This country was built on the hard working pioneer spirit that persevered over adverse conditions with dogged determination. Stretching the workday to all hours, eating lunch at the desk, refraining martyr-like from taking vacations, are all still remnants of this dedication. But times have changed and we know better now. Working smart, not hard, is the new paradigm. Recent research, as reported in the NY Times, suggests that we are much more productive working in a few 90-minute intervals with breaks in between, taking our vacations, and getting enough sleep and recreational time. This mirrors what spiritual disciplines mean when they say that we need to “slow down in order to speed up.”
'tis the season - stress less, enjoy more
I have to remind myself of that between writing Christmas cards, buying presents (we have simplified our life by buying only for the children in our family – it’s not like the adults need more stuff), attending school concerts (I like those, the atmosphere is always very festive, and music inevitably boosts my mood), daughter telling me we need to bake Christmas cookies (I don’t need that stress in my life right now), planning her birthday party (Harry Potter this year, can’t do away with the birthday party, for sure), and various Christmas and New Year’s dinners (that’s with people, but of course it is easier on me if we get invited than if I have to do the inviting, and planning, and cooking). 
So, the part I really enjoy about all of this, always, ever – is the people, the conviviality, the togetherness, the sharing. I like a good conversation over reasonably good food and wine (I am not too picky when get invited, that is a real treat in itself). Think about it – it really is about our relationships and interactions with people. The other holiday stuff we fill our lives with is self-induced stress brought on by social conventions and feelings of obligation. So it is good to pick and do that which brings us joy and satisfaction and eliminate the rest from our life (I wished I could eliminate all the chauffeuring I do for the kids in the afternoons, it makes for a very unproductive part of my day).
contentment
Beautiful Bellvale - pictures from my morning walk. It is difficult not to be content living in such a special place on earth.
smell the leaves
wet leaves
smell earthy
walking on them
sounds damp
rain drops glisten like jewels
just being
Usually I am just doing. Dipping under the radar of doing accesses a place within me that is peaceful, timeless, and emotionally removed (not remote!). This place permits me to observe more objectively without the emotional entanglement, and it lets me feel, hear, taste, smell, and see without the mental word chatter that permeates my mind. It is difficult to even achieve seconds of this peace of mind, but boy is it worthwhile.
wordlessness
I admit, I did not get it for a long time, the “don’t think,” “drop into your heart space” or “count from 1 to 10 and then start over” effort to get “out of my mind.” Finally I did get it when I recently read Martha Beck’s new book Finding Your Way In A Wild New World. Martha spoke about dropping into “wordlessness.” That’s it! Somehow I understood that analogy a lot better than all of the others and a lightbulb went off. It’s as if there was a word world floating in, around and above us that engulfs us. We name everything, categorize everything, judge everything, and clad everything into words. However, words lock our experience, our vision into our individual perspective with our particular set of emotions attached to it. On the other hand when you drop out of that framework by leaving the words by the wayside everything simply is the way it is – it is not tinted with the meaning of words. When I slip out of this word cloud that surrounds me I find myself in a space where there is only feeling, seeing, sensing, being. That world is devoid of anxiety, anger, and all of the other negative emotions, because those arise only out of the connection between words, past experience and future expectations.
Try it sometime!
take your time zooming...
…my husband said yesterday when I exclaimed I was going to zoom to the farmer’s market to pick up a few things and be right back to make breakfast. Although he almost never sits still, he is the one who keeps reminding me to slow down and smell the roses.
The subject of living in the moment keeps creeping up for me. Watching the fabulous fireworks in Warwick on Saturday night, the thought popped up that fireworks must be the one thing outside of meditation where I cannot be other than entirely in the moment. The minute I think about what I see there is already something else to see. So I have to suspend my thinking to keep up with the enjoying.
it's the little things that count
Setting the table nicely is important to me. 
It’s a little ritual that improves the quality of life, even though my son thinks I’m silly when I mind one yellow and three white dinner plates, and insist on four matching ones when the children set the table. And we have other little rituals, like eating croissants on Saturday mornings, or getting special breakfast items from our favorite French baker in town for special breakfasts, like Father’s day or birthdays, or setting up the birthday table with a special table cloth, a candle, flowers, the birthday cake, and all the presents and cards. Ritual and predictability add rhythm to life and remind us of its circularity; paying attention to little things makes life more meaningful.
peace and quiet
Life has been such a whirlwind for me in recent months that I feel a bit like a patchwork quilt. Although I think sometimes that I don’t have time for one more thing, periods of peace and quiet become so much more important when life is so intense. Whether this is meditation time, yoga time, sitting quietly with a cup of tea, chopping and cooking dinner, or puttering around in the garden and weeding, doesn’t matter much. It is very tempting to check email or Facebook or whatever else several times a day. But I found that that is exactly what I need to refrain myself from doing. It is like letting go of the stream of thoughts when we quiet the mind. Remove the irrelevant distracting stuff. Focus on what matters. We all need such contemplative time to be with ourselves and turn inward, to settle, to ground ourselves, so we don’t become fragmented. Quiet time is when I collect all those patches and sew them back together.
wu weiying or rolling with the punches
We wu weyed our way through this past week in quite amazing ways. Wu wei, one of the central concepts of Taoism, basically means going with the flow instead of resisting what comes your way.
For many years we had set our minds on finally building that perfect house on a beautiful piece of property we recently paid off. Then we came to the shocking realization, much money and a few months of schematics later, that our architect was doing his own thing instead of steering the project towards meeting all our needs in the best possible way. That’s where wu wei came in. We rolled with the punches so fast it was dizzying. Only a week later we have put a binder on a house with the most gorgeous property. And while it is not a Passiv Haus in terms of energy efficiency, it meets all our other needs in more ways than we could have ever imagined. Wu weying takes a flexible mind and trust that the universe brings you what you need - if you are able to visualize clearly what you need (not what it looks like, nor how it will materialize). Without that inner resistance it is effortless to let the universe do the work for you, rather than striving hard towards a specific outcome. Try it next time and let the universe come up with an opportunity beyond your wildest dreams.