Happy weekend...

Happy Friday! It has been a wonderful, insightful week of learning and doing. I'm looking forward to a few free days and a trip to my favorite place in the world. Wishing you a breezy summer weekend too. Here are a few things that caught my eye this week:

• Having an OnBeing podcast binge.  A few recommended posts include conversations with yogi and activist Seane Corn, hilarious Jesuit priest James Martin, and chef Dan Barber.
• Loving on my new konjac sponge, which has been really keeping my summer skin clean and my pores nice and tight. 
• Being fascinated by more research into gut bacteria and its impact on mood with this NY Times article "Can the Bacteria in Your Gut Explain your Mood?" Also running to the fridge to continue my daily sauerkraut habit (I move between a local MA brand and these mixes by Wild Brine). 
• And finally, a lovely poem by Mary Oliver to take us into the weekend:

"Every Day
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It is what I was born for—
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world—
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant—
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these—
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean's shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?"

Weekly Words: "A Sanctuary for Our Souls"

"It took me a long time and a good deal of sweat to understand it — just how much our Earth is a sanctuary for our souls...

...As the gardener creates, so does the garden transform the inner life of its creator. The garden’s cycle mirrors our own growth, complete with floods, heat, drought, infestation; dying, resurrecting, blossoming, blooming, maturing, rotting; bounty, beauty, miracles.

In our deeper psyche we tend to our life’s garden of sorrows and joys. We pull out, cut back, dig up, bury, sow, support, and nourish hoping one day to harvest our life’s experiences into wisdom. Without all this soul/gardening work, our spirits are swamped under the weeds, our creative gifts choked, our true selves unable to flourish."

- Catherine Ann Lombard, "A Communion with the Earth: Gardening and Gratitude"

Weekly Words: "Capable of Becoming"

"I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element.  It is my personal approach that creates the climate.  It is my daily mood that makes the weather.  I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous.  I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration.  I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.  In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person humanized or de-humanized.  If we treat people as they are, we make them worse.  If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming."

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Mediterranean Chickpea Salad

Long gone are the roasted vegetable and grain-filled power bowls of winter. Lately, we've been filling our plates with chopped salads jam-packed with cold diced raw vegetables, some sort of protein, a melange of fresh herbs and spices and a citrus or fruit-spiked creamy dressing to pull it all together. The finished dish is popped in the fridge until chilled, and what results is a light, airy and refreshing meal that hits the spot when you can't bother being weighed down by heavy meals in the summer.

This Mediterranean chickpea salad is spot on.  In fact, there was a time in my life that I could consume a dish just like this weekly. During one particular stint, in which I found myself taking a helicopter to work in a small New England city, former colleagues fell victim to my bi-weekly visits to one Mediterranean restaurant for my fix of chickpeas, good olives and the divine matrimony of tahini and lemon that just makes these dishes so right. If you don't already have these classic flavors together in your repertoire, then this recipe is dedicated to you.

Chickpeas, like all legumes, are a great source of fiber and vegetarian protein. In this salad, they're paired with heaps of parsley, which is one of the greatest detoxifying and vitamin-filled herbs out there. You could also add in mint or cilantro to your liking, because when it comes to herbs, I truly believe that the more the merrier. I've also chopped in tomato, cucumber, pitted kalamata olives and green onions, which makes this dish nearly like a grain-less tabbouleh of sorts. It's then topped with dressing that marries that wonderful tahini and lemon combination with cumin, smoky paprika and Pink Himalayan salt. I recommend pairing with chopped kale or a flatbread to make it a meal. And, if you include a nicely bodied glass of red wine, I think you might just have the perfect early summer evening meal. 

Mediterranean Chickpea Salad

2 cups of cooked chickpeas

1 ripe tomato

1/4 cup kalamata olives, chopped

1 small red onion, diced finely

1 cup flat-leaf parsley, chopped

1/2 cucumber, quartered and chopped

For dressing:

1/4 cup olive oil

1 tablespoon tahini

2 tablespoons lemon juice (I'm a big lemon fan, so adjust this to taste)

1 1/2 teaspoons cumin

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/4 teaspoon Pink Himalayan salt

Combine all salad ingredients in a bowl and toss. In a blender or food processor, blend together olive oil, tahini, lemon, salt, cumin, and paprika until smooth. Pour dressing over salad and mix until completely covered.

Happy weekend...

Happy Friday! It has been a wonderful and busy week. I'm really excited about this weekend, as I'll be spending it in the next intensive weekend for my coaching certification. 

• Listening to an awesome podcast on meditation, ritual, and celebrating and practicing gratitude from Rich Roll, featuring tea and Zen master Wude. Thanks to the lovely M. for sharing this! 
• Reading the insightful book WomanCode, which is a great guide for helping women understand just how their bodies work...and how to navigate and manage hormonal changes, cycles, and health.  
• And finally, a gorgeous quote from a post by Sharon Salzberg on "The Challenges of Seeing Meditation Only Through a Scientific Lens" where she explores the effects of meditation on the mind, but also on our souls:

"We need to remember to look at our lives for signs — to consider how we are with our partners, our children, our colleagues at work, or even with strangers. Even more importantly, we need to look at how we speak to ourselves when we have made a mistake: do we blame ourselves, or recognize our capacity for resilience, our ongoing ability to begin again."

Finding Time for Peace

Our days, by nature, are busy. Many of us spend our weeks, months, and years moving and grooving at work, with our families, at events, or in transit. The joys of juggling can be a blessing, akin to the adage that too much business is better than having no business at all. But amidst such movement, it becomes very easy to forget the most basic of tasks on our to-do lists, let alone remember to just breathe.

Recently, something that I've continued to work on in my own life is making the time and space for these moments of peace - a stretch of time where I can hit the pause button and bring myself to the present - clearing my mind, and relishing in a few good mindful breaths before pressing play again on the day. Through experience, I've learned about the power in having a little pause in thinking (aka planning, pondering, worrying, or listening to my own inner critic tell me her opinion) and how it has really helped me use my brain more effectively when I need to again. I'm more mindful about how I create plans and work towards goals. I also sleep better, worry less, and breath a bit easier. 

While in theory, making this space to move into the "now" is technically a meditation, the time and place might not resemble what many might view as the stereotypical act. And within that lies the beauty of it all. 

Building a routine meditation is a personal and individual act. For some, meditation may appear to take place in the classic Zen sitting style - seated lotus position, rear lifted and eyes at a soft gaze for a length of time. But for many people, incorporating that type of practice into their lives is neither practical nor desirable, and may not even be the best way to connect with the present at all. If this is something that has deterred you from exploring meditation, I'd invite you to consider that the many ways to incorporate these spaces of peace and mindfulness into your life, and even begin to schedule it into your day. 

Over the past year, through a joyful, challenging, and at times, really freaking frustrating, play with meditation, mantras, and mudras, I've learned about the many methods of making space within my mind. I've shared this with friends, praising the wonders of deep belly breathing and quiet serenity I've discovered during some seriously stressful times. With practice, I've learned what works best for me (a series of deep belly breaths, a simple body scan, and a mantra or two) and how to expand or shorten my practice given the availability of time. I've learned to be gentle on myself as I work to explore meditation, and to remind myself that time and space is a gift that can be found anywhere and anytime. 

The good news is, however you choose to incorporate meditative moments, the benefits remain. Read more about the different types of meditation via The Chopra Center, the Institute for Noetic Sciences, and Gaiam. For more on the benefits of meditation, check out Emma Seppälä's "20 Scientific Reasons to Start Meditating Today."

Weekly Words: "Moving Your Emotions in a Positive Direction"

"Positive emotion can be about the past, the present, or the future. The positive emotions about the future include optimism, hope, faith, and trust. Those about the present include joy, ecstasy, calm, zest, ebullience, pleasure, and (most importantly) flow; these emotions are what most people usually mean when they casually-but much too narrowly-talk about "happiness." The positive emotions about the past include satisfaction, contentment, fulfillment, pride, and serenity.

It is crucial to understand that these three senses of emotion are different and are not necessarily tightly linked. While it is desirable to be happy in all three senses, this does not always happen. It is possible to be proud and satisfied about the past, for example, but to be sour in the present and pessimistic about the future. Similarly, it is possible to have many pleasures in the present, but be bitter about the past and hopeless about the future. By learning about each of the three different kinds of happiness, you can move your emotions in a positive direction by changing how you feel about your past, how you think about the future, and how you experience the present."

- Martin E. P. Seligman

Happy weekend...

Happy June weekend! It has been a wonderful, fruitful week, and I'm looking forward to loving up my entire extended family this weekend. I hope you have a gorgeous few days as well. Here are a few things that I've been loving lately:

• Throwing back to the nineties amidst a recent Toad the Wet Sprocket kick.
• Loving Outside magazine's article "Man vs. Food" because even though it's a few years old, it still resonates. And because our diet looks eerily similar to that of the author.
• Continuing to meditate on the welcomed new quiet peace in my life with this appropriately timed piece from Pico Iyer on "The Art of Stillness." 
• And finally, a sexy poem from Billy Collins that somehow has always wrapped together many deep vibes and memories I hold from Cape Cod and Newport summers gone by:

"You are not the Mona Lisa
with that relentless look.
Or Venus borne over the froth
of waves on a pink half shell.
Or an odalisque by Delacroix,
veils lapping at your nakedness.
You are more like the sunlight
of Edward Hopper,
especially when it slants
against the eastern side
of a white clipboard house
in the early hours of morning,
with no figure standing
at a window in a violet bathrobe,
just the sunlight,
the columns of the front porch
and the long shadows
they throw down
upon the dark green lawn, baby."