Letting Go is Love

Yesterday at 3 pm a media flurry launched with new news about the Crow Museum of Asian Art and The University of Texas at Dallas. For me, it was a much anticipated announcement after 14 months of hard work.

Just over a year ago we began talking with the University of Texas at Dallas about a possible union: Asian Art to the University in trade for perpetual care and support to a museum needing an evergreen future. We maximized our resources to a greater good. For those of you who have asked, this is very good news, and I am truly thrilled. Our region celebrates one museum in two locations: one one Flora and one to come on the campus of UT Dallas.

Here are four things this "acquisition" brings the Crow Museum of Asian Art:

1. Room to Grow: we called ourself a museum without walls because we've always lived beyond them: in vision, in practice and in heart. UT Dallas has space and vision.

2. Auditorium: At least weekly I am contacted by a member of the Asian-American Community asking about opportunities to present dance, theater and the cultures of Asia. That mean's I've said no 52 times a year for 20 years. I'm sure I am exaggerating, but the point is, now I can begin saying yes. UT Dallas has beautiful auditoriums.

3. Students: 24,000 to be exact-ish. I've longed for a University partner. We are an internationally-minded museum. Universities are too. We will bring the world to Dallas together. And Dallas to the world. Through research of the collection (and beyond) offering new contexts for how art is among the greatest human commonalities. Art and Academia are nothing less than Double Happiness.

4. Forever: Trammell Crow had a practice of planting saplings: little baby trees that he knew would grow far into the future offering shade he would never experience. We were this. The family nourished us with spectacular generosity. We invited others to our "Community Garden": Asian-American Leaders, friends and Asian Art Enthusiasts. Our Garden Grew. UT Dallas is the Future: blazing trails in STEM and rivaling CalTech and MIT. Universities are forever and now we are too.

This was an idea that felt impossible at times. Some days I felt like I was working two jobs: missing basketball games and spring break to push these two comets together. I had tremendous support from Trammell S. and my new mentor at UT Dallas, Dr. Hobson Wildenthal. I am learning that when you let go for big futures, you find that you have exactly what you need.

And the lessons in non-attachment! When you're working with new partners and going for big vision you have to be prepared to see their vision, too. The Tibetan Mandala has taught me a few things over the years and inside of this immense change, we may feel like we're being swept up, but truly we are the sand. We will form again in a different way, but the DNA of our museum: compassionate, inclusive and accessible will always be there. I'll write more about this but for now please know that all is well, very well. The future is bright. 

Mindfulness and the Stack of 2018 Holiday Cards

I have a bowl I use for my holiday cards. It was a gift from a student at Armstrong Elementary back in the day. It's glass with molded Christmas Trees on the sides: a solid design that comes out for the month of December for my ritual "containment of the cards".

What to do with these lovelies? I know some of you talented, organized friends keep an excel document of who sent and to whom you will send next year. I gape.

For a few years I kept them in ziplocks: 2007, 2008, stored away for...well I am not sure what. Mine were headed in that direction this morning. And it occurred to me that these cards have a new purpose: a source for mindfulness.

With the virtual feed of social media, the holiday cards have to compete for our attention.

I decided this morning to have a practice of sitting with these cards each morning this week. I took a small stack off the top and looked into the joyful faces of my friends and their children, full of promise and vitality. I started praying for them: that their lives will be supported with the things they need. I prayed that they will do all the good works God has prepared for them and that they will know they are instruments of his peace. I expressed gratitude for these humans creating amazing good in the world and sent prayers of hope and possibility to their outcomes.

I did this as a silent meditation in my morning hour, and the bowl of cards has taken on a new meaning for me: compassion practice. I changed the context from the racket of what to do with these items to a reminder of the joy, intention (and hard work!) they are to bring to our lives.

At the end of the week I will recycle them like the sand mandala, sending these positive and healing energies back into the world. I am grateful for the time they brought into my morning: the moment to give gratitude for my circle of everlasting love and support.

2018 is the Year of Love and one of the first practices is to find love and sit with it. This morning I found love in the Christmas Bowl from an adored student at Armstrong Elementary. I wonder where I will find it next.

Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, love divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
Star and angels gave the sign.

Worship we the Godhead,
Love incarnate, love divine;
Worship we our Jesus:
But wherewith for sacred sign?

Love shall be our token,
Love shall be yours and love be mine,
Love to God and to all men,
Love for plea and gift and sign. 

Christina Georgina Rossetti

New Year, New Light, New Post

Hello, Friends.

I just headed out to White Rock Lake to take the year's first #pocketsunrise.

My first glance at the weather app isn't the temperature, it's the cloud coverage. I could tell it wasn't going to be a swoon-inducing color sunrise but I went anyway: that's what a practice does to you.

It's about 38* over here in East Dallas. The wind was cutting and I made my way hoping the dock wasn't already occupied by other witnesses to this first morning of the year. The wind was cutting so the dock was all mine.

I saw two cars, humans nestled warmly inside there for it: first light on our lives in a New Year.

The #pocketsunrise practice started in August of 2011. Two months earlier I'd been diagnosed with Thyroid Cancer. A new integrative medicine doctor, and now treasure of a friend, Carolyn Matthews, challenged me to pair exercise with something I love.

I love living near White Rock Lake: a living breathing organism of life: teeming with miracles. I love sunrises: also teeming with potential energy and unveilings. If you've faced a life-threatening illness you know: everyone is fighting for one more day. #pocketsunrise crested on my own horizon.

Since that summer I've taken thousands of #pocketsunrises. I post them for my loving and loyal friends on social media. I send them with intention to those who might need a little extra light. I send them randomly to those I love. Just a few weeks ago a dear family member asked if I had taken a #pocketsunrise on a specific date that was special to her. It was a miracle I had one and sent it right over. I didn't realize how long the light of a #pocketsunrise can stretch.

My practice isn't perfect: it has ebbed and flowed alongside other practices, but the call to secure an image from almost two years ago inspired me to be at sunrise's edge more often. This light falling on this day may be the light someone needs to see in two years.

Back at the dock this morning I shivered after just two taps of my phone and headed back to the car. something caught my ear or my eye and I turned out. I noticed the wind stopped blowing. I walked toward a second dock with a broader view of the east side of the lake. I felt my legs moving, my breath pushing oxygen to all cells. It was exhilarating. At the second dock a sliver of cloud opened up  pouring light onto the water. It was still and I sat, praying for all that is and all that I will receive this year.

While I was posting today's #pocketsunrise a large fish turned over on top of the water--strange I thought in this cold. I imagined that fish was saying "stop, pay attention. it is glorious".  I did. And it was.

I'm glad I went out and found the color behind the clouds and in the water. I am reminded that when it's quiet it's not complicated. And where it's not complicated, that's where peace, possibility and love live.