The smell of cotton candy brings to mind amusement parks and the thrill of being a child. The smell of wet, fallen leaves brings the sad memory of summer’s end and the happy one for some of us of school’s beginning. For most of us, our sense of smell is rather strong and peculiar to [...]
Letting Go 3:4 …continued from Letting Go Whether we live in a bustling metropolis, a crowded suburb, or a sleepy rural area, most of us are always and utterly busy with things to do, places to go, people to see. And there’s never enough time to do it all. Feed the kids, walk the [...]
Letting Go 3:3 …continued from Learn to Listen, Listen to Learn Letting go is probably the most difficult concept to grasp and the most challenging action to perform on the Quiet Corner path. Yet without this in our repertoire, all else is for naught. I continue to learn valuable lessons about myself and my world [...]
Faith Even if you take all the suggestions in my books and this blog, you are bound to come up against a wall now and then. You may sometimes wonder exactly what you are doing, as nothing seems to be happening. And at times throughout this quiet-corner process (there’s that term again!), you may question [...]
Seeing the Big Picture 2:7 …continued from God is in the Details As we progress through our lives and construct layer upon layer of protection, our true self may get buried and lost to us, if only partially. No wonder we have trouble getting to it—we’ve crushed it beneath the defenses we learn that help [...]
If You Think You Already Spend Too Much Time Alone There’s a thin line between solitude and isolation, between solitude and loneliness. The quality of the time spent alone separates the one from the other. We are social animals. We need the company of other people. Too much time spent unconnected can be unhealthy, especially [...]
As you search for your quiet corner, your world will begin to expand and you’ll notice things that have been around all along. The empty lot on the corner teeming with wildflowers or the morning church bells may enter your consciousness for the first time. River Sunset What is your most receptive sense? [...]
Situating Yourself: Busy Mind ...continued from Becoming Aware 1:1 - What is Our Purpose? Throughout this process we will be studying our mind. We will see how it controls us and learn to what extent we have control over it. Being human, most of us have very active minds. Generally, we just accept this as [...]
How many of us know how to really listen? Do we know how to listen to our own mind as it careens out of control and races off on some tangent or other, into the past or the future? Or to others—our coworkers, loved ones, or strangers—as they attempt to communicate something to us? To [...]
I’ve always been drawn to the simplicity, elegance and beauty of Asian ink painting. There is a calmness and serenity that seems to radiate from the delicate nature of each work of art. Earlier this year, with absolutely no training, and just for fun, I began to play with a brush and some sumi-e ink. [...]
