5.23.2011

A new way of seeing



We need a repeated discipline, a genuine training,
in order to let go of our old habits of mind and to find and
sustain a new way of seeing.

Jack Kornfield



22 May
from Offerings: Buddhist wisdom for everyday
photo taken at Angkor Wat, Cambodia : 2008 : with my own little camera

5.18.2011

Re-prioritizing


Image found here


I sent an email to my friend Kendra last week.

I got an auto-response that said this:

Thank you for your email!

Please be aware that, in order to prioritize being Trent's mama, I only check email sporadically.

If you need a quicker response, please call me.

Thank You!
Kendra


Brilliant, I thought, just brilliant.

Since returning from 5 days in silence and a rejuvenating vacation in the sun, I have been acutely aware of the distraction of email and information overload, which is not helped by the sassy little device know as the iPhone. Always on, always available, always telling me how many emails are waiting to be read.

So, I am re-prioritizing.

I just don't know exactly what that means yet.

5.08.2011

Not your everyday Mother's Day gift

I am not a big jewelry person.

I am not a big red rose and chocolate person.

But I never would have guessed that I was an electrical gardening tool person.

Yes, my Mother's Day gift, that I picked out myself, was a Black and Decker Electric Trimmer.

And I love it.

And I know I love it because today, for 2 hours I was all by myself, in the garden, with my trimmer.

As I was thinking about this post and the justifications I was going to come up with for "working" instead of relaxing and getting pampered on Mother's Day, I realized that I felt I had to explain my desire for such a strange and unsexy gift and more so explain why I felt the need to actually use it today. But instead of explaining to you that alone time is always at the top of my wish list and that working with my hands brings me more joy than any packaged gift ever could, I would rather say, that if you are a mom, I hope you spent the day exactly the way you wanted to.