t scott-miller

on spiritual accounting, resistance + boundaries

I usually tune out during commercials, but when I heard Iyanla drop this gem in a teaser for her new season of Fix My Life, I woke the hell up!

I know what resistance looks, sounds, and feels like (thank the goddess I’ve learned to own mine). And, as an empath, I’ve been admittedly agitated by recent encounters with folks harboring energies of delusion, denial, dissatisfaction and the inability to practice accountability about things that are within their sphere of influence. all of these qualities are manifestations of our resistance to spiritual growth.

If we are truly willing to do the work, then we can develop, expand and strengthen our capacity to change our perceptions — even though we may not have the power to (immediately) change our conditions or circumstances.

Spiritual accounting calls for an honest and loving look inward to:

discern the unresolved areas that are causing disparities between our thoughts, words, and deeds.
see our habit energies and patterns of behavior that keep us stuck in grooves that cause suffering.
tend to our wounds and move toward wholeness and healing.

I’m blessed with a circle of beloveds who hold each other down, lift each other up, and trust each other to lovingly say, “Hey, sis, your shadow is showing!“

What we won’t do is co-sign one another’s craziness!

It’s okay to not be ready, to have doubts ans fears. Where I’ve learned to draw firm boundaries is with those who wear the armor of unwillingness and who are committed to their stuckness. With them, I call on the tough-love wisdom I grew up hearing: “I can’t want [your wellness/healing/wholeness] more for you than you want it for yourself.”

Uninitiated healers often spend way too much time trying to minister to wounds that aren’t theirs to heal and guide those who aren’t theirs to teach. On this, I speak from hard-won experience.

So I’ll conserve my energy, guard my intuitive spirit, filter out the lesson from the agitation, and step waaay the hell back before the connection becomes toxic.

radical bodhicitta | justice is my love language

When I took the test for the 5 love languages years ago, it came as no surprise that my primary love language is acts of service (followed by quality time).

Last Wednesday, I was invited to give a dharma talk on social justice at my root sangha and opened with Dr. Cornel West’s oft-quoted observation that:

“to be human, you must bear witness to justice.
justice is what love looks like in public —
to be human is to love and be loved.”

It is a powerful reminder that love and justice are seeded in the heart.

As often as I have revisited this quote, it was only in that moment — in the quiet, sacred space of the Temple and in the presence of fellow dharma practitioners who offered their full awareness and open hearts to bear witness to my insights about the dharma and its threads to justice — that I realized that I feel most embraced, understood, and cared for by those who speak to me from a heart centered in justice, liberation, and healing.

I receive and express love in the form of justice, liberation, and transformative healing. This is how I embody the call to serve and how I put my faith into action: by turning toward and lifting up that which helps us to reclaim and prioritize our joy, wellness, and wholeness over and above the madness of hate, violence, and oppression.

radical bodhicitta is the new digital home for my expanding work in healing justice.

dirt + dharma | healing through transformation

a tree in transformation.

some may see it as a premature sign of fall and lament the coming season of harvest.

but this here is actually a sign of distress and, most importantly, of its inherent capacity for self-preservation by inducing its transformation in order to heal! its profound cellular wisdom illuminates the beauty in the process of surrendering to rebirth.

a lesson for those of us who seek, cultivate and advocate/facilitate transformative healing:

the healing of wounds happens in stages and at a pace that is determined by the quality of our attention and care as well as the conditions we create to optimize our healing.

it begins with developing the capacity to discern the source of our suffering and committing to the heartwork of lovingly tending to our wounds. and, because some scars never go away, recognizing that our healing continues beyond the restoration of wound to new tissue.

rather, we invite a complete transformation that — like the tree ridding itself of invasive pests that are feeding off it — involves shedding, releasing, eliminating, purging and, ultimately, being renewed. in body, heart, mind and spirit.

healing through transformation is a willingness to be changed by the process of healing!

“Many biologists believe that an early color change is an attempt of a tree to rid itself of insect pests, especially those that feed on the juices in the cells. These insects have evolved with these trees and shrubs, and understand that when the chemical process behind the leaves changing color begins, their meal ticket ends. Rather than feeding on other leaves, many will move on in search of a better food source…

In essence, leaves changing color too early is a defensive mechanism that allows the stressed out shrub or tree to eliminate at least one source of trouble.” ~ Kristi Waterworth

[from Gardening Know How: Early Color Change Of Foliage: What To Do For Tree Leaves Turning Early]

dirt + dharma

the strength of fingers, the might of earth.

gratified by the labor of tending + clearing the path.

where sweat meets dust, we see the body + soul at work.

the day’s lesson: let that shit go!

found/left behind: scattered rose petals. a mason jar with a forgotten sip. a book on philosophy…

“The logic of the rebel is to want to serve justice so as not to add to the injustice of the human condition, to insist on plain language so as not to increase the universal falsehood, and to wager, in spite of human misery, for happiness.” ~ Albert Camus, The Rebel

more gems from our sunday: zen mom life

woman horizontal | ich bin mary

Today I honor the memory of my great-great grandmother, Mary Roth Rhodes, who was born on this day in 1863 in Würtemberg, Germany, the daughter of Dora + Gottlieb Roth.

▪▪▪

14 years ago, in July 2003, she became a beacon, a catalyst and a guide for me on a pathway of reclamation, transformation and healing. Not only from the trauma of living in Brooklyn through 9/11 and numbing out in the aftermath. But for examining, understanding, compiling, and righting/re-writing a family’s history where men don’t survive and women carry on, in spite of profound loss and because of profound love for those left behind. For seeing clearly generational patterns that created heart aches and breaks, too many what-ifs and if-onlys. For parsing hope, bravery, fortitude and tenderness from this seemingly meager inheritance. For committing to build a new legacy upon her foundation of mother-wisdom.

With help from my sister Tamara, who followed the leads I’d dug up in NYC libraries and picked up those threads in the National Archives in D.C., we learned of her journey from her native country to NYC, with a friend, at the age of 17 and eventually on to Hamilton, Ontario where she would marry my great-great grandfather Wesley, a former slave and Civil War veteran.

Because of her, I decided to leave New York after 9 years. My only vision: to begin anew as she had the courage to do, to live simply and to be engaged in community. Because of her, I returned home. Because of her, I eventually decided to stay. (Not necessarily an easy or simple choice after living away from home since the age of 14.) Because of her, I recognized that the true gift and power of researching our past was in the opportunity to rebuild and nurture connections bolstered by this new understanding of all the stuff we were made of — in blood and spirit.

25 july 2017

how we sunday

friends on the path: weeding and tending the labyrinth. walking in awareness, aligning with intention, praying with our feet, moving into clarity and wisdom. nourishing ourselves and one another with laughter and good eats.

woman horizontal | selfing

practicing through transitions

On Sunday, Sangha came full circle by closing our 7+ months of wholy happy hour in the same way that we opened our practice last fall — exploring the lessons of beginning anew as we shift from one season to the next.

Whether we experience this transition as tumultuous, glorious, or equal parts of both, we recognized that our changing selves require some fresh contents in our “medicine bags” to support who we are becoming on this stretch of the path.

So I returned to the query I put forth during our spring series on justice, liberation + healing and encouraged us to discern “What is your prayer, practice or process?” of releasing what no longer serves us and for calling in sacred strategies that honor who we are growing into.

For me, it’s a continuous process of self-reflection in which I root into my practice of the 4 Foundations of Mindfulness to assess what is arising, enduring, changing, releasing in body, heart and mind. One poignant question that popped up in my meditation — what are my unmet needs physically, mentally, spiritually, creatively? — was a reminder of how crucial it is for me to take long walks three to four times a week to brighten and declutter my mind. Along with the benefits of movement, the silence, solitude, and moments of stillness I enjoy when I spread out a blanket to lay out in the sun or read (as in the photo below) help me catch up with myself to discern clear decision-making and sort out the tangle of creative ideas.

In the Satipatthana Sutta (and similarly in the eight limbs of yoga), honoring and tending to the body precedes emotions and mental formations. In these and other spiritual practices and healing modalities, the body is the gateway to illuminating, transforming and reconciling the other aspects of our being (feelings, thoughts, perceptions, beliefs, attitudes). Of course, it’s not a fixed sequence but an interdependent relationship so whatever is most compelling, what shows up first or makes itself known most powerfully, may be the access point for looking deeply at how it is impacting each domain.

So I come back to my body. Once established in the full awareness of sensations, I am able to renew the process of seeing clearly and responding skillfully to what needs tending. Grounded and aligned, I can embody the prayer that this transition and new season are calling in.

“Part of being more authentic means being willing to be seen as we pray and live in a spirit that seeks inspiration though is humanly imperfect…

Remember that prayer is a process that changes the pray-er.”

~ Jennie Isbell + J. Brent Bill, Finding God In The Verbs

allied media conference 2017 | deep listening: an embodied meditation

Learn more about the 19th annual Allied Media Conference: alliedmedia.org/amc

summer 2017 practices

Our summer practice schedule begins June 11th.

| weather permitting |

walking the labyrinth @ moores park:
6/11, 6//25, 7/9, 7/23, 8/13, 8/27, 9/10, 9/24

monthly sit-togethers @ heartdance studio:
6/18, 7/16, 8/20, 9/17

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