Posts Tagged ‘Affirmation’
What Is Your Theme Song?
Tuesday, September 21st, 2010
Once I get hooked on a song, I play it until I can’t hear it anymore. It becomes my theme song and I never know how long it will last. My latest theme song is Glitter by Pink. I play this song on my iPod every day while riding the subway and hit the repeat button so it just keeps looping back to that song.
There is something about hearing the lyrics:
Have you ever thrown a fistful of glitter in the air?
Have you ever looked fear in the face and said I just don’t care?
It’s only half past the point of no return
The tip of the iceberg, the sun before the burn
The thunder before the lightening, the breath before the phrase
Have you ever felt this way?
What’s your theme song these days?
Mary Anne
How Are You Spending Your Time Today?
Monday, September 20th, 2010
Every so often I pick up Robert Grudin’s book, Time and the Art of Living, and read a passage that becomes my focus for the week (or longer). When I flipped open the book, here is the paragraph I opened to:
“When building a nest of time, be certain of its dimensions. Its duration should not depend on something unpredictable — a homecoming, a phone call, or your own whim — for then its outer fringes, beginning and/or end, will be weakened by uncertainty. It should be long enough for the activity it includes, not so short as to be rushed or so long as to be oppressive. If possible it should look out, like a room in a country house, toward some pleasant prospect of future time — a meal, a meeting, a rest. Protect these periods also from within. A telephone or television set or radio, for example, can ruin time as thoroughly as a hole in the roof or a missing door can ruin interior space. A confused schedule, conflicting obligations or habitual distraction all crack the walls of time, leaving us defenseless against an infringing environment.”
How will you spend today?
Mary Anne
Popcorn Ceremony
Thursday, February 18th, 2010
While visiting a youth program in the Bronx last month, a young boy looked up at me and asked, “Do you want to join our popcorn ceremony?” I told him I would love to join his popcorn ceremony and asked him to tell me more about it. “Well, it’s very special”, he told me. “First, you have to have all the ingredients, put them on the table, pour the special corn in the popper, wait a few moments because at first it seems as though nothing happens because the popcorn is so quiet. Then, it gets very loud and the corn pops like crazy. Look, we can even dance while it’s popping.” A few boys start swinging and swaying as the popcorn maker shakes on the table. After a few sporadic pops, the boy opens the lid and ever so gently pours the popcorn into a striped glass bowl. He then whispers thank you to the popcorn, takes a handful, and passes it around to the other boys in the group. Each boy is careful to only put what fits in their hands to eat and they keep passing the bowl around. We pass the bowl around at least ten times.
I have been to wedding ceremonies, prayer ceremonies, fire ceremonies, and even tea ceremonies, but this was my first ever popcorn ceremony! Given the right attention, openness, reverence, could more of what I experience be ceremony? If young boys can pay attention to their popcorn and create a ritual out of that, could I be more mindful of the rituals I create in my life?
After finishing the popcorn, the young boy looked at me and asked, “Did you like our popcorn ceremony?” I told him it was one of the most fun and sacred ceremonies I have ever been to in my life. They asked me to define sacred – and it was with ease that I told them it was the purposeful act of paying attention to their popcorn and each other. “It is the respect you gave to making popcorn as well as helping each other and sharing it.”
“We have popcorn ceremony every day. Will you come back?” Yes, I will.
Let’s share more ceremony,
Mary Anne