12.22.25

Across planes of consciousness, we have to live with the paradox that opposite things can be simultaneously true. My guru said that when he suffers, it brings him closer to God. Suffering is grace. The quieter you become, the more you can hear. The heart surrenders everything to the moment. The mind judges and holds back.

– Ram Dass, Be Here Now

12.15.25

Now, there's a wonderful work of Schopenhauer's. He says when you reach a certain age and look back over your life it seems to have had an order—it seems to have been composed by someone—and those events that when they occurred seemed merely accidental and occasional and just something that happened, turn out to be the main elements in a consistent plot. So, he says, who composed this plot? And, he said, just as your dreams are composed by an aspect of yourself of which your consciousness is unaware, so your whole life has been composed by the will within you. 

Then, he says, just as those people who you met by chance became effective agents in the structuring of your life, so you have been an agent in the structuring of other lives, and the whole thing gears together like one big symphony— everything influencing and structuring everything else. And, he said, it's as though our lives were the dream of a single dreamer in which all the dream characters are dreaming too-and so everything links to everything else moved out of the will in nature. It's a beautiful idea.

— Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

12.8.25

No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are unnatural.

–Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

12.1.25

Thought

There is no need to put anything in front of us and run after it. We already have everything we are looking for, everything we want to become. … Just being in the moment in this place is the deepest practice of meditation. … Try practicing aimlessness for just five minutes, and you will see how happy you are during those five minutes.

– Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness

Quote

Leonardo Da Vinci on simplicity: 

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

Intention of the Day 

My intention is to balance productivity with moments of rest today.

What’s your intention today? 

11.24.25

Thought

But the worst enemy you can meet will always be yourself; you lie in wait for yourself in caverns and forests. Lonely one, you are going the way to yourself! And your way goes past yourself, and past your seven devils! You will be a heretic to yourself and witch and soothsayer and fool and doubter and unholy one and villain. You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame: how could you become new, if you had not first become ashes?

― Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Quote

Alan Watts on presence: 

“Stop measuring days by degree of productivity and start experiencing them by degree of presence.”

Intention of the Day 

My intention today is to see the best in others and support them as they are.

What’s your intention today? 

Happy Monday,

Val

11.17.25

Thought

Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts. Whenever your mind becomes scattered, use your breath as the means to take hold of your mind again.

– Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness

Quote

Leonard Cohen on acceptance:: 

“There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” 

Intention of the Day 

My intention is to remind myself of the abundance I already have.

What’s your intention today? 

Happy Monday,

Val

11.10.25

Thought

Compassion distinguishes human presence from all other presence on the earth. The human mind is one of the most gracious gifts of creation, the place where nature gathers at its most intense and intimate. Paradoxically, the human being also has the greatest possibility for intimacy. Compassion is the ability to vitally imagine what it is like to be an other, the force that makes a bridge from the island of one individuality to the island of the other.

– John O'Donohue, The Presence of Compassion

Quote

Alan Watts on being: 

“Don’t strive for what should be; celebrate what is.”

Intention of the Day 

My intention today is to approach each interaction with warmth and understanding.

What’s your intention today? 

Happy Monday,

Val

11.3.25

Thought

But the adult is not the highest stage of development. The end of the cycle is that of the independent, clear-minded, all-seeing Child. That is the level known as wisdom. When the Tao Te Ching and other wise books say things like, "Return to the beginning; become a child again," that's what they're referring to. Why do the enlightened seem filled with light and happiness, like children? Why do they sometimes even look and talk like children? Because they are. The wise are Children Who Know. Their minds have been emptied of the countless minute somethings of small learning, and filled with the wisdom of the Great Nothing, the Way of the Universe.

–Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh

Quote

Leonardo da Vinci on simplicity: 

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

Intention of the Day 

My intention is to approach today with a sense of wonder and curiosity.

What’s your intention today? 

Happy Monday,

Val