With an Eye on Nature

This guest post reminds me to be aware of everyday miracles.

Eye on Nature December 2012

On this winter day I find myself transfixed by a tree. Its leaves are gone, cut off by stem, shed by wind to the ground. Its bare branches are stark against the December gray as they reach toward a sun obscured by cloud.

The surface of this tree is rough and furrowed; it presses back against the flesh of my finger--solid. Yet the source of this rigid column, the weight of this tree, its very substance, comes magically out of thin air. Indeed, it is almost entirely made of carbon pulled from the byproducts of animal respiration and the release of gases from ancient plants burned as fuel.

The enormity of this idea stuns me, stops my forward progress, as I contemplate the reality that, through this tree, I can touch the breath of the past. It is alchemy—that this tree, through the process of photosynthesis, has taken something invisible, ethereal, and rearranged its chemistry to make solid form. Lead to Gold.

And this tree, standing silently before me, has done even more. It has gathered light and tied this energy to the molecular matrix of its cells. A branch of this tree sits in my fireplace at home. And when I place match to bark I will witness a miraculous transformation. From this tree I will feel, on a dark December night, the light and heat of a nearby star. Sequestered beneath layers of bark, contained within rings of growth, released as fire in my living room, the sun will shine again.

With an eye on nature,
Wally

Wally Shriner is an MHCC biology instructor and the Natural Resources Technology program faculty adviser. Eye on Nature is his monthly column. http://www.advocate-online.net/columnists/wallyshriner/ 

Happy New Year. May we all bring peace to ourselves and each other. Namaste, Sara

Grounded in Gratitude

A few years ago I wrote an article called Finding Contentment about a gratitude practice I like to do. Today, I read an article by Frank Jude Boccio which talks about this and more. Here's a little excerpt:

On the surface, gratitude appears to arise from a sense that you're indebted to another person for taking care of you in some way, but looking deeper, you'll see that the feeling is actually a heightened awareness of your connection to everything else. Gratitude flows when you break out of the small, self-centered point of view—with its ferocious expectations and demands—and appreciate that through the labors and intentions and even the simple existence of an inconceivably large number of people, weather patterns, chemical reactions, and the like, you have been given the miracle of your life, with all the goodness in it today.

If this speaks to you and you want to read the rest of the article, visit Yoga Journal.

Finding Contentment

Restore Your Attitude

When I first started studying the Yamas and Niyamas I was really struck by the concept of Santosha, or Contentment. I always thought I would be content when things in my life were just the way I wanted them: good job, enough money, enough free time, etc. But this idea of "when things are good I will be content" never comes to pass. Instead, you have to cultivate gratitude in your heart in order for contentment to settle in. The more you practice gratitude, the more contentment slips in.

I remember reading in Yoga of the Heart by Alice Christensen that Contentment is elusive because we are always thinking about the past or the future instead of resting in the present moment. That simple statement made a huge difference to me. I had heard before to rest in the present moment but without knowing what I was doing if I wasn't resting in the present moment, I couldn't figure out how to do this. Her labelling my thoughts as lolling about in memory (past events, should have, would have, what if) or fantasizing about the future (what if, when, I need to, as soon as) showed me that I was doing everything but sitting in the present moment.

For my practice I sit comfortably, close my eyes, calm my breath and start to name the things I am thankful for. I usually start off small and build up to more important things: Thank you for the green grass, thank you for the lilac blooms, thank you for my yoga practice, thank you for my partner, my dog, my mom, my dad, my sisters, brother, etc. Then I start labeling thankfulness for many things in my life that I wouldn't normally feel thankful for: Thank you for the learning experience of having a student with questions I don't know the answer to, thank you for the challenge of living in a fixer-upper house, thank you for the conflict in my life so I can look deeper inside myself, and so on.

When I have named all these things I am thankful for I realize how lucky I am and I realize how contentment has slipped into my life and filled me up.

Happy Exploring. Namaste.