by Dawn | Feb 15, 2013 | gratitude, martial arts, motivation, nature, self-improvement, simplicity
I was looking at a picture of bamboo. I love bamboo. I have spent so many hours painting it. In my sumi-e practice, I have painted a million bamboo plants. In the beginning, I thought this was insane repetition. In Western schools you don’t sit and write the...
by Dawn | Feb 12, 2013 | education reform, food, gratitude, politics, simplicity, social justice, spirituality, Teaching
I was running the other day—disobeying myself since I’m taking a short hiatus from running, but I promised myself “just a quick mile.” Of course it’s never quick or a mile. Somewhere around mile five a song kicked in. Not even sure how it made my...
by Dawn | Feb 11, 2013 | gratitude, simplicity, spirituality, sports, wellness, Yoga
I’m tying myself in knots again. It’s fun. After my yoga retreat, I tried to practice yoga daily, then lost focus–I forgot the moves. So, I started watching yoga videos. I started with Claudia’s video. Claudia gives such good instructions for...
by Dawn | Feb 9, 2013 | gratitude, Rhode Island
I lived in upstate New York through the ice storm of 1993. It reminded me of Narnia–probably, to this day, the most striking thing I have ever seen. It was stunning. Crystal ice encasing trees, bowing their branches in genuflection toward nature, refracting a...
by Dawn | Feb 5, 2013 | education reform, gratitude, nature, simplicity, spirituality, Teaching
It’s 4AM. The middle of the night for some, and I have just been presented with a question about the vastness of the universe for further consideration. These are the moments when dialogue sparks up in the stillness of the night when no five-year old intuitively...
by Dawn | Feb 1, 2013 | gratitude, martial arts, Rhode Island, simplicity, spirituality, Teaching
I am a terrible athlete. I studied martial arts for years–I worked and worked to memorize kata and I did a stint in tournaments. I was bored. You can only break stuff and do choreographed routines for so long. I was bored in martial arts, but also...
