Articles

Select pieces written over the past few years. Click here to see the Newsletter Archive.

Becoming Trees

By Jude Star

I looked at trees and was struck by their openness and patience.  I thought about how impatient I was with my own process. I wanted to change and grow, and I wanted it quickly.  I wanted to escape my suffering ASAP.
Appreciating how a tree grows, I saw myself in a new light.  You can’t make a tree grow any faster than it naturally does.  You can’t yank on a branch or a leaf to try to speed it up. If you want a tree to grow at its fastest rate, all you can do it give it the proper conditions for it to thrive.  Good soil, sun, water, and air.
So what were the conditions I needed to grow?

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The Body Speaks (and sometimes kicks)

By Stephanie DeBou

Summer is finally here and for many, that means getting outside for movement, play and social time. The last thing you may find yourself wanting to do is to sit still on your cushion in your usual meditation spot. Sunny skies beckon, and I know I’d rather be in the pool, at the park doing yoga, or napping with a warm summer breeze. Summertime brings on a whole host of challenges to maintaining a meditation practice. So how does one drag themselves to the meditation cushion when clearly there are so many enjoyable things we could be doing?

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What’s the sound of one foot out the door?

By

A common strategy for many of us in everyday life is to keep our emotions veiled, private even to ourselves. As explorers, we dig in. We create the conditions for feelings to emerge, by aligning our hearts and minds to what beats through us.  With practice, we thread the arrow of our attention into that place where all maps meet: our living heart, and the river that rushes through it.

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The Art of (no)Self-Expression

By Kevin Lacroix

In putting the Art before the Artist, Art becomes something that happens through us, rather than from us.  And then role of the ‘Artist’ becomes, perhaps, to merely get out of the way, making ourselves available to be used by muse,  genius, daemon… by Art, manifesting something unique that illuminates true nature for the benefit of all beings.

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What is “Practice,” Anyway?

By

Suddenly, we exist. Existing is complicated. We turn to practice. As we love to say at the CEC, being human takes practice. But what is a practice? The simplest definition of practice is some action – mental, emotional, physical, social – that you choose and repeat, so that it can become a habit. It is the deliberate cultivation of habits. Contemplative practices are practices that rehearse how you want to exist and relate to yourself and others.

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