5.5.25
Meditation Mondays
Thought
Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself? The Master doesn’t seek fulfillment. Not seeking, not expecting, she is present, and can welcome all things. Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
– Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
Quote
Heraclitus on evolution:
“Everything flows and nothing abides; everything gives way and nothing stays fixed.”
Intention of the Day
My intention is to show up as my true self in all that I do today.
What’s your intention today?
Happy Monday,
Val
4.28.25
Meditation Mondays
Thought
The world is a seamless, always self-creating, self-individuating, and simultaneously self-uniting, flow that is only truly knowable as it comes to be known. It is like a stream, with its whirlpools and eddies, that come into being for a time, and resolve; while they are there they are present to all observers, even measurable up to a point; and yet, while distinct, they are inseparable from the stream, not just in the sense that without the stream they do not exist, but in the sense that they are the stream... once one sees this, the objectivising, time-denying, change-denying, diagrammatic mentality of modern Western thinking appears as I believe it is: a hindrance, not a help, on the path to truth.
– Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things
Quote
Desmond Tutu on interconnectedness:
“We do not exist in isolation. A person is a person through other persons.”
Intention of the Day
My intention is to stay strong and adaptable in the face of challenges today.
What’s your intention today?
Happy Monday,
Val
4.21.25
Meditation Mondays
Thought
The tension of the future is unbearable in us. It must break through narrow cracks, it must force new ways. You want to cast off the burden, you want to escape the inescapable.
Running away is deception and detour. Shut your eyes so that you do not see the manifold, the outwardly plural, the tearing away and the tempting. There is only one way and that is your way; there is only one salvation and that is your salvation. Why are you looking around for help? Do you believe that help will come from outside? What is to come is created in you and from you. Hence look into yourself. Do not compare, do not measure. No other way is like yours. All other ways deceive and tempt you.
You must fulfill the way that is in you.
– CG Jung, The Red Book
Quote
Lao Tzu on the flow of life:
“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them—that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
Intention of the Day
My intention is to embrace my creative energy and allow it to flow freely today.
What’s your intention today?
Happy Monday,
Val
4.14.25
Meditation Mondays
Thought
The art of archery is not an athletic ability mastered more or less through primarily physical practice, but rather a skill with its origin in mental exercise and with its object consisting in mentally hitting the mark. Therefore, the archer is basically aiming for himself. Through this, perhaps, he will succeed in hitting the target — his essential self.
— Herrigel
Quote
Henry David Thoreau on presence:
“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.”
Intention of the Day
My intention is to remain open to new opportunities and ideas today.
What’s your intention today?
Happy Monday,
Val
4.7.25
Meditation Mondays
Thought
One evening, contrary to my custom, I drank black coffee and could not sleep. Ideas rose in crowds; I felt them collide until pairs interlocked, so to speak, making a stable combination. It seems, in such cases, that one is present at his own unconscious work, made partially perceptible to the overexcited consciousness, yet without having changed its nature. Then we vaguely comprehend what distinguishes the two mechanisms or, if you wish, the working methods of the two egos.
— Henri Poincaré on Intuition in Problem Solving
Quote
Victor Hugo on optimism:
“Even the darkest night will end, and the sun will rise.”
Intention of the Day
My intention is to seek clarity in my thoughts, decisions and interactions today.
What’s your intention today?
Happy Monday,
Val
3.31.25
Meditation Mondays
Thought
Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness, as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence; but apply the requisite stimulus, and at a touch they are there in all their completeness, definite types of mentality which probably somewhere have their field of application and adaptation.
— William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience
Quote
Ralph Waldo Emerson on speed:
“Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.”
Intention of the Day
My intention is to strive for balance in my work, rest and play today.
What’s your intention today?
Happy Monday,
Val
3.24.25
Meditation Mondays
Thought
To me, moving into more naturalism was a freedom. I thought, if I want to I could paint a portrait; this is what I mean by freedom. Tomorrow if I want, I could get up, I could do a drawing of someone, I could draw my mother from memory, I could even paint a strange little abstract picture. It would all fit into my concept of painting as an art. A lot of painters can't do that - their concept is completely different. It's too narrow; they make it much too narrow. A lot of them, like Frank Stella, who told me so, can't draw at all. But there are probably older painters, English abstract painters, who were trained to draw. Anybody who'd been in art school before I had must have done a considerable amount of drawing. To me, a lot of painters were trapping themselves; they were picking such a narrow aspect of painting and specializing in it.
And it's a trap. Now there's nothing wrong with the trap if you have the courage to just leave it, but that takes a lot of courage.
—David Hockney
Quote
John Dewey on learning:
“We do not learn from experience... we learn from reflecting on experience.”
Intention of the Day
My intention is to release any resentment or grudges I’m holding onto today.
What’s your intention today?
Happy Monday,
Val
3.17.25
Meditation Mondays
Thought
Knowing others is intelligence;
knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength;
mastering yourself is true power.
―Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
Quote
Oliver Wendell Holmes on growth:
“The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.”
Intention of the Day
My intention is to approach today with patience and trust in the timing of life.
What’s your intention today?
Happy Monday,
Val