It's a common mistake to think that the "point" of meditation is to clear your mind of thoughts. It's not.

However, learning how to relate to our thoughts is an essential part of a meditation practice. We can relate to the qualities of our thoughts, the content of them, or the physical experience of them. I wrote a lengthy blog post about ways to relate to our thoughts. Some of the ways are: 

• thoughts as weather
• thoughts as noise
• your mind as a body of water
• labeling thoughts
• thoughts as a somatic experience

One of the most amazing things to me about thoughts is that we have so much control over both how we relate to them, and which thoughts we tend to have the most often. Read the whole post here.

Two great pieces worth your attention this week:

"Wired Bacteria Form Nature's Power Grid: 'We Have an Electric Planet'" – The New York Times

We still have so much to learn abut the world we live in. My favorite sentence is this: "But now that scientists know what to look for, they’re finding this natural electricity across much of the world." This happens a lot: suddenly when something comes into focus, we see it everywhere. In this case, it's a electroactive bacteria called Geobacter–and it's now being found all over the place.

"An Intimate View Into the Lives of Transgender Elders" – them

This piece discusses a photo project documenting the lives of our transgender elders. "... for the first time, in a really large scale way, there’s a population of LGBTQ+ adults who are aging and looking ahead at things like assisted living facilities and nursing homes." It's a beautiful project. 

(By the way, the Netflix remake of the short series Tales of the City is another beautiful exploration of multi-generaltional LGBTQIA living.)

This isn't ancient history, this riveting book is about an ordeal that started off the coast of Mexico in 2012, and ended in 2014 when fisherman Salvador Alvarenga finally washed ashore after more than a year stranded at sea, seven thousand miles from where he originally went fishing.

(And guess what, when he came ashore, people didn't believe his story and thought he might be a drug trafficker. Can you imagine what that was like for him?)

This is a book about one man's incredible ability to survive (and retain his humanity), how plastic ocean garbage saved his life, and a true testament to the power of positive thinking against every odd.

See the book: 438 Days on Amazon

As you know, I worship the sun. It warms my soul.

And, I've had skin cancer a few times in the last couple of years. So my relationship with the sun necessarily has become more complicated. I can't live without it (well, I mean, none of us can) but too much of a good thing can be, well, too much. 

This article about a woman's changing relationship with being outside after having melanoma resonated with me. 

Have you had to change your relationship with something you can't avoid? I'd love to hear about it. 

If you're in NYC, join me in celebrating my friend Adreanna Limbach's book launch next week! We'll be sitting in meditation on Tuesday at MNDFL, and toasting to her success on Thursday night at Lazy Point in SoHo.

Or if you're not in NYC, you can order her book online. It's getting stellar reviews (because it's awesome!)

Adreanna's book :: Tea & Cake With Demons: A Buddhist Guide to Feeling Worthy