A Day in the Life

Happy Autumn, Gentle Readers!

I've been taking time off to complete our move into our new home, to paint doors and trim, to buy couches and rugs ...

No, not a "teacher" at this time. Sometimes a mother, sometimes a wife, sometimes a housekeeper, chef, playmate, decorator, handywoman, hiker, meditator, negotiator.

Which role is there to play, now?

Allow each role to come to you, to find you, moment by moment. No need to be "prepared." Let that role become the deepest expression of yourself; be honest, open to your own invulnerable vulnerability.

Who am I?

No one. Nothing. Just this Space. Who will I be? ... The same.

Who was I? Also, yes, the same.

Energy with no name.

Here is a moment from one Mystical Mama's life, my autumn offering to you, Mystical Friend ...

It was another hectic morning, getting kids off to school, packing lunches, bribing, cajoling kids to brush teeth, get dressed, don shoes, pack up, load into car.

Then, finally at school, a deep sigh, not late today! My Kindergartner and I, holding hands, enter the gated courtyard that leads to her classroom. There is a giant, regal evergreen there and suddenly, the wind howls through, bending its branches, sending fallen leaves on the ground up in skittering swirls. We stop and watch and hear and feel ...

Standing within our own silence.

"Is it Fall?" asks my little one.

"Yes, it is." I say.

"I never saw Fall before!" she says.

There is silence ... silence ... silence.

"Yes, it's very cool, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

And here is your gift from God Herself to you, Most Precious One: this whole world. Your reality, as it is.

Can you see it? Do you see it? Heaven ...

Here.

Now.

You.

The Gifts of Sydney Banks

How will I ever repay the tremendous gift of my own fortunate birth--to a courageous father who would follow a call to go and meet a man on a small and quiet island off the coast of Vancouver Island, Salt Spring?

Indeed the very salt of the earth sprang forth from this place in the form, the presence and the words of Mr. Sydney Banks. A welder with a ninth-grade education, his profound awakening, without a spiritual "path," without religion, without a form of meditation, a self-help technique or psychoanalysis; his "death" to ego, speaks so very much to us all.

Spiritual truth lives within us, it is alive within us. As it was alive in an "ordinary" person by the name of Syd. As it is alive within you!

This week's radio show reflects on both the gift of Sydney Banks that he shared with my father and the world, the "Three Principles" of Mind, Consciousness and Thought ... and the simple fact of his being--with honesty, love, kindness, generosity, humility and at the same time, great power and even ferocity.

And then there is the moment in which we each must "grow up." To turn our attention away from the form of the teacher, the guru, and within, toward our own connection to living, infinite truth. When Mr. Banks died, those of us who were his students, in one form or another, were given the tremendous opportunity to find the truth that he shared inside of ourselves.

How do we meet this challenge? Can we trust that, as Mr. Banks said, "the truth lies within?" Can our lives be a testament to this fact?

I think you know my answer ;) ...

Tune in on Friday and join the discussion at www.cscmediacenter.org. Or listen to the archive at a later date. Your comments most welcome!

With Great Love,

Yours Mystical Mama

Note: the photo was taken on the evening of Syd's memorial service in Victoria, BC.

The End of Your Story

And so, this drama, like all good dramas, has had its rising tensions, its abject miseries and hair-raising terrors, all of it building again and again into great, emotional crescendos!

There has been enormous pleasure ... subsiding into disappointment

Terrible pain resolving into peace

All of it so that a truly happy ending, now, might engender a divine Release

If you have suffered and are done
If you are exhausted
If you have lost, if you have won
If your pleasures have all run dry and if your pain has gone on
And on ...

Now is the time for the End of Your Story

Now is the time for your Happy Ending!

Now you know what does not work, and perhaps you have surrendered by degrees ...

Let it all go, my beautiful Friend!

What a Wild and Loving God birthed this Infinite Realm of Infinite Experience

In which we taste, touch, feel all forms of exquisite and banal suffering,

Until we discover a Light

This One

That has illuminated it all, always and

Which, as well,

Is World Without End

"Graceful Parenting" ... An Oxymoron?

Although not everyone is a fan of this blog's overall title: Mystical Mama, I find it suits me so well, and more and more so. I've thought of changing the name, but nothing brilliant, as an alternative, has occurred to me yet.

Mystical means "having a spiritual meaning or reality" (that's one definition) and Mama, well, a Mama is me. I am a Mama! My life is about kids, kids, kids: feeding them, dressing them, dropping them off, picking them up, arranging for childcare, cooking, cleaning, tidying, tidying, tidying, nagging, berating, playing and loving!

My husband and I have your average, garden variety, long-term (20+ years) relationship. We can be madly in love and ready to divorce, all in the same day. My mother lives with us, too, at this time. There is coming and going, laughter and arguing, irritation and gratitude, often futile attempts to "balance" it all.

It's a "normal" life and yet, the deep mysticism of it is also always there--a deepening of understanding ... understanding the true nature of life, dropping more and more of what's unnecessary in Thought, dropping the choking, restrictive garments of "me" and "mine." Finding, instead Silence, Stillness, Love ... and a great unfolding of Life in ways and avenues un-planned, unexpected, delightful.

Life! The greatest, mystical Mystery of all! (How is that we can barely see It sometimes, so preoccupied are we with our own "successes.")

Thought patterns from the past still sometimes intrude on my "parenting" and I am graced with the ability to see that I have been unfair, unkind, have lacked understanding. Oh, children! Your sweet, innocent souls must put up with so much from us, your crazy parents, with our limited understandings, worries, fears and concerns. And look what we have done with your lovely planet!

For the sake of children, let us begin to know Ourselves beyond the limiting thoughts and beliefs that have plagued every generation up until now. It has been for children that I have stayed the course with my non-profit for more than five years--through thick and thin, death and disaster--for children that I have worked so very hard, and for my own children that I have stopped working altogether from time to time.

Please join me, dear Readers, in the now global movement (with many names, really) to bring peace, clarity and loving intelligence to parents, so that parents can recognize all these in their children, Now.

This Friday, August 5, is my first radio show through the CSC on "Graceful Parenting." Tune in through the Internet at 10 am Pacific time, and call in! Go to this site to listen live, or find the archive a few days later: www.cscmediacenter.org.

Can we take responsibility now for everything? Especially within our absurdly priviliged lives in the West, lives in which food, water, shelter and survival are distant concerns ... Can we end the madness of me, more and mine, mine, mine? (And remember, I am talking about grown-ups, here, in whom such attitudes have real and tremendous impacts.)

Yes, my friends, yes we can. Perhaps the better question is: Will we?

Every day, more children are born and this "gentle rain of children*" serves to remind us of some innocence, some clarity and purity that resides within us all still ... Can we "grow up" along with our children, now?

Join me!

With Love,

Your Mystical Mama

*from Spiritual Parenting: A Guide to Understanding and Nurturing the Heart of Your Child, Hugh and Gayle Prather

Just Stop!

The truth of who you are is utterly simple. It is closer than your thoughts, closer than your heartbeat, closer than your breath.

If you believe your thoughts to be real, if you follow your thoughts as the basis of reality, you will continually overlook what is closer, what has been calling you throughout time, saying,

"You are here! You are home!"

...

This is a time of the ordinary awakening. This means you.

--From The Diamond in Your Pocket, Gangaji




Thought is not reality, yet it is through Thought that our realities are created.

--From The Missing Link, Sydney Banks




Can there be simple awareness of what's going on, without making something of it? ... All seeing matters. Not just seeing feelings, but seeing their total interconnectedness with thought.

... It happens, when there is pure seeing, there is wisdom.

--From The Light of Discovery, Toni Packer

Mirror in the Sky, What is Love?

We drove to Yosemite, strained, bickering--husband and I--and over the dry, surreal 152, a thousand thoughts, like all these dry, twisted, lonely Oaks, dotting the hillside, running, running, running alongside the car.

In Yosemite, we found silent majesty, amazing grace, happy children, cool waters ... it was Almost Independence Day (thank you, Van Morrison.)

Silence.

The mystery of endless stars.

During the ride home, once again, strain and tension. Now husband is in a hurry, I am not--who is deciding directions? Who trusts who to get us home? Who is overly worried? Who is being most obnoxious?

Then, Explosion! ... (from husband)

Explosion! ... (from wife, that's me)

Mind whirls into how to fix this, what we should talk about, what is the underlying issue here, guilt & remorse, whose fault and why?

Then, there was the invitation to Stop! ... Husband not talking to me anyway. Guilt, remorse, second thoughts, disastrous future-thinking ...

Who cares???

Just stop!

And we are back over the 152, and the gnarled, money-green oaks look so much more beautiful than before. It is hot. It is Independence Day. We have been to Heaven and back. We have been to Hell and back.

And it is all O.K.

And the radio played: I took my love and I took it down. I climbed a mountain and turned around ...

Understanding Thought

and Finding Emotional Health and Immunity from Stress

Dear Friends: I wrote this for an on-line newsletter at the request of an organization that asked me to give a talk on "immunity from stress." I thought it might be helpful to re-post it here. I find this kind of strict, self-help-y writing a bit dry, actually. But I think, and hope, the content might be useful for you and yours.

“Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” --William Shakespeare.

For decades, researchers have shown that “stress” impacts physical health. To date, doctors, therapists, and the media have generally defined stress as a traumatic experience: a divorce, or breakup, the death of someone close, a health or financial crisis or other “major” life event most would interpret as negative.

In my work of two decades, however, learning and then teaching people in a range of settings (from young people in juvenile hall and adult inmates to teachers and organizational executives) the role that Thought—as a creative, causal principle—has in creating emotional reality, my conclusion is much different. Life circumstances have impact, of course, but it is the way we think about such circumstances that creates “stress,” or even well-being, in the face of life’s events.

One young woman I know, who was a student of the “3 Principles” I teach, and then became a teacher herself, has lived with advanced multiple sclerosis for several years. She has difficulty walking and climbing stairs, and must be helped eating, because of her tremors. At a retreat she attended with us at Mount Madonna Center, she described her condition as “a gift” that had opened her to new worlds of learning. “I am one of the luckiest people in the world,” she said.

Dr. Peter Ubel, a University of Michigan researcher and author of “You’re Stronger Than You Think,” found that people who had gone through “stressful events” in their lives, had lost both their legs, or undergone complete colonostopies, for example, were actually just as happy as their healthy counterparts with more “normal” lives.

Studies by Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel-prize winning psychologist, showed that what society thinks of as “positive” circumstances, such as wealth and its perceived freedom, or power, has almost no effect on happiness and well-being, after people escape from poverty.

How people think, and what they think: how much gratitude they feel (no matter what their lives look like) and how much they engage in thoughts and feelings of love and generosity are the causal factors for emotional resiliency and well-being.

I experienced a miscarriage during my first pregnancy, after I got married. I was sad for some time, of course. But by understanding the role Thought played in my life, I had no inclination to “carry thinking” about the miscarriage into my future, or to interpret the event as especially negative.

Seeing Thought is a wonderful opportunity for all of us to gain emotional health and immunity from stress, because the truth is that we are not our thoughts. The truth is also that life will continuously throw apparent “problems” our way—death, illness, wayward children, conflict, difficult family members.

We do not even need to resolve our problems to become happy and emotionally strong. Rather, our very perceptions of such “problems” constitutes the mental “soup,” or consciousness, we live in. When we perceive problems as difficult and un-resolvable, for instance, our thoughts create feelings of hopelessness and despair—mental “stress” that ignites a chemical cascade throughout our bodies, and ultimately (and of course!) impacts physical health.

When we create a more objective relationship to Thought, as the great spiritual teachings of the world have taught, we see that peace of mind and well-being exist within us already, at our core, regardless of what we are going through. Indeed, peace of mind helps us navigate life’s obstacles with wisdom, grace and clarity. Or rather, finding peace of mind allows us to appreciate Life, the flow and dance of Life, no matter what we are going through.

With Love,
Your Mystical Mama

P.S. An important note: although our thinking impacts our physicality (of course!), do not let this fact be an added judgment on yourself. We are all human and suffer through many unhappy thoughts and physical states. It is so lovely to get off our own cases! Do you know what I mean? ... Of course you do!

The Final Word

Let us cease
this endless talk
of enlightenment!

It is giving me
a small headache.

Let us pour a lovely cup of tea
instead
and talk about your garden
my Friend
and how it grows!

We will set a place
for God
and maybe,
if we discover enough love and laughter
He will
show up

(unless He
is busy
with more critical
cases
of true woe.)

Pome from Silence

I watched the cloud

Dissolve

as a

Thing ...

Into

No Thing

the Free Sky!

Just like Truth

here

and then gone ...

The Absolute

a moving target

always, always, always

dissolving into

Sky.



What a gorgeous entertainment!

Holy is a Moving Target

Silence is not holy
but it can be
Meditation is not holy
but it can be
Yoga is not holy
but it can be
Taking drugs is not holy
but it can be
Football is not holy
but it can be
Golf is not holy
but it can be
Fishing is not holy
but it can be
Laundry is not holy
but it can be
Astrology is not holy
but it can be
Dancing is not holy
but it can be
Chanting is not holy
but it can be
Sex is not holy
but it can be
Religion is not holy
but it can be

And Everything is Holy!
except when it is not.

Holy is the color of your lucid eyes, my Friend.

And so, I have come
To worship at Your feet.

Anoint me with your Divine and Radiant Vision!

The Sages

The sages
have exhausted
all their metaphors!

Sky, cloud, ocean, wave
Window, wind, desert, plank
Onion, rain, mountain, mustard seed
Music, tree, rose, lily
Lotus, sprout, field (fertile and not)
infant, elder, adolescent
Father, son, ghost
Me, You, Us
Copulation, orgasm, Lover!

We will need to find
a new planet
to keep on talking
of Love!

I fear the sages
must be weary by now

Perhaps it is time to take them seriously,
Take matters into our own hands, my Friend
And find Reality for ourselves

Trust me when I tell you:
You have everything you need
for this noble journey

Yes!

So we can end
all this talking!

Don't Think About Me!

Don't think about me, my Friend!

Then you will only
come to know
your own thoughts

Those dry and brittle bones
picked over by crows
you found somewhere
and kept too long

They make the inside of your head
Too noisy!

Don't think about me,
My Friend.

Come down, instead
to this dancing river
where eternally
I sit.

Join me on this speckled rock
webbed with moss
graced with a
warming sunlight

We will talk,
and listen ...
And when our talking slows
and dissolves into
Listening
And when our listening slows
and disappears into
This Space ...

You will know me!
And I will know you!

Beneath, behind, beyond
the many forms
our Truth takes,
We will discover
True Love

And the world will improve
All by itself.



These pomes were written at the edge of Fallen Leaf Lake, in retreat with Gangaji and many beautiful others. Endless Gratitude to All.

Not By Bread Alone ...

The analogy of money to bread, the stuff of life, the stuff we need (!!!) goes back for millennia. What if we took the analogy a bit further, as truly, we are not quite as crazy over bread as we are over money. (Especially if we are gluten-sensitive.) I have recently found this literal analogy to be helpful, and here are my thoughts and suggestions:

Treat money as you would treat a loaf of bread in your bread drawer ... It is matter of fact, it is neutral. It is nothing to get particularly excited about. It provides a certain amount of sustenance and nourishment.

If your neighbor or someone you met needed a slice of bread, you would give him one. You might even give him more than one. After all, it's only bread. There is plenty of bread in this world!

If you ran out of bread, you would probably not freak out. You would think, well, I'll get my fiber elsewhere for a while, until I get some more bread. I'll run into some bread somewhere. ... Ah, here we go, a nice bag of almonds!

You notice that the world offers many forms of love and support, not just bread.

If you met someone who had piled loads and loads of bread into storage in their house, you'd think: That's a bit weird. Other people could use that bread. Kind of a waste, really.

What if they put a list of people on magazine covers: The Top Ten Bread Hoarders of the World!

What if everyone thought that having more bread made them happier, more powerful, more secure and even sexier?

Of course, you can only eat so much bread in one day, and then storing the bread so that it would not be subject to mold, mildew and other forms of degradation, locking it up so that it would not be stolen, would become complicated. Perhaps even stressful.

Whole industries would arise around protecting and storing bread. People might become desperate in their desires to gather and safeguard bread--they might abandon everything, their families, their pets, their ethics, their peace of mind. They might suck up to nasty bosses who give them bread, they might trample the earth to create giant bread factories.

You get the point.

One of the most beautiful messages in the Bible is this: "Take no thought! ... Not for what you shall wear, nor how you shall be clothed. For your Heavenly Father [Life!] knoweth you have need of these things, and it His good pleasure to give you the Kingdom."

Life is here to support You, Friend!

Money is simply a tool of exchange. Fear of money, or granting great, unwarranted powers to money has made us slaves to that which is external to us. Rather than find that which truly makes us happy--that which abides within--as a society, we run furiously on the futile treadmill of More and Not Enough.

Money. A safety pin. A garden hose. A loaf of bread.

Shakespeare said "Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so." And in truth, nothing means anything, unless thinking makes it so.

Money, or, more properly, our thinking about money, is driving this poor world into the ground. And the only way to release the world from the mad grip of money, is to loosen its grip on us--so that we can show the world, by our own example:

It's not about the money!

God's Breath Has Come ... Have You Lost All Your Leaves?

About a week ago, I felt the first breath of spring on my cheek, on my being. It was physical--the humid warmth, the raw smell of green growth. It was mental--a new focus, and simultaneous expansion of the mind. It was spiritual--a settling into great peace and contentment, along with the stirrings of excitement for new ventures.

Let me tell you, this "winter" was hard! (One must put winter in quotes in California to appease all our Northern friends.) Winters in California are easier, of course (or, perhaps) than winters in North Dakota and similar environs. However, the trees lose their leaves, the rains and cold come ... It is still very much a season of interiors. I become tired of my home, tired with myself and many issues arise, patterns of thought that still have not lost their grip on me.

I told my Step Mother/Second Mother (who also suffered a hard winter, she said) that my saving grace this winter was a passage from a book by Adyashanti that spoke of trees, which lose their leaves, in winter.

Before the leaves come down, great winter winds shake and blow--a powerful cleansing of the Earth. Spiritually, winter, if one allows it fully, can be that cleanse for us, for "human" nature. As when one runs about with a broom and duster in the house, sometimes dust must be kicked up before it can be swept out.

I saw all of these attachments that still cling--leaves shaking, dust swirling--ways I continued to define myself by that which is external to Me. Nothing really to do with these thoughts and feelings, but be the tree--allowing it all, secure in its rootedness to that which is greater and stronger ... In fact, existence itself!

Can one be naked, a winter tree? Can one be nobody and nothing at all? Winter comes to test our defenses, asking that we drop them all ...

And now, the breath of spring has come, God's breath.

Have you lost all your leaves?

Being Spiritual Without Being Spiritual

My new and lovely friend Maureen, from Canada, recently read this blog and she wrote, in response:

Sadly, my own mother passed away last week ... So I've been thinking about motherhood and how my own mother addressed some huge dramas, and hardships, and losses during her life, and dedicated herself to her five (!) children. She had no interest in religion or spirituality and I honestly cannot remember a single "spiritual" thing ever coming out of her mouth ... and yet she was an amazing role model of non-judgment, caring and compassion.

Her true stature as a person is becoming clearer and clearer as time goes on. I wonder if she had had access to the kinds of teachings that we do now, whether she would have embraced a spiritual path. I suspect her rejection of religion was because it didn't sit right with her, and no alternative ever entered her world. She also didn't have the luxury of "seeking," as she was so caught up in survival issues right up until she developed Alzheimer's about eight years ago ...

Dear Maureen,

I don't think much more needs to be said about your Mother. I think your writing about her tells the truth about what it really means to be spiritual. Often, when there is much discussion about spirituality, or immersion in religion, the true meaning of "being spiritual" can become very lost. I have seen this happen many, many times (frankly, it is a massive epidemic in this world); and I have seen this happen in me! Kindness, gentleness, compassion, selflessness, generosity--rather than being "goals," when they are lived because they simply make sense to a person, that seems to me to be spirituality. What a teacher and role model your mother is for us all!

Perhaps she would have found a true path for herself in the kinds of formless spirituality that seem more prevalent in the world today--but perhaps she didn't need to.

Actions do indeed speak louder than words.

Reemerging Sunshine of the Accepting Mind

I recently posted my status on Facebook as taking a "Me" day ... Just before that, my young daughter had been in the hospital on critical status with a chest infection, we had canceled vacation plans, I had just finished moving my non-profit out of the office, and earlier this year, my father had passed away. (The year before, his spiritual teacher and mine, Sydney Banks, passed, and the year before that, my grandmother, Nell.)

Medical bills and paperwork were piling up, and our already small house was filled with boxes from my old, "real" office. Although there was so much to do, I have come to learn that in most adult lives, having "a lot to do" is not a temporary state. There is never a time when all things get done, or are done ... when from a worldly perspective, one has indeed accomplished "enough."

I also understand (and more and more so) that, from a global perspective, my, let's say, "suburban" problems are all good problems to have. Alia's health was jeopardized, but we had nearly instant access to highly trained doctors, x-ray and ultrasound technology, medications of every type ... our own hospital room, even!

Furthermore, our little family is well-fed, housed, intact and we live in a country where--in most cases--one can say what one thinks. Freedom, calories, opportunities, computers, heat, running water. Only gratitude is truly in order, of course.

Nonetheless, anxiety does not come because one asks for it!

And I have learned that when stress or anxiety come knocking, when everything screams to be done, it is time to stop ... and not do a thing. Have you heard the play on the old adage:

Don't just do something. Sit there ...?

I have another one: If it feels urgent, it probably isn't.

I put everything on hold, packed my child's "Hello Kitty" backpack with a tangerine, banana, cashew bar and bottle of water. Plus a notebook.

And then I ran away from home.

I took the train to San Francisco with the sole intention of enjoying myself--and being by myself.

The train ride itself was soothing, although as we pulled out of the California Avenue station, a cold feeling crept over me that once (in my 20's) had been familiar--a feeling of dread, of coming depression. As in: What does it all mean? Nothing!

For days, my mind had been engaged in planning, packing (both the office and our suitcases for vacation), then adrenalin-filled caretaking, hovering ... watching hospital monitors fretfully at 2, 3, and 4 a.m. with daughter's pulse, oxygen and respiration levels too high, too low.

Worry, future thinking, time pressures ... these sorts of thoughts can all result in this "collapsed" feeling.

And I allowed my mind to allow this. Allow the dread, the depression.

By the time we rolled through Belmont, the feeling was gone.

The City itself shone and sparkled in all its grunge, its fine foods and crystalline forward-ness. Market Street welcomed me, indifferent--those out of scale skyscrapers--as if I were an ant to be expected, tolerated, maybe stepped upon, but not maliciously.

The SF Museum of Modern Art was spacious, airy, modern (go figure) ... The rooftop garden sunny and bright, a shelter to couples in love, a mother with her child, a lone young tourist from Britain.

I had moved into the Now, the space of the accepting mind and, how did I put that day? ... I caught up with myself. I became myself, again.

This is the brilliance of the Mind--that its default setting is harmony. When thoughts become quiet, the quiet itself can become very, very deep--its depths both mysterious, unfathomable, and safe.

I got many responses to my Facebook post from Moms and others who felt it was their time for a Me day too! Go for it! I wrote in reply. But it does not need to be on the train, or in the City. It can be the hike, the walk, the yoga class, the park bench in the sunshine.

In my view, the "form" of meditation is not the essence of meditation--true meditation is simply the quieting of thought, surrendering to the Allowing Mind--and actually, this can be done in any moment, anywhere.

Indeed, just yesterday, I was feeling overwhelmed again (Alia's birthday party!) and it was evening--where could I go? To a bar? No, no ...

So, after returning a coffee maker to my aunt's, I went home; and simply accepted both the feeling of overwhelm, and my immediate situation: cleaning up from the party, getting kids ready for school, ready for a busy Monday ... Then I sat down with my husband to watch a nature program on TV.

And peace came again.

What is so beautiful to me--the greatest lesson I have ever learned--is that quiet can be counted on. Perhaps not demanded, but the sun returns when mental storm clouds part ... Mental health and well-being return.

Any catalyst will do ... A cup of tea, a good stretch, an insight, or just resting in the allowing mind. If you know the 3 Principles and Sydney Banks' work, it all makes sense. Thought creates feeling.

"I don't want this" creates the feeling of dis-ease. "I don't know if I want this, but it's obviously happening," and there is curiosity, openness ..."I love this!" and one is filled with both Love and gratitude.

One does not have to change one's thoughts, but the mere resting, the allowing of Thought--without attaching, judging, trying to get rid of ... opens the space for the deeper harmony of the Divine Mind to enter--and the Divine Mind is always grateful, always in tune, always connected.

As the mom of two still-young children, I can testify to the fact that a parents' thought flow, or resting mind, is often interrupted by the needs of children ... And if we cannot become present with our children in the moment, I believe it behooves us as parents to create the space (or simply INTEND the space) for us to find our replenishment in solitude, then. We come back to our families and children with inspiration, with good feelings and as role models for well-being.

As Gangaji has said, "Take a moment to recognize the peace that is already alive within you."

So, yes, Moms, Dads and Non-Breeders ... take a Me day! And if you cannot take a Me Day, take a Me moment. It may be that nothing "special" need happen at all ... for something very special indeed to emerge, from within.