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The November issue of Centering is traditionally the issue in which we offer gratitude for all those who make The Center for Mindful Living the healing community that it is. CML is really just a building. It’s the dedication of everyone who contributes their talents, time, and wisdom, not only the service providers, but all those working behind the scenes whom you may never have seen though we benefit from their labor, that make CML a community. I also want to use this opportunity to acknowledge how each of you, when you cross our threshold, make the space a place of healing, of adventuring, of discovery, of magic and wonder.
Gratitude is more necessary now than ever. I have recently made it a practice to sit through the end credits when I go to a movie whenever possible. I want to recognize how much talent and effort, how many late nights and challenging decisions, how much inspiration and artistry, made what I just watched possible. To that end, please take a moment to note the tireless work of so many, many whose names you may never have heard, but whose contributions touch us all. The therapeutic healing at CML would not be possible if not for the efforts of our gifted clinical staff: Pamela Mueggenberg, Marilyn Erickson, and Hillary Rubesin, who create loving spaces for difficult work and provide compassionate support for the weary human traveler. I particularly want to recognize the generous community members who help us sustain our Mindfulness programming. We are blessed to have the talents of our amazing Mindfulness Instructor, Laura Crosby, to whom I owe so much gratitude and respect. If you have not participated in one of Laura’s programs, joined her as she facilitated a sit, a retreat, or the mindfulness study group, then you have missed compassion and generosity of spirit in action. A few dedicated souls have been helping to support our daily sits and Laura’s work: a deep bow to Ashima Mehta, Katie Hupp, and Dan Weidner. Each of these folks devote their time and efforts to create a safe space to explore and deepen practice. We are blessed by the numerous gifts each of these gentle spirits share with our community. And there are those whose work is more behind the scenes but whose contributions allow our community to thrive and grow. Christina Murphy, works as our marketing and social media Goddess, bringing you this newsletter every month and keeping the CML community connected and informed. Thank you to Alma and Carmen, who keep our space so beautifully for us and who are the only ones who truly know how many boxes of Kleenex we go through a month. At the center of the CML mission is, of course, you, the curious and courageous human traveler, seeking to know yourself better and find your way to sharing your own gifts in the world. We would not be here if not for you and it is to you that I express my deepest gratitude. Your support continues to remind us that we can travel so much farther together than on our own. I hope that in the coming year, you will continue to find yourself on our doorstep, in our virtual spaces, on our cushions, and continue in the discovery of your own magnificent, vibrant gifts. Your ongoing willingness to share so meaningfully of yourselves allows each of our journeys to be enriched. In this season of gratitude, a heartfelt ‘Thank You” for making our community a space of inclusivity, healing, and peace. In times of uncertainty such as these, when care for one another seems to be a lesser priority, knowing that our community is strong helps bring us all hope. “May you be rocked, as deeply as necessary and as gently as possible” ~Anonymous Louisa
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This weekend, I had some unexpected down time and sat down to watch one of my favorite movies, a poignant foreign film that explores the celebration of life by embracing the rituals of death. It is a deeply moving narrative made even more immersive by the need to read the English subtitles in order to follow along.
As “Departures” is a Japanese film (winner of the 2009 Academy Award for Best International Feature Film), it’s not easy to find on your typical streaming service. As a result, I watched on an ad-supported platform. While I am grateful that such platforms exist and provide free content that is difficult to access elsewhere, I must admit to being a bit out of practice with the intrusion of commercials. I’ve watched this film several times in the past, and was interrupted multiple times at each viewing, but this most recent experience was exceptional. As it turns out, it was also sadly instructive regarding the nature of attention in day-to-day life. It is striking and even a bit violent to be enthralled by the incredible work of so many artists steeping themselves in a challenging and beautiful story about the preciousness of life, only to find a critical apex of quiet, affective tension interrupted by a loud, upbeat, vibrantly colored, chaotic scene from a cereal commercial. It was insanely jarring and reminded me of the funeral I attended some year ago where someone’s cell phone rang out during a moving eulogy with the dulcet tones of “Booti Call”. Sometimes, these moments can provide some much-needed humor or relief, but I also believe that they are intrusions into the essential work we must do to develop our capacity to stay with strong emotions and difficult topics, such as grief and loss. The greatest commodity of present life is not money. It’s time. And our capacity to fully leverage this finite resource is dependent on our ability to stay present. If you will, time = attention, or where we place our attention is how we spend our ever-fleeting time on the planet. Yet, in modern culture, we are constantly being interrupted. Our attention has been monetized, commodified, and cheapened down to algorithms and revenue projections. Our bodies respond to the buzz of the text alert with the same urgency and need to act that was once reserved for the siren of a passing ambulance. Our sympathetic nervous systems, designed to be the infrequently accessed resource to help us evade danger, are now experiencing “fight or flight” as a normative endocrinological state. It will take a concentrated effort for us to reverse this trend and steady our ability to remain present and unaffected by the insistence of the culture to cause us to miss our lives. This is the time to develop or strengthen our practices, whether they are meditation, prayer, creative practices, or somatic in nature. The siren of distraction is strong. Resist them or risk losing your life. “May you be rocked, as deeply as necessary and as gently as possible” ~Anonymous Louisa |
AuthorLouisa has always enjoyed writing and is thrilled that she now has a way to share her musings with a larger community of like-minded seekers. Her writing is often an extension and exploration of the struggles she faces in integrating her own spirituality, scholarly study, life experience, and nuggets of brilliance from her teachers in the hopes that it might alchemically transform itself into something approximating wisdom. Archives
January 2026
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