A “japa mala” is usually composed of 108 beads. It is a lot like a rosary and it is used to facilitate the repetition of the Divine name. It helps focus the mind during meditation and it helps return to center throughout the day. 108 is a sacred number in the yogic tradition. Today I celebrate 108 days without taking alcohol or pot, today is my sober mala.
Read MoreMarch 20 is a special day. It marks the halfway point in our 40-day effort to meditate daily. It is also the Spring Equinox. It is one of two days of the year in which day and night are in perfect balance, they are equal in length. It is also the time of the year after which our days start to get longer. Our ancestors paid a lot of attention to these celestial events. Let’s honor them. Let’s observe the Spring Equinox together.
Join me and our community in meditation this Sunday, March 20 at 7PM East/4PM West. It will be a 30 minute call.
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I spent "Super Tuesday" facilitating the third "Solidarity Summit," a series of convenings bringing together American - Arabs, Asians, South Asians, Latinos, Black folks and Muslims of a diversity of backgrounds. These leaders are organizers and activists, policy advocates and social media personalities, part of new and emergent movements as well as representatives from legacy organizations. To me they are already legendary. They are the people who give shape to history.
Be careful of the "grown ups." Seriously. They think they have figured it out. Be careful of anyone who claims to have figured it out.
Now think about it, when have you changed?
How have you changed?
What made you change?
It was either trauma or epiphany. It was either a broken heart or a flood of love and light. Our hearts change, then we change. We become more open or we become more afraid. And that's how we move ahead. We are either hopeful or hobbled by mistrust.
Read MoreThis is my life. And today I get to celebrate it. I get to celebrate the treasure that is my family and I get to celebrate the blessing of living a life of purpose. This will be my 41st journey around the sun. Turning 40 came with a significant transition, a different way of being in the world. I am enjoying every bit of this decade. I feel like my feet touch the ground. I feel like I have something to stand on and I have something to build. It is nothing short of excilarating.
Read MoreI’ve been a meditator for about 12 years. I have experienced ebbs and flows in my practice and I have meditated every day of 2016. On February 29 I will be concluding a 60 day meditation “challenge.” A commitment to meditate at least 20 minutes per day every day for 60 days. I don’t want stop. And I want to invite you to join me.
Read MoreI became a minority at the age of 12. It wasn’t a good experience. The Autobiography of Malcolm X became a formative text. Identity is how I came into politics. I often refer to the process as a first liberation. It gave language to my experience. Nothing was wrong with me or my people. We were all victims of a system of oppression - the problem was structural, not individual.
Read MoreFeedback loops are at the very heart of our capacity to self-organize. They are what allow us to work together organically. We have to get them right. Feedback is what allows us to adjust behavior, to shift our approach, to adapt in ways that make self-organization possible. But feedback can get really hard for highly sensitive, emotional, social animals like ourselves.
Read MoreOne post on feedback led to another and now I find myself writing a third one. This piece by Tara Sophia Mohr showed up on my feed and it got me thinking about how hard it is to get feedback. It can be crippling. Few of us had perfect parents, and critical feedback can often send us back to our worst childhood wounds. One of Tara’s insights is that “the criticism that we most fear receiving and that we find the most wounding is criticism that matches up with what we believe about ourselves.”
Read MoreOn my recent post on “timely feedback” I made reference to “feedback loops.” I said that feedback loops are at the very heart of our capacity to self-organize. Self-organizing is the ecological antidote to our industrialized approach to planning. Of course it is important to plan! The problem is that we plan with an industrial mindset. The industrial mindset depends on high levels of predictability. But our increasingly complex world is highly unpredictable.
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