InTheTemazcal

As a young man, busy paddling my canoe, studying, building my curriculum vita, getting my name in front of my influencers, and testing social limits, five minutes of mindfulness practice took a tremendous effort...a confounding irony in itself. My mind was excited and full of ideas and curiosity; my body was full of testosterone. Chaotic People on Charles Bridge in Prague Photo by Viktor Hanacek, on picjumbo.com With age, the ideas have joined the wind. The once red-hot ashes of curiosity have long since soaked into the earth to green the grasses of someone else's summer. Testosterone has become a number, rather than an incentive. Today I slip into a mindful state much like the the muscles of my legs adjust to the trail slope, without convincing them to do so. Mindfulness gets easier with age for several reasons: Practice Makes ...  I started consciously practicing mindfulness, specifically, as a student at Northern Illinois University , in DeKalb, Illinois. An of...

I wore this pendant, a gift from El Oso, which reminded me of the red road on which he led me. While today I mostly write of the temazcal from memory, at one time I lived it, attending twice a week and giving my time and effort in service as often as my work and energy allowed. I had become accustomed to the Circulo de los Osos (the Bears' Circle) and its caminantes as my family. Although I spent only a few years with them, those years coincided with important new apertures in my mind and material world experiences. A professional change in my life provided motive to move away from that group. Although I made the move willingly and thoughtfully, I found myself in my new world with little external emotional or spiritual support. The Coping Tools I Used Not long ago, when I rejoined my hermano , or brother, from the Circulo de los Osos , Oso Hector, he asked me to share with the others of his temazcal ceremony the answer to the question, "How did I endure my move...

Jordan will travel from the Midwestern United States to Manaus, Brazil, in the heart of the Amazon. It looks like this, from where I sit, here and now.  Image Source: Google Maps. In preparation for my daily dedication to Jordan*, for his mission to Manaus, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, I looked to Eckhart Tolle's book, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment. I   chanced upon his chapter entitled, "You are not Your Mind." There, Tolle opened, "The Greatest Obstacle to Enlightenment," as follows: Enlightenment - what is that?  A beggar had been sitting by the side of a road for over thirty years. One day a stranger walked by. "Spare some change?" mumbled the beggar, mechanically holding out his old baseball cap. "I have nothing to give you," said the stranger. Then he asked: "What's that you are sitting on?" "Nothing," replied the beggar. "Just an old box. I have been sitting ...