Melinda Emily Thomas

Category: Meditation Practice

  • Yoga Nidra – A Gift For You

    Welcome to 2021.!? I’m not sure which punctuation to use. If 2020 taught me anything, it was the reaffirmation that we never know what comes next. The unknown is our constant companion and learning to embrace it, respond, and work skillfully with the way life unfolds is one of the great benefits of a yoga…

  • The Season of Many Hats

    The other day I was reading through Christine Valter Paintner’s latest book The Soul’s Slow Ripening: 12 Celtic Practices for Seeking the Sacred and pulling quotes for her daily emails when I came across this gem. “Out of all the many things calling for attention: Which one is it the season for?” In the season…

  • Reentry

    After a relaxing week in the mountains with my family I am home and readjusting to the rhythms of ordinary life. I’ve been back for two weeks but the difficult process of reentry continues. I find myself doing the same thing I do every year—looking at google maps and dreaming of faraway destinations. The late…

  • Summer Sabbath

    “Sabbath is one of the profound gifts of a generous and abundant divine presence who says that work is good and rest is necessary.” ~ Christine Valters Paintner Every summer, Christine Valters Paintner of Abbey of the Arts (you know the woman, I work for her and quote her often) takes time off from newsletters…

  • Listening to Noise

    Yogah cittavrttti nirodhah “Yoga is the cessation of the movements in the consciousness.” Yoga Sutra 1.2 translated by B.K.S. Iyengar People often say to me, “I can’t meditate or do yoga because I can’t turn my brain off.” Which is true. You can’t turn your brain off. The nature of the brain is circuitry; neurons…

  • Death Meditation Part Two: The Risk of Love

    When I was in middle school I was obsessed with the One Last Wish book series by Lurlene McDaniel. With such dubious titles as Let Him Live, and Sixteen and Dying, they were basically romance novels except with terminal illness. Even at ten I was exhausted by life and harbored a secret longing to be…