Last week we wore winter boots. Today, I jumped in my 10 foot wide pool. Good thing I didn't close it early.

Over the weekend, there was a street fair that had not been held in years due to weather and well, the pandemic. You saw everything from ski jackets to tank tops and no one really got it right.  A few people fainted from heat.

Having a summer day in the fall is a gift if you love warm weather and annoying if you don't.  We expect seasonal changes but lately the weather has been even more unpredictable. How do you deal with it? I will pull out the flip flops and just pretend fall never happened. I will sit by the beach and enjoy the sunset. Others will keep wearing fleece jackets even if it makes them faint. I wonder, can you avoid unexpected change by pretending it doesn't exist?

Not if you are truly mindful. If it's 80 degrees in October, please leave your winter coat at home.

WRITING YOGA® PROMPT #2021: Write about the Unexpected Reversal of Seasons

There is a...

Greetings Readers, Teachers, Yogis and Librarians!

Library Week and Poetry Month both fall in April and with all of the yoga classes popping up at libraries over the past few years, you will have plenty of opportunities to sit, write and move!  This is the special formula from the Writing Yoga® method that can help you to live a calmer, more creative and compassionate life.  Each Wednesday there is a new prompt to help you do just that.  Scroll down to get right to it. 

When I was a kid, the library was my favorite place to be. It was quiet and calm and I could read all day long without interruption. When was the last time you got to do ANYTHING without interruption?  Mindfulness was not in the dictionary back then, but the world moved slower without the Internet. Libraries today still have one of the few quiet public places anywhere. So take time this week to sit and mindfully read in your favorite chair or at the library. Maybe even try a...

The cranky man on the supermarket line has a lot to say about you and the terrible state of the world. Everything is going to "hell in a handbasket." The lines on his face detail decades of serious frowning. When someone he knows says, "Hi, how are you today?" The man replies, "Could be better" and goes on to list all the terrible things in his life and the world.

Of course it could be better and there is plenty wrong with the world, but what if you never answered, "I'm great, how are you?"

My nephew always answers this way, "I'm great! How are you?" It makes me smile and say, "I'm great too." Even if I am not great, at that moment I feel great, because optimism is contagious. Our brains go with the information we put inside them. Our bodies follow those instructions. You make your own instruction manual. Are your instructions: a) be great or b) go to "hell and an handbasket."

I am not encouraging forced happiness, fake laughter, and blind positive thinking. That can...

Much of the year, most of us live and work in climate controlled environments. Bugs are not welcome. Spring invites us to get outside and create.

In the school where I work as a librarian, the kids are developing a native pollinator garden.  I didn't even know it was a thing! The idea is to plant native flowers and hopefully attract native insects and birds to pollinate them. It involves dirt. The delicate among us might complain, but we will work together as a community to make it happen. The majority of my students do not have ancestors who know what the soil looked like 500 years here. Nature returns to Long Island. 

Our students are anxious to plant, but the soil needs to be prepared. We are turning over grass and putting down organic mulch. The hardest part of it all is being patient! The ground is ready but the air is not.

What are you preparing for now? How do you stay patient when all you want to do is get close to the ground and plant?

WRITING YOGA®...

Does the word "creativity" make you think of paint, clay, and kids playing dress up?  We all start out creative, but school and adult life might make us think that creativity is something to be left to artists and geeks. Then we get to the workplace and are expected to be innovative and productive. Hmm, don't we need to be creative for that? 

Life is creative. All of it. We are born from its impulse. We grow up, thrive, and participate in the human experience because creativity is our nature. 

If you have lost your creative spark, here are 12 words to think about: 

1. Imagine
2. Plant
3. Air
4. Mix
5. Illuminate 
6. Collect 
7. Shift 
8. Stretch 
9. Reflect 
10. Propel 
11. Focus 
12. Release 

Start with your imagination. Collect your ideas and then shape them, mix, illuminate, reflect and focus on what you want to bring into the world. When you are ready, release your creation! 

Print out this post, cut out the words, and use as "creativity...