Inviting the Bowl

Classroom bowl on summer vacation

Good morning,

Please view the link in the title to watch a brief and beautiful teaching from Plum Village that changed my language around inviting the bowl to ring. Simply click on the title to access the link.

In slow motion

Presenting to my students a lab on organic chemistry, I paused, became clear about my intentional directions and had the feeling that I was in slow motion. The energy was calm, the work thoughtful and contributed to depth of knowledge!

Quiet Rose Drops A Pebble....

Hello all. Thinking of you all as I work to hold on to the mindfulness lessons learned from KCL.


Two simple ideas that I've implemented into my school life-

1) I no longer scarf my sandwich while sitting at my desk reading through me email. I close my door, sit in my chair, do a bow, and eat for five minutes. Sometimes, I steal an extra 5 minutes, and read one of my favorite poets, Billy Collins. Just one poem. Just a few moments. And those few minutes have done wonders for my sense of time.

I feel so much more relaxed and rejuvenated, ready to open the door and jump back in with recharged batteries.

2) I'm in a lot of EST meetings (Act 157 or other names for student support teams). Sometimes, these meetings can break down into long, drawn out affairs with a bit too much "casual" conversation about
student's lives. Often, we lose our purpose and seem to need way too
much time to create plans and/or have creative ideas for helping students. I started our first EST team meeting this year with a poem.

Wow. what a difference having a moment to pause before jumping in makes. Also, the metaphor of precision- like poetry- and beauty- what I want our EST to create- had an ever so tiny effect on our meeting. I was thinking of a chime or bowl-ring to begin a meeting (like our meditations), but decided on a poem because of the metaphors, and because it's not so "eastern" or "way out" for the general population.

It was tremendously well received! I'm planning on keeping it up, and seeing if others catch on to "The Precision and Pause Moment" and bring in their own short readings....

Reverberating while using care AND abandon, Ann