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    Too Busy Gardening

    ByElizabeth

    To write about gardening. I spent most of the weekend in the garden and there is still more to be done to get ready for the fullest experience of summer. I did get to the Sunday contact improv jam for a while (these azaleas are in the church yard outside of where we dance). Now I am off to an evening meeting–yearning to get back into the garden, but intending to enjoy connecting with my community.

    Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

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    “Do you have an umbrella?”

    ByElizabeth

    As I was headed out at lunch, a co-worker in another office whom I know only from the hallway, asked, “do you have an umbrella?”

    “Yes, I do, how are you?” I replied, knowing that she was trying to be helpful. So many of us work in spaces without windows, it was not unreasonable for her to think I might not know it was raining.

    Another woman who I did not know said, “I heard it might rain all weekend,” revealing herself as one who gets all knowledge of the weather from tv.

    I thought, but did not say, “yes, there is that pesky hurricane coming.”

    Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

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    The Power of Mantra (and “Alice’s Restaurant”)

    ByElizabeth

    Yesterday morning, on the listserv for the Friends Meeting of Washington, someone shared a link to the original recording of Arlo Guthrie singing “Alice’s Restaurant” as part of an email about Thanksgiving festivities.  Usually, I scan listserv emails quickly and delete, especially when they relate to events that I am unable to attend. I saved this one for later, though.  I’d woken up from some anguished dreams that were hard to shake, and on being reminded of it, I was sure that when I could make the time, listening all the way through Alice’s Restaurant  (it’s long) would cheer me up.

    This morning I did indeed listen, and remembered why we (at least those of us who attended Quaker Youth Camp in the early 1970s) memorized most of Alice’s Restaurant.  It spoke to us and inspired us and invited us to feel that we were not alone in thinking that things could and should be more gracious and peaceful.

    And the refrain is catchy and easy to sing.  This morning, at the end, when Arlo invites the audience (the 1967 album version was a “live” recording), I started singing along just for the delight of it, which led me to think about the power of mantra.

    Chanting or silently repeating mantra is one of the key yoga practices.  The purpose, roughly, of mantra is to replace one set of thoughts with another.  Repeating even just “om,” the simplest mantra, over and over again is meant to shift you from whatever mind state you might have been in (at least to the extent that you are having repeating troubling thought patterns) and into or  towards a more beneficent state.  In my own years of practice, I have found much power in practicing Sanskrit mantras, but many of the songs we have been singing for years, especially those that we associate with ritual can serve similar purposes.

    If you’re so moved and feeling that you’re having thoughts around this Thanksgiving holiday that you’d rather replace with more cheerful ones, invite the power of mantra and perhaps sing, along with Arlo  for the refrain in  Alice’s Restaurant.

    Oh yes.  Happy Thanksgiving.

     

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