“There is no separation between you and a beautiful lake or meadow.  You are summer clouds, beautiful and free.  You stalk jungle trails with strength and silence of a jaguar, and you float along the currents of air like a hawk.”

-Rolf Gates, Meditations from the Mat

Day 344 – The opening quote by Kalu Rinpoche reminds me of GoT:  “You live in illusion and the appearance of things. There is reality, but you do not know this.  When you understand this, you will see that you are nothing. And being nothing, you are everything.  That is all.”  Existence precedes essence? Or is love all and nothing truly nothing?  In Rolf’s work, Meditations on Intention and Being:  Kindness (Day 44), he describes how “the design of our bodies expresses the preference for mobility over stability and solutions we seek tend to involve doing something.”  Nothing cannot exist, except when we are not thinking or tuning in.  It would be amazing to tune in to the present everywhere.

As such, I’ve been searching most of the day for a book like Meditations from the Mat for teachers–mostly, inspired by the unending inspiration daily reflections on this book have given me over the past 3 years.  I often combine education into my personal reflections here and there, since I began a daily yoga practice to help me be more mindful and present at work.  I think daily reflection is really important and well-worth the time spent, and I’d like to incorporate it into my classroom routine, as I arrive very early at school anyway and I think that would set the tone.  In any case, I have been searching for some type of daily reflection to use a starting point (as this book), but alas!  What I do not wish for is a gratitude journal, or “chicken-soup-for-the-soul” type of book.  I have lots of inspirational stories about teaching and teachers AND I have access to gobs more via social media.  What I want is a book of essays, 365 days worth, something meaty, dense, something worthy of revisiting.  And I have found nothing so far, so…

Maybe this is a book that should be written.