cocoon.
What looks at first like travesty
is a miracle of growth. ♥
Sparrow, Many times good comes out of chaos.
Thank you,
dear Carol Ann . . . ♥
I am struggling of late to feel the awe and wonder. I want to blame external forces, which are definitely challenging but :
am I not the master of my own mind?
Can I not choose to focus on what earthly wonders surround me?
Can I choose to be awed by the mystery of life?
To do this i think I need to “stop” internally
To do this I believe I require silent moments to hear and take in nature, to have my thoughts heard and permitted. Can I do this where silence doesnt exist? Where my opinions are argued and silenced?
Can I turn my awareness away from feeling like a prop in another’s life onto my own personal reality?
To do this i think I have to “stop”
Stop the angry negative chatter in my brain.
Stop reacting and start observing
Stepping further back to see the larger tapestry
Stepping in very close and observing the tiny individual stitches of this tapestry.
I dont know… it all sounds good in writing and much harder to execute in real time. I know gratitude changes my life but I dont seem to be able to sustain it.
Your post so rings with me,
dear Heather . . .
I have been in similar situations before,
and I know how painful and disabling they can be . . .
grateful that the last few years have been a reprieve.
But your words
bring back all the pain and anxiety . . .
you are fighting an age old battle,
I think you know the answer,
but can’t quite see it.
I believe
you are on the right path . . .
hang in there
with love . . . ♥
Things sound so challenging, Heatherhoney. I’m so sorry that you, such a kind hearted, thoughtful and self aware person, has to deal with so much negativity.
Thank you for your authenticity and your thought provoking questions.
Sending heartfelt love. ♥️
I hear you, Heather. Your post is very helpful to me, especially “Stop reacting and start observing, Stepping further back to see the larger tapestry.”
Awe and wonder are not qualities of things themselves, but of how I receive them. When I am open to awe and wonder in every ordinary moment, they appear.
They do,
dear Ngoc . . . ♥
Yes, dear NGOC
My Ngoc, you just added to the part in my answer about our family Texas trip along with my LT1192 autism and mental health advocacy motivations resurfacing.
I could gently sidestep the obstacles to awe and wonder, and replace them with good medicine. That way, I open up space for awe and wonder to emerge, even during an inactive, healing time at home.
Obstacle: stress/chronic activity. Medicine: Deliberately take time to sit still, ideally outdoors, and take each thing in slowly.
Obstacle: Media overexposure. Medicine: Turn off my phone for most of a day. Pick up one of my books instead.
Obstacle: Emotional numbing. Medicine: Allow myself to feel grief and loss and do ritual around them.
💗
Use the medicine to open up space. I really like that, Drea! Thank you.
I’m glad it resonated, Sunnypatti!
Great, Drea. What a prescription!
Thank you Christina!
”Obstacle: Emotional numbing. Medicine: Allow myself to feel grief and loss and do ritual around them.”
I was overcome with grief this morning,
and suddenly realized that the bundle in my throat
was full of tears that needed to be released,
but I couldn’t do it.
It was a homesickness for a world
that didn’t seem as troubled as it is today.
Your reflection,
dear Drea,
has opened my heart
to my own naivete . . .
thank you. ♥
Dear Sparrow, according to Francis Weller’s work, you had experienced the third gate of grief. More on the gates here: https://pacifichealingcircles.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/The-Five-Gates-of-Grief-1.docx.pdf … one can do art, write, share with others, do ritual for all of them … his books are very good.
Thank you so much,
dear Drea,
for this reference,
which I have not heard of.
I will be sure to check out your link. ♥
Beautifully said, Drea. Full of wisdom
Thank you, dear Mary.
Stop. Look. Go. Over and over again. Allow myself to be tickled. Figuratively. ♥️
Yes, it’s simple, isn’t it?
I experience these things all the time, so I’m not really sure what I could do to experience “more” of them. I think that, while I still have a lot to learn on this path, I have reached a place where I finally feel peace inside of me. And with that peace comes a lot of awe with the things I see and experience in the world around me. Each time we drive to the mountains, there’s a certain point on hwy 74 where I get the first glimpse of those mountains, and I feel that wonder & amazement. I feel it also when I go to the beach and look out at the vastness of the ocean. When I make eye contact with a baby… usually followed with them smiling at me. One time at a trail in the lowcountry, a butterfly flew in front of us for like 20 minutes. It would flutter a little off the path but then come right back. Meditation brings experiences of awe. Going to concerts. Thinking about this vessel I am walking around in and how it works. I feel it in this moment after typing all of this out ✨
🦋
❤️
💜
Beautiful,
dear SunnyPatti . . .
just beautiful. ♥
🖤
I am unable to post colored hearts,
dear SunnyPatti . . .
sorry for the black. 🙁
No need to be sorry! I like your little black hearts! When I was in college, my group of friends and I called ourselves the black shoe club 😊
I can only post them on my laptop because Michele taught us the trick!
❤️🩷🧡💛💚💙🩵💜🤎🖤🩶🤍
I am feeling the awe too after reading your response, SunnyPatti. Love, love, love making eye contact with a baby. So much fun, so much joy, all is new.
I feel awe at the vastness of the ocean and am grateful for the river and smaller waterways that run throughout Jacksonville.
Many in Jax dislike the Buckman Bridge for fear that it isn’t safe. I savor the view every time I’m on it and feel so grateful for the St John’s river. I haven’t spent much time in the mountains, but would like to do so in the near future.
Your enthusiasm has enthused me, SunnyPatti. Thank you!
Thanks, Mary! We have a Baby & Me class at the studio on Mondays, and I love that I get to be there and see all the sweet little ones.
I can appreciate what you say about the Buckman Bridge. Growing up in Charleston, particular bridges have the most gorgeous views. Actually, all of them do! Whether a view of the marsh or the city itself. Such a gorgeous place. You should take a trip to the mountains. They aren’t that far, and it’s so worth the drive!
There’s a similar part on our mountain highway that always brings awe … I just never think about it until I’m staring at it! You inspire me to make an inner awe map, so next time I go see the familiar, I can note that sensation of awe again and again.
An inner awe map! Love this idea! Thank you, Drea!
I love things to be concrete and visual, and am thinking of making an awe map in collage. Exciting! 🥰☀️
I wish we could share pictures here, I would love to see your awe map!
I love the idea of an inner awe map as well, especially making it into a collage. I made a vision board last weekend at a workshop we hosted at our studio, and it was fun and fulfilling to put the things I love and aspire to on that board. I think an inner awe map would feel much the same 🙂
I feel it reading your post, SunnyPatti.💫 Thank you.
Thank you, Mary. I appreciate you ✨
If possible, this question challenges me to not just look, but also to see; There is wonder out there, and goodness, and beauty. If awe and wonder enter my life, it will likely inspire the “better angel of my nature”.
Amen,
dear John. ♥
Amen!
Give More, expect Less. Peace, Love & Light.
. . . words to live by,
dear Joseph,
that are not spoken often enough.
Thank you. ♥
Thank you, Joseph. ♥️
Thanks, Joseph. Today, I will expect less of myself.
Me too.
Get out of the house more often.
Today is the Greek Epiphany down here in Tarpon Springs – I will watch on my lunch break.
Michele, I definitely need to get out of the house more often!
💗
I had to look up Greek Epiphany–sounds beautiful!
I love ritual and I started to watch it when I moved to FL some 17 yrs ago. I ended up ordering a Greek Salad and some pita chips with tzatziki – it was soooo good, best Greek salad I’ve ever had.
You’re inspiring me to check out Epiphany next year!