Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Celebrating Charles Darwin!

Once upon a time there was a little boy who collected birds' eggs and sea shells, beetles and coins, moths and minerals. He wasn’t a very good student, school just bored him. He had some difficulties in memorizing but he never tired of studying the details of the natural world. He was born in Shrewsbury, a rural town in England and he spent hours watching birds and lying under the dining-room table, reading.

As a teenager, he was thrilled by chemistry, biology, botany and geology. His father wanted him to be a doctor. But as he studied at the University of Cambridge, his teachers recognized his potential. Finally, his true talent for natural history blossomed.

One day he was invited to join a ship called Beagle for a trip around the world. It was time to follow his dream! He went as the ship's naturalist and for most of the next five years, the Beagle surveyed the coast of South America. He was free to explore the continent and islands, including the Galapagos and he filled dozens of notebooks with careful observations on animals, plants and geology, and collected thousands of specimens, which he sent home for further study.

Darwin later called the Beagle voyage "by far the most important event in my life," saying it "determined my whole career." By the time he returned, he was an established naturalist, well-known in London for the astonishing collections he had sent ahead. The Beagle voyage would provide Darwin with a lifetime of experiences to think about and the seeds of a theory he would work on for the rest of his life.

Charles Darwin was born on February 12th, 1809 and this week we celebrate his 200th birthday!

All images taken from the book “The Tree of Life” by Peter Sis


Sunday, February 08, 2009

Learning to be still - let’s Meditate!

Why is sitting and doing nothing the most difficult, mysterious, joyful, painful, profound, and life-changing thing we can do? Because it is the radical opposite of what we usually do to try to make ourselves happy.

Why stillness?

Stillness is the quiet place inside where the mind doesn’t interfere or confuse you.
Stillness offers a clear connection to your intuition
You know that you are never alone
Stillness allows big problems all of a sudden seem small
Stillness releases any stress and agitation
Simple solutions often arrive easily when resting in stillness
You feel connected to something greater than yourself when experiencing stillness
You nurture yourself and offer your body, mind and soul deep peaceful rest
You feel comfortable being alone with yourself for a while

How to introduce stillness to children in a simple yet fun way:

For children a simple guided meditation that they can relate too in a fun way and totally absorb their imagination into allows for all other things to fall away. They find themselves resting in stillness focused on the theme of the guided mediation. It may be I am calm, I am rested, I am patient, I sleep beautifully or I am safe.

Choose a meditation that appeals to their imagination:

Amy Hamilton’s Indigo Dreaming - Meditations for Children book or audio CD has 49 different meditation stories: Indigo Dreaming: Meditations for Children

Make it fun and short:

You imagine yourself sitting inside a pyramid. The air inside is warm you feel very calm and relaxed and there is no sound. You breathe in and out and feel the quiet in your body. Feel the quiet spread with each breathe until it fills the whole pyramid. It is serene and still. You say in my mind I am quiet ……. I am quiet………I am quiet.


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