Each Moment you are alive is a moment that you can live fully, a moment not to be missed.
- Jon Kabat Zinn
The meditations below are my gift to you.
Welcome to this moment.
I have practiced and studied mindfulness since my early twenties when I experienced my first meditation retreat at the magical Findhorn Foundation in Scotland. It was transformative to sit in silence and engage in the world in a deeply mindful way. This formalized practice gave me language for a way I had been living since the moment I was born: celebrating the precious experience of being Alive! It also set a strong foundation for learning to ride the waves of life and difficulties. I appreciate how mindfulness holds me through fear, anxiety and grief. The practice keeps bringing me back home to the gift of the present moment and awareness of impermanence. Guiding meditation practices is a passion of mine, and I have been holding circles both in person and virtually, as well as delivering mindfulness education for over 10 years. I am trained in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction through the Mindfulness teacher training program at University of San Diego. I am proud to have worked with BC Association for Living Mindfully and presented at the BC Mindfulness summit (2020, 2021, 2022). I also taught meditation for over 7 years at InspireHealth Supportive Cancer Care, and for Young Adults Cancer Canada. There are many approaches to mindfulness. I believe with creativity and curiousity everyone can touch into the present moment in a way that will feel safe, authentic and alive for them. Meditation Recordings
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Body Scan Meditation
A Body scan Meditation is a great way to start your meditation practice. An opportunity to sink in and truly listen to your body from a curious, compassionate and non-judgmental stance.
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Gratitude Body Scan Meditation
This 13 minute practice is designed to help you sink into deeper appreciation for your perfectly imperfect body. Through this practice you may start to notice there are ways we can express thanks to our bodies exactly as they are.
Collected Poetry
VI. Gratitude
by Richard Wagamese from his 2016 book: Embers, p. 140
I’m learning that happiness is an emotion
That’s a result of circumstances. Joy, though, is
a spiritual engagement with the world based on
Gratitude. It’s not the big things that make me
grateful and bring me joy. It’s more the glory of
the small: a touch, a smile, a kind word spoken
or received, that first morning hug, the sound
of friends talking in our home, the quiet that
surrounds prayer, the smell of sacred medicines
burning, sunlight on my face, the sound of birds
and walking mindfully, each footfall planted
humbly on the earth.
Messenger by Mary Oliver
My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.
Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,
which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,
which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.
Essential Gratitude By Andrea Potos
Sometimes it just stuns you
like an arrow flung from some angel’s wing.
Sometimes it hastily scribbles
a list in the air: black coffee,
thick new books,
your pillow’s cool underside,
the quirky family you married into.
It is content with so little really;
even the ink of your pen along
the watery lines of your dimestore notebook
could be a swiftly moving prayer.
This is what I have to say to you… by Danna Faulds
This is what I have to say to you . . .
Live as if the earth exhales blessings in your direction,
As if trees speak their deepest secrets
in your ear,
As if bird songs can lift you outside your
ordinary state of mind and bring you into truth.
Be the creative juice flowing through the universe.
Be compassion in action and wholeness in motion.
Be silence and stillness, the ocean of love so
palpable that not one cell of you disputes the truth
that you are love.
Be so open to your destiny that it
unfurls like a banner in the sky, a sign saying,
“Live with gratitude, generosity, and grace.”
