Jacques Lusseyran on Light

“Light cast a spell over me. I saw it everywhere I went and watched it by the hour… flowing over the surface of the houses in front of me and through the tunnel of the street to right and left. This light was not like the flow of water, but something more fleeting and numberless, for its source was everywhere. I liked seeing that the light came from nowhere in particular, but was an element just like air. We never ask ourselves where air comes from, for it is there and we are alive. With the sun it is the same thing.

There was no use my seeing the sun high up in the sky in its place in space at noon, since I was always searching for it elsewhere. I looked for it in the flickering of its beams, in the echo which, as a rule, we attribute only to sound, but which belongs to light in the same measure. Radiance multiplied, reflected itself from one window to the next, from a fragment of wall to cloud above. It entered into me, became part of me. I was eating sun.”

In a Bad Mood?

Photo by Elliott Aaron From

Listen to some music to change your mood.
Take a walk to change your mood.
Go to a bakery and take in the scent to change your mood.
Eat something delicious to change your mood.
Take in the beauty of someone you love to change your mood.
Feel the essence of who you are to change your mood.
Help someone in need to change your mood.
Tell someone you love them to change your mood.
Love yourself more to change your mood.
Practice gratitude to change your mood.
You get the idea…

Tricia Schwaba August 31, 2023

It Really Is All About Love-- Summer Session Closing Thoughts

I leave you with these thoughts as we venture into the coolness of autumn
Take what you practice on the mat— off the mat— and into your life
Deep breaths, long limbs, lifted crowns, rooted stances that steady your days
Take your long spine and empowered core with you as you travel
Sink deep into the Earth when you feel untethered
Lift your crown to the heavens affirming the connection to all that is
Take your strength and flexibility into the most heated of days
Let your vibrancy be contagious, shining it when humanity feels dull
Lead with an open heart
Let your love spill out and heal this imperfect world.
And please remember, for this day and the days ahead—
It really is all about love.

Tricia Schwaba— August 30, 2023

May Sarton-- The Work of Happiness

I thought of happiness, how it is woven
Out of the silence in the empty house each day
And how it is not sudden and it is not given
But is creation itself like the growth of a tree.
No one has seen it happen, but inside the bark
Another circle is growing in the expanding ring.
No one has heard the root go deeper in the dark,
But the tree is lifted by this inward work
And its plumes shine, and its leaves are glittering.

So happiness is woven out of the peace of hours
And strikes its roots deep in the house alone:
The old chest in the corner, cool waxed floors,
White curtains softly and continually blown
As the free air moves quietly about the room;
A shelf of books, a table, and the white-washed wall —
These are the dear familiar gods of home,
And here the work of faith can best be done,
The growing tree is green and musical.

For what is happiness but growth in peace,
The timeless sense of time when furniture
Has stood a life’s span in a single place,
And as the air moves, so the old dreams stir
The shining leaves of present happiness?
No one has heard thought or listened to a mind,
But where people have lived in inwardness
The air is charged with blessing and does bless;
Windows look out on mountains and the walls are kind.

Spontaneous Contemplation

I want you to ask yourself “What are your daily practices of which you may be unaware?”

Do your shoulders fold slightly forward?

Do you shift one hip upwards bringing imbalance to your lower spine?

Do you have a continuing drama playing in your head?

Do you sit, repeatedly crossing right leg over left, inhibiting flow to different parts of each leg?

We tend to think of practices as intentional & positive— things we choose to do that nourish.

That is true and I encourage those.

But in reality bad habits are nothing more than depleting practices of which we are unaware.

Pay attention— honor your being by eliminating negative postural patterns and draining mindsets that deplete.

Observe without judgment.

Recognize the inclinations and begin to shift away from the detrimental, and towards the nourishing.

It will take time— changes that hold usually do.

Slowly but surely bad habits fade and are replaced with intentional practices that honor and nourish.

You will feel uplifted.

The “whole” of you will rejoice!

I promise.

Be good to yourself…………………… Tricia