By Ozan Varol

Mother Nature is a great teacher. Trees don’t try to produce fruit year round in an absurd attempt to be more productive. They lie dormant through the fall and the winter, shedding their leaves and conserving resources. Without that period of dormancy, they couldn’t bloom in the spring.

Humans also have seasons. The artist Corita Kent, during one of her own dormant periods, would sit idle and watch a maple tree grow outside her window. “I feel that great new things are happening very quietly inside of me,” she said. “And I know these things have a way, like the maple tree, of finally bursting out in some form.”

Being idle isn’t the same thing as being lazy.

A vacuum isn’t something to be automatically filled.

As the saying goes, it’s the silence in between the notes that makes the music.

So if you’re in between projects or jobs—or even romantic relationships—resist the tendency to immediately fill the void with the next thing.

Great new things are happening quietly inside of you.

Give them the time they need to bloom in all their glory.

Time to Bloom

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Not-Knowing

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Cast your cares for the stones they are,
Cast away, cast away, cast them near or far,
Throw away, far away, small, medium and large,
Worry not where for the stones may land,
The power of casting comes from the hand;
Now cast away, cast away, cast away all,
So feet may trample over stones carefull cast; now
Trod across, trod across, yes, trod across brave,
Across stone path trusting heart has paved.
Brave heart, true heart, pure heart behold,
Mystery perceived, embraced, and imbued,
Life lived not-knowing is knowing life true.
~DEBreen

A Living Practice

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From Brad Stulberg

Knowing what matters most to you and having the courage to pursue it is a good start, but it’s not enough. You’ve got to act on those values over and over again. In the words of philosopher Terry Patten, you’ve got to “make a practice” out of living.

In his latest book, A New Republic of the Heart, Patten writes that life satisfaction is a byproduct of transitioning from being a seeker, or someone who wants a certain lifestyle, to a practitioner, or someone who lives that lifestyle day in and day out. “Practice,” Patten writes, “is about waking up again and again, and choosing to show up in life in alignment with one’s highest intelligence,” or what matters most.

Unfortunately, there is no quick fix. “A whole life of regular, ongoing practice is necessary,” writes Patten. “We are always reinforcing the neural circuits associated with what we are doing. Whatever way we are being, we’re more likely to be that way in the future. This means we are always practicing something.” It behooves us to live more and more of our lives taking actions that are in alignment with our core values—to make a practice out of living.