Musings

This new moon with all its Eclipse power has me asking myself what is true- not what I think other people want to hear. Not me taking care of other people’s emotions so that they are happy regardless of how I feel. What is true for me?

Moment… Saturday, March 2, 2024, 8:03pm: There are so many things I like about this particular moment. The fragrance of curry and sandalwood. The soft Indian flute playing over the restaurant speakers. The warm lentil soup I am sipping as I watch the cars pass by outside on the wet North Berkeley streets...

Do you ever run into those people who just seem unflappable? Like, someone could be yelling in their face, and this person is not only responding calmly and with kindness, but also has the presence of mind to understand where the angry person might be coming from, and know that the angry person’s anger isn’t their fault or responsibility. I think a lot of the time, we accuse the calm people in this scenario of not standing up for themselves, but what if there’s more to it than that? What if we could move through stressful interactions with other humans, grounded in the fact that whatever the other person is going through, that their reactions and emotions are “not our cat,” and consequently are able to keep our cool in the face of another’s madness? What if, in those moments of conflict, we could remember that the only thing we can control is our own reactions, responses, actions and words?

Happy New Year! Welcome! In this blog, you will find musings, inspirations, ideas, and thoughts. The intention of this blog is to inspire and help us all grow - and hopefully add a little light in the storm of today’s world. I wanted to call it “Deep thoughts with Shannon” but that takes up a lot of room, so “Musings” it is. Here we are in the new year! I can’t believe it’s 2024, and that the holidays are already behind us. We had a Covid Christmas. We started getting sick a few days before the Winter Solstice, and were sick until a couple of days before the new year. Jason and I quarantined together with my roommate’s cats. We were very lucky considering, but it was a long nearly two weeks without leaving the house much.