The Sunshine Award–Thanks, Zen Girl!!

  I woke up before dawn this glorious spring morning to a chorus of birds welling up all around me, a steaming hot cup of coffee for which I am so grateful, a little excitement, because Sundays I  am blessed to be able to attend the Zazen at Richmond Ekoji, AND a Sunshine Award nomination by Zen Girl.   Thank you, Zen Girl!  Your honest reflections on the challenges and questions that arise on the great Odyssey of life give your readers much fodder for thought.  Keep writing, Z. Girl!!

What I really love about these awards is that they give  the awardee the opportunity to thank a thoughtful reader and to spread the love to other inspiring writers.    The rules of this particular award are:

1. Include the award logo in a post or in your blog.

2. Answer ten specific questions about yourself.

3. Nominate ten other fabulous bloggers.

4. Link your nominees to the post and comment on their blog, letting them know about the award.

5. Share the love and link the person who nominated you.

Ten Questions:

1. What is your favorite color? Depends on my mood, really, but I really love just about every color on the yellow to orange to red to red-tinted purple.

2.What is your favorite animal?I love all animals, but I feel a particular connection to the spirit of wolves:

3. What is your favorite non-alcoholic drink? I’ve got a juicer, and I love this juice cocktail:  red beets, carrots, apple, ginger, fresh parsley, kale.

4. Do you prefer Facebook or Twitter?  I’m not a big fan of Twitter, personally.  I do use Facebook, but barely.

5. What is your passion? Expanding Mindfulness in my life.

6. What’s your favorite pattern?  Fibonacci Sequence in Nature–it’s everywhere!!  Love seeing and contemplating sacred geometries, but Fibonacci Sequence is my favorite.

7. Do you prefer giving or receiving presents? They are one and the same to me.  Being able to extend my joy and love and gratitude to someone else in the form of a present is a gift to me; and, when I receive a gift, I know that that I am giving someone else the opportunity to revel in the light of their own generosity. So, both.

8. What is your favorite number? 0  (a circle: the symbol of the Tao) and 8 (symbol of Infinity)

9. What is your favorite day of the week? Saturday!!  Play-day!!

10. What is your favorite flower?   Sunflower (one of my favorite poems–“Sunflower Sutra” by Alan Ginsberg)

Nominations:
In no particular order, all of these blogs enrich my thoughts and wonder.  Please consider subscribing to their wonderful blogs, if you haven’t already!

1. http://istopforsuffering.wordpress.com/

2. http://courageousendeavors.wordpress.com/

3. http://tiedtosky.wordpress.com/

4. http://thewayhome.me/

5. http://ebbtide.wordpress.com/

6. http://soul-in-progress.com/

7. http://vanishingnarrative.wordpress.com/

8. http://bookofguff.wordpress.com/

9. http://reflectionsfromafriend.wordpress.com/

10. http://cauldronsandcupcakes.com/

Blessings to all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas in all Ten Directions Three Times!!

Versatile Blogger Award: Thank You–I am Honored!!

  MoJo, whose FABULOUS blog, Momentum of Joy, reminds me to seize every opportunity to engage in a moment-by-moment, hour-by-hour, day-by-day practice of the cultivation of optimism, has just nominated me and 6 other inspiring bloggers for “The Versatile Blogger” Award.  Mojo is a wonderful writer, whose eloquent prose and radiant positivity have rightly earned her no less than four blogging awards (you go, girl!!)! She experiments the impact of positive and negative affirmations on potato plants growing in her window, and she encourages her readers to re-think their inherited, negative assumptions about things that are, properly viewed, sources of universal abundance–like money and cactus-needles.  Thank you, MoJo, for the honor of the nomination and for helping your readers become attracted to the Speed of your Energy in Motion!

Acceptance of the Versatile Blogger award requires that the recipient:

1.  Thank the nominating blogger and post a link to their blog in the acceptance post.

2.  Cite 7 random things about herself.

3.  Nominate 7 other wonderfully versatile bloggers.

So, it remains to Cite 7 Random things about Myself:

1. I have a tattoo on my right arm in Tibetan script that says (translated), “Snow Mountain”.  I got this tattoo last year to honor the great transition of Montana, my German Shepherd friend and one of the greatest loves of my life. (You can read about her: https://erranttranscendentalist.wordpress.com/2011/10/17/its-a-dogs-life/)  She is still with me every day in Spirit!
2. Last Monday, my Reiki Master Teacher honored me by conferring upon me her own “Reiki Master” title after about a year of apprenticing.
3. I love my family. I love my family. I absolutely wholeheartedly love my family.
4. I believe that everyone–absolutely everyone–even those whom others would condemn–absolutely everyone deserves love, compassion, and understanding.
5. I believe that the practice of compassion for one’s self is the most powerful way to begin to show real compassion to others.  Without compassion for the self, compassion for others will often drain quickly and turn into resentment. Compassion for self is the starting point for all transformational growth.
6. Like MoJo, I, too, haven’t always felt optimistic about life. In fact, I felt pretty pessimistic.  My whole life-view until about two years ago originated in core-beliefs of scarcity and futility.  I often felt powerless, helpless, and depressed, and those beliefs materialized in my life in the forms of chaos, drama, illness, and self-limitation.
7. I transformed my life with a lot of help from meditation, yoga, Reiki, good friends and family, and relentless “selfish” self-care.  Now, chaos, drama, and illness have dissolved.  Peace generated within produces peaceful awareness in the face of seemingly external circumstances.
8. I cherish time alone as an invitation of the Universe to return to Stillness.
9. In my “day job,” I am a university professor who feels totally turned on by the enthusiasm and curiosity of her students.
10. My dream job:  work at a Wolf Sanctuary helping to save the Grey and Red Wolf populations from extinction.  Their wilderness habitats have been so encroached upon by human habitation that they are greatly at risk. Saving the wolves is really about saving the world’s vanishing wildernesses.

And, to Nominate 7 other awesome bloggers for the Versatile Blogger Award:

1. Mindful Balance: daily reflections on meditation, mindfulness, and balance.  The author encourages us to Hold the Heart Open and to Know that we Have Enough.  He offers a first-rate annotated bibliography of outstanding “must reads,” and provides courses and events for those in the Geneva area. I hope to check one of them out some day soon!

2. A Leaf in Springtime: This author’s photo-essays fill me with longing, nostalgia, peace, and wonder, and they evoke the fragility and endurance of all nature and life.  I have only recently discovered her work, but I will gratefully follow it as long as she keeps publishing!!

3. Living in the Now:  Love this author’s refreshing honesty, Buddhist fundamentals of daily living, and wisdom.  One of my favorite bloggers!!

4. The Consummate: This author’s sometimes quirky, sometimes humorous, always refreshing blog reminds us that we cannot borrow happiness from anything outside ourselves…

5. Be at Peace:  A fairly new blog that drips with peaceful Zen…and she has a new, beautiful singing bowl to sing about!

6. Niltsi’s Spirit: Gorgeous photography of the natural world and poetry inspired by it. Lovely…

7. Anapudin: Reflections on the details of daily living and the search for enlightenment through the Buddhist teachings of Nichiren Daishonin.

There are so many others I would nominate if I could, including many who have already received the award as a result of their inspiring writing, art, photography, and living.

Thanks again and Lots of Love and Light!!

Gratitude Rampage

Today, I am going on a gratitude rampage.  This is a choice that I am making, and I am making it with mindfulness, presence, and fullness of heart.  I choose to see everything that comes my way today through the eyes of Gratitude.  I choose to see all that is. I choose to appreciate all that is around me.

I choose to experience bliss and wonder and appreciation for the smallest of beings–the flowers growing on the tree outside my window, the tomato seedlings I have just planted catching the rays of the sun, the abundance that living simply has offered to me, my wonderful dog, Sydney, curled up in the corner after a hard play session with other dogs, and the list goes on.  My gratitude is as endless as the life around me. My gratitude is as deep as the love I have invited in to thrive and flourish in the center of my being.  My gratitude is unstoppable, and it will peacefully transform every negative action, word, or thought that cannot remain unchanged in my gratitude’s presence.  The world is in spring bloom, and the blooming cannot be stopped by fear-mongering or pollution or even global warming.  I see you–I see everyone–I see everything through the eyes of Gratitude. Thank you, Life!!