Eucalyptus Grove

Lose your mind and come to your senses.

Friiz Pearls¹

There's a eucalyptus grove on the UC Berkeley campus. Every semester I take my students there on a march across the campus. It's a march, it's a dialogue. Like the walking philosophers in ancient Athens. Best to visit that Eucalyptus grove in the late afternoon. While we dialogue on truth and justice and the environment, the sun slowly sets down. The day's natural cycle now apparent - light streaming through the trees. How can students "know" the earth if they are always encased in technology's air conditioned classrooms with florescent lights. Just think – to study the environment in a classroom is shear abstraction. Get out of the classroom! Walk outside like the ancients and the aborigines. Feel the earth below, the sky above, and the body breathing and moving. Feel the life all around and within.

1GESTALT THERAPY © Dr. Ian R. Ridgway PhD http://www.myauz.com/ianr/articles/lect12fritz&%20lauraperls07.pdf

Realizing Silence

Begin with the thought of “silence”.
Hold that thought in mind for a while;
perhaps repeating the word “silence"
or a holding a picture of silence.
Allow mind to drop into actual silence -
not the symbol but the living reality of silence:
the silent mind.

Move around with silent mind.
Come back to it (silent mind),
again and again as the day flows on.

A day lived in silence is a good day.
A day of peace and love.