The first foundation of mindfulness is contemplation of the body (kayanupassana). When you learn to listen to your bodies and stay with sensations, you can become more grounded and less reactive. Contemplation of the body helps you make friends with your body, and accept the fact that this body is not "your" body, but rather just a temporary form. A large body of scientific research suggests that simply paying attention to your body helps ward off disease, improves cognitive and emotional functioning, and much more. However, simply staying present with the sensations in your body is as simple as it is challenging.
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Mantra and Movement
Chanting mantras can help us bypass the mundane matters and mental chatter of daily life. I am offering a new weekly class called "Mantra and Movement" that combines the yoga of sound (nāda yoga) with the yoga of movement (asana) to support your physical health and spiritual development. You can choose to sing or listen to the sacred sounds, join in the movement or just sit. No prior musical or yoga experience is required for this class, and people from all belief systems are welcome.
New Classes at Minnetonka Community Education
After taking a long period to work on my own practice, I will be offering some new classes at Minnetonka Community Education in the coming months. Gentle Flow Yoga on will take place on Mondays in January and February. Introduction to Mindfulness Meditation will be on Saturday, January 22
Meditating with Music
Most people who try meditation probably think of it as an activity done in silence. They might learn the common meditation technique where they observe sounds that happen to arise and notice the temporary nature of those sounds, but they probably would not expect those sounds to continue throughout their meditation. In other words, sound is understood to be a departure from the "real work" of sitting — or struggling to sit — peacefully in silence. Fortunately, there is more than one way to meditate and there isn't some rule that the only allowable "meditation music" is repetitions of John Cage's 4' 33".
Learn How to Tame Your Wild Mind with Mindfulness Meditation
Curious about mindfulness meditation? Perhaps you have heard the hype or seen the long lists of benefits. Maybe you are wondering how mindfulness meditation can be such a powerful tool for becoming more present in daily life or how "just sitting" causes people to develop more compassion for both themselves and others. Or perhaps you would like to develop deeper insight into the nature of your mind and the world around you.
Yoga, Sleep, and a New Bedtime Yoga Routine
The CDC, American Academy of Sleep Medicine, Sleep Research Society, and many other sleep experts agree that adults need seven or more hours of sleep per night. Children need even more sleep. Further, sleep experts advise that a lack of sleep can lead to a wide variety of negative consequences. One "Consensus Statement" from representatives of these organizations warns:
How We Compare: Leaderboards and Related Comparison Metrics in the Drupal Community
This article focuses on three attempts to compare people (and organizations) in the Drupal community: Certified to Rock, DrupalCores, and the Drupal Marketplace page. It explores how these methods were useful, where they might have been lacking, and what we can learn from related academic research into leaderboards.
Grand Reopening on Sunday
This Sunday, September 12, will be the grand reopening of the new Spirit of the Lake studio at 6140 Lake Linden Drive in Shorewood. There will be free outdoor classes and in-studio classes running throughout the day, as well as chair massages, free hourly give-aways, and an opportunity to connect with the Spirit of the Lake yoga community. Sign up online to save your spot as the indoor classes are limited.
Emptier House
The house feels a little bit emptier today because both of my kids are at school for the first time in what feels like a very long time. My wife and I walked them out to the bus stop this morning and when I got back to the house it hit me that today was going to be different. During the past 18 months of this COVID-19 pandemic, our kids were usually home, but today it was just me and my wife. And our two dogs. So the house isn't empty — it just feels emptier.
Contribution Recognition and the Drupal Project
In this article, co-authored with Tim Lehnen, CTO of the Drupal Association, we will describe how Drupal's issue credit system works and why we would like to bring it to GitLab and other code collaboration platforms. We hope that other free/libre and open-source projects and organizations that want to understand their return on investment in open source can model their approach on this issue credit system and benefit from the insights we have learned in the Drupal community.