This weekend was one of cultivating greater awareness...
From being of service
From collecting data
From picking up trash
From looking with new eyes
From fixating on particular details
From a stiff neck
From screaming hamstrings
From centering in the body
From being part of a powerful community for change
From concentrating my thoughts on peace and unity
From being present in the moment
From energizing rays of divine sunlight, dancing through the shadows of trees
From honest communication
From looking deeply into another person's eyes
From unleashing the heart
From the power of touch
From saying prayers
This is just the beginning. Awareness begins in each moment.
Showing posts with label awareness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label awareness. Show all posts
Monday, September 22, 2008
Awareness I
This weekend was one of cultivating much greater awareness in many new dimensions.
Participating in a beach clean-up through Save Our Shores (part of an International Coastal Cleanup) opened my eyes to detail... caused me to look down with new sight... I became particularly conscious of the little pieces of trash that get torn off of bigger pieces of trash. Take the example of a juice box (like the kind your dad used to pack in your lunch for school): most people these days, at least in California, are good about throwing away the box and even the straw, but what about that little piece of plastic that encases the straw before you use it? We found tons of these wrappers and similarly sized pieces of plastic, which often get ingested by seabirds and can block their passageways and cause suffocation. I also gained a new level of appreciation for the fact that even little microscopic pieces of plastic can never biodegrade, which means that every time more plastic gets produced, that's more trash that will remain in the environment forever. I've also become much more keenly aware of noticing litter since Saturday morning... e.g., in passing by a triathlon on Sunday, I found myself picking up cups strewn about, noticing participants simply throwing their trash on the ground (and being aware of the lack of easily accessible receptacles for all that waste that was being produced through this event)... it's important to not to let go of awareness, even though it can be so easy to slip back into our past habits of blindness. My coworker and I are planning on writing a letter to those who planned the triathlon -- are not the cups and bright, shiny, metalic packages from gel shots consumed by the triathletes the same kinds of culprits we were so mindful of at the beach cleanup?
Another lesson gained from the beach cleanup came through the body-- bending over, even just for these three hours, with neck craned down to search for trash, increased my appreciation and compassion for our farm workers. As we drove back past Wastonville strawberry crops, I felt greatly humbled by all the strawberry pickers out in the fields, who bend in such backbreaking work for far more hours and days on end. What was my stiff neck relative to their aches and pains? I will hopefully carry that awareness into a much greater mindfulness as I eat things like strawberries in the future, thinking of the sweat required for me to have access to enjoy that sweetness.
Further awareness also came this weekend through engaging in far more sun salutations than I ever have at one time before as part of a Global Yoga for Peace event I attended here in Santa Cruz. My hamstrings screamed (and are still stiff) from repeated lunge after lunge as we moved through one surya namaskar sequence after another. How, even in the midst of such physical discomfort, can we concentrate our energy on thoughts of peace, unity, gratitude? One of the yogis leading us through 27 of the 108 sun salutations called our awareness to developing gratitude for those individuals who challenge us in our lives (often our greatest teachers), towards whom we may feel anger / annoyance / resistance... how can we bring our mindfulness from the mat into those interactions and be more loving and kind?
Participating in a beach clean-up through Save Our Shores (part of an International Coastal Cleanup) opened my eyes to detail... caused me to look down with new sight... I became particularly conscious of the little pieces of trash that get torn off of bigger pieces of trash. Take the example of a juice box (like the kind your dad used to pack in your lunch for school): most people these days, at least in California, are good about throwing away the box and even the straw, but what about that little piece of plastic that encases the straw before you use it? We found tons of these wrappers and similarly sized pieces of plastic, which often get ingested by seabirds and can block their passageways and cause suffocation. I also gained a new level of appreciation for the fact that even little microscopic pieces of plastic can never biodegrade, which means that every time more plastic gets produced, that's more trash that will remain in the environment forever. I've also become much more keenly aware of noticing litter since Saturday morning... e.g., in passing by a triathlon on Sunday, I found myself picking up cups strewn about, noticing participants simply throwing their trash on the ground (and being aware of the lack of easily accessible receptacles for all that waste that was being produced through this event)... it's important to not to let go of awareness, even though it can be so easy to slip back into our past habits of blindness. My coworker and I are planning on writing a letter to those who planned the triathlon -- are not the cups and bright, shiny, metalic packages from gel shots consumed by the triathletes the same kinds of culprits we were so mindful of at the beach cleanup?
Another lesson gained from the beach cleanup came through the body-- bending over, even just for these three hours, with neck craned down to search for trash, increased my appreciation and compassion for our farm workers. As we drove back past Wastonville strawberry crops, I felt greatly humbled by all the strawberry pickers out in the fields, who bend in such backbreaking work for far more hours and days on end. What was my stiff neck relative to their aches and pains? I will hopefully carry that awareness into a much greater mindfulness as I eat things like strawberries in the future, thinking of the sweat required for me to have access to enjoy that sweetness.
Further awareness also came this weekend through engaging in far more sun salutations than I ever have at one time before as part of a Global Yoga for Peace event I attended here in Santa Cruz. My hamstrings screamed (and are still stiff) from repeated lunge after lunge as we moved through one surya namaskar sequence after another. How, even in the midst of such physical discomfort, can we concentrate our energy on thoughts of peace, unity, gratitude? One of the yogis leading us through 27 of the 108 sun salutations called our awareness to developing gratitude for those individuals who challenge us in our lives (often our greatest teachers), towards whom we may feel anger / annoyance / resistance... how can we bring our mindfulness from the mat into those interactions and be more loving and kind?
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