I was blessed with such a sweet experience yesterday as I meditated on my back porch. I had just completed a morning practice, drawing on the heart-opening back bend sequences I had been teaching my students all week. I set an intention to meditate on love, with each breath and every movement - to strike a pose and appreciate being inside that shape and remember how lucky I am to give and receive love. Afterwards, I sat to meditate, tracing my fingers along my turquoise mala beads, repeating my intention. And then, I just sat. The sun peeked past the roof of my house and I could feel it play with warmth and shadow on my eyelids. Traffic sounds became a waterfall burbling alongside birdsong. And then, I heard a soft scuffling and opened my eyes, turned my head to the bench that was an arm's length from my mat, and saw a plump little sparrow. She (or he?) hopped back and forth along the bench, cocking her head and wiggling her tail feathers and plump belly. She stayed a while. Then she leapt up on the fence with a swift spring of wing, and shimmied through the lattice.

It was...just right. My heart swelled with the moment.

I have had a truly relaxing summer. I didn't write much.  I taught fewer classes. I read more. Travelled some. I let go of one or two self-imposed deadlines and instead spent time digging in the rich, loamy soil of my heart - not to unearth troubles or mysteries, but to find ways to more fully embrace the best I have inside. Some might call my summer a lazy one, but I feel it was... just right. 

I'm a big proponent of working on a robust heart and healthy inner life but, like every human, I have my lapses. Recently, as I was bemoaning lost time and opportunities of the passing sunny, sweltering summer days, my dear friend suggested that I now leverage my positive inner state to motivate myself and drive on towards the goals I have put on the back burner. Seemed perceptive to me. And so, that's the goal for the nascent 2016/17 year. Love is locked and loaded - now let's put the pedal to the metal!

Join me, won't you?