Lights in the Dark

Paul Tingen, a fellow Order of Interbeing Member in the Plum Village Tradition of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh has made this wonderful offering of music which he calls “Light in the Dark.” It is an acoustic guitar rendition to the tune of Leonard Cohen‘s Hallelujah. Paul hopes that we keep in mind the lessons […]

A Song For All Beings

Last Saturday night, I attended a performance of A Song For All  Beings to a packed house. Composed and produced by Jennifer Berezan and friends, A Song For All Beings is based on the Buddhist practice of metta and the four immeasurable minds or Brahma Viharas (divine abodes) of loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and […]

10 Songs to Comfort You during Times of Transition from Lissa Rankin

The following 10 songs to comfort you during times of transition from Lissa Rankin showed up in my email yesterday. I want to share with you what she said about each song verbatim. She did say, “Feel free to share the love if you liked this post.” So here goes… I have a Comfort playlist […]

Prayer of the Mothers

The song “Prayer of the Mothers”, was born as a result of an alliance made between singer-songwriter Yael Deckelbaum, and a group of courageous women, leading the movement of “Women Wage Peace”. The movement arose on summer 2014 during the escalation of violence between Israel and the Palestinians, and the military operation “Tzuk Eitan”. On […]

Four Questions on Racial Justice

These four questions on racial justice were pondered by three participants at the Earth Holder Retreat on Saturday, April 30 at the Deer Park Monastery in Escondido, California. What are your personal connections with racial justice? Touching the mud: what are the challenges, feelings and difficulties that you had growing up? When I think about […]

Guided Meditation for Loving Kindness

This guided meditation for loving kindness was created by Michael Sealey and is quite good for learning how to give and receive loving kindness, compassion, happiness, abundance and healing and eliminating stress and anxiety. Michael begins with a soothing body scan that takes about 7 minutes. Then he asks us to bring into mind an […]

Another Take on Unconditional Love

This short song by Alanis Morissette gives us another take on unconditional love. The song is called, “You owe me nothing in return.” Happy Valentines Day! Alanis sings, I’ll give you countless amounts of outright acceptance if you want it. I will give you encouragement to choose the path that you want if you need […]

Treat Meditation Like Music You Can Dance To

These words of wisdom from the great Alan Watts teach us to treat meditation like music you can dance to. Almost all of us like music and, if you are like me, you love to dance. We could say that meditation doesn’t have a reason or doesn’t have a purpose. In this respect it’s unlike […]

Prayer for the Twenty-First Century

This Prayer for the Twenty-First Century was composed by John Marsden. It was choreographed and performed by the Dandelions Dance Company. The background music was from Ashana’s Ave Maria. I listen to this recording on my iPhone quite frequently. May the road be free for the journey, May it lead where it promised it would. […]

Hummingbird Garden

We arrived in Cuenca on April 24 by train from Valencia. We stayed at the fabulous Parador de Cuenca, an old convent. When we got there, we learned that there was to be a concert in the courtyard at 6:00 PM. We had plenty of time to settle in, have tea and wait for the […]