So this weekend I spent one quick click accidentally deleting forever a presentation I spent most of this past week creating. It was very content rich and losing it felt like the Tibetan monks dumping the exquisite sand mandalas they create one grain at a time over a week or so. I’ve now reinvented it and I’m much more pleased with the second version.

In nature, nothing is wasted, or as the sustainable design people say: waste = food. When we complete job, project, relationship, lifestyle, and life cycles, it’s important to honor what each cycle graced us as that which will continue to nurture us and our world.

When we let go of small self, large self is revealed; when we let go of small view, large view is revealed; when we let go of small heart, large heart is revealed. Transformation is always this humble path of self to self, view to view, heart to heart.

I listened to a friend the other night talking about her boyfriend. She lives daily in the shadow of questions about their future.

I don’t know why this provoked a childhood image of young girls picking off flower petals in a roulette of “loves me” and “loves me not”, but in response to my query about what she most loves about him, she says she loves most what she thinks he could be.

Summer flowers make friends
of darkness and light alike;
remembering well their birth.

If you want to be a great leader,
you must learn to follow the Tao.
Stop trying to control.
Let go of fixed plans and concepts,
and the world will govern itself.

The more prohibitions you have,
the less virtuous people will be.
The more weapons you have,
the less secure people will be.
The more subsidies you have,
the less self-reliant people will be.

Therefore the wise say:
I let go of the law,
and people become honest.
I let go of economics,
and people become prosperous.
I let go of religion,
and people become serene.
I let go of all desire for the common good,
and the good becomes common as grass.

Tao te Ching

In an IntegralNaked.org piece this week, Roger Walsh, reminds us that if we want to develop any human quality, the best way to do this is to spend enough time with people who express that quality.

No matter whether we showed up for the last moment or not, whether we squandered it or took advantage of it, whether we spent it in love or fear, whether we were brilliant or less, whether we hit the target or missed by a mile …

Life gives us
another fresh moment of
opportunity, now.

An absolutely gorgeous, crystal blue sky day here today, and certainly a good one to spend time at Pleasant Valley that sports probably the most beautiful and tough three finishing holes on any regional course in the Ohio’s Northeast.

I usually reserve enjoying the view for when I play my best, with today as an exception. I allowed myself to enjoy the day as if I were playing perfect golf. The Tao of golf works. I not only enjoyed things as much as they could be, I played better than I would if I were doing my usual striving for elusive perfection. A good lesson that postponing joy is always a bad course strategy.

I just want to personally thank everyone who will travel crowded public urban places this weekend while intending only friendliness and no harm to others.