365 Verses
Notes on Living Life
in a Sacred Way
No. 13
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Dear friends
Rituals abound this time of year, as we celebrate the literal return of light to our world after growing darkness. Little daily rituals around the holidays can be useful during this sometimes stressful time!
Merry holidays to you...
Cynthia
Intuitive Coaching and Sound Healing
Extraordinary Coaching Using Extraordinary Means
www.cynthiayoder.com
mail@cynthiayoder.com
Tel. 609-799-6071
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Ritual of Breakfast Eating
Imagine a day without eating. So much of our time is spent finding a meal or preparing a meal, consuming a meal, and cleaning up a meal. Imagine how much time your grandmother would have spent preparing food. Or imagine early ancestors, who had to build a fire first....
Nourishment in our fast-paced world may seem like just a practical, mundane task. But feeding the body is also feeding the soul.
Let's start with breakfast. A mindfulness practice is to consider the food you are eating and all of the hands involved in getting that food to your table (including your own). The farmer who grew the grain (or whatever you are consuming), the one who harvested it, the one who packaged it, the one who took it to the store. So much is mechanized, yet there are still hands to run the machines, still the person driving the truck, still the person behind the check-out counter...
Take  deep breaths before you eat --deep breaths that expand your belly. In those breaths, you slow down your heart rate, and you ease your digestive track. You prepare your body to receive nourishment--and you also give your mind and soul a nourishing pause.
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Rituals of Winter
Bringing wood in to burn in the fireplace, toasting marshmallows, curling up on the sofa and listening to Bing Crosby sing Christmas songs...
These are tiny rituals that slow down my life, nurture the quality of stillness, and help expand time during a month when it usually feels crunched.
What are your rituals?
I have been wanting more rituals. I have added, recently, sitting on my sofa and eating a bowl of cereal in the morning while watching the trees and light and bits of sky through the living room windows.
The holidays bring their own rituals, but every-day rituals bring that quality of attention and care into every-day life. They can help remind us of the holiness that surrounds in each given moment and is not just reserved for "holy-days".
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"To
live content with small means, to seek elegance rather than luxury, and
refinement rather than fashion, to be worthy, not respectable, and
wealthy, not rich, to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act
frankly, to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open
heart, to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry
never, in a word to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow
up through the common, this is to be my symphony."
William Henry Channing
Thank you for participating in "365 Verses". I welcome your comments and suggestions, and feel free to pass this along to friends. Some of these notes will also posted on my blog, www.magicdreamhouse.com
Copywrite: All text and most photos on these pages are the property of Cynthia Yoder, copywrite 2008. Some stock photography is used by permission. Nothing may be duplicated electronically or in print without permission from Cynthia Yoder. Exception: forwarding of this email in its entirety to others with the inclusion of this notice is welcome!
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