The friendship and the height-air

Is it possible to spend a better day than go hiking with very good friends, and then have a lunch and chill out on the top of a mountain? This is how I spent one of my days earlier this week. Of course, always with me when I do those kind of so rad activities, my beloved brother.

Ok, this was a very small mountain, you can tell by the picture above, which has been taken on the lowest of the two peaks of the Saint-Grégoire Mount.

I just love those perfect days!
♥

The sound of love - One Love - Playing For Change

Here is one of the most beautiful song of the world. Let your heart and your whole soul be submerged by this sweetest version!


LOVE

Things that make me happy

1. Say hello or smile at strangers on the street when our eyes meet. Even better when they reply!
2. Smell the fruits that I pick to the grocery store.
3. Feeling my face flooded with sunshine.
4. Take a slow walk in the woods, and look at and smell the flowers.
5. Hug a tree and (kind of) make it feel that I am grateful for its contribution.
6. Observe some little free animals in the nature. Even better when I imagine that we are communicating!
7. Hug my brother.
8. Hold my little niece in my arms, close to my heart, and dance gently, as a cradle.
9. Discover and enjoy a new very tasty meal.
10. Having both feet into a river, sitting on a rock, listen to nature...and, again, be flooded with sunshine.
11. Listen to moving music, without doing anything else at the same time, just sitting relax, with eyes closed.
12. And, of course, this blog. :)
    

To be able to enjoy that first point, I first had to force myself to look at strangers, and still sometimes, but I like the way this helps me to slowly get rid of my shyness, which makes me feel much more lighter! This also sometimes brings me to connect with some people that I would not even noticed before, like neighbors, the mailman and whoever else. There are even some days where I can notice that it has made a difference for them, that they are grateful for this, as much as I am. Thus, this last thing helps me to continue to do the effort.

ENJOY YOUR DAY! SMILE!
THINK ABOUT WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY, AND DO YOUR BEST TO DO IT AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE!

The sound of love - When The Sun Comes Up - Jackson Nash

I've just been hit by an idea for a serie of posts... I do not set a particular rate for these publications, 'cause I want to go freely with it, as for everything else on here.

So, let's start this serie with this awesome and funny video. You'll understand my choice, it is a real gush of happiness and love.


Jackson, you put a never ending smile on my face each time I look at this video! I hope it's all right with you that I'm using it, I think it deserves to be spread!
MUCH LOVE TO YOU MY FRIEND

Great people doing great things

This is an addition to my previous post. It is one of the best exemple, at a huge scale, of the great power hidden inside each of us. These are 2 parts (of 5) of an interesting documentary on the meditation technique, briefly introduced into my previous post, applied in the largest prison in the world, the Tihar jail. Personnaly, its end has moved me very much.





This is it! I won't talk much more about this path, so if you find some kind of interests into these two last posts, I invite you to dig on it.

See you later in this coming week for other sweetnesses of the world!
MUCH LOVE

The impermanency

When we are attentive and open to the subtle signs of life, we can gradually perceive how certain experiences or certain people are strategically placed on our path, for a more or less important period... in fact, just about the time needed for you to realise or accomplish certain steps that you came to seek in this present life. Well, this is my personal point of view.

These last days, I've been experiencing a new level of teaching. I've been gone in a Vipassana Center for a 10 days closed retreat of intensive and specifique meditation. This has been an experience of real hard work, for sure!

I did not intended to write about this at all, 'cause this is such a personal process, and each live it differently, and everybody is not interested in it. However, after I came back home from there yesterday, I spent the whole afternoon to fully recover back all my normal senses and my mind, then I joined my roomate for a long walk and a supper on a nice green terrace of a café where we like to go. You'll be eventually introduced to this great place in a serie of posts I'll start this summer, wich will be called Places I Love, but let's go back for now to what made me slightly change my mind.

So, after the supper, while waiting to pay, my mind has wandered to someone, then to some news I was expecting to receive and didn't came in, then continue wandering... you know how it goes! Of course, I've started to feel a bad sensation. I automatically started to simply observe it, calmly. Then, without having deliberately caused it, I smiled, and told to myself "Anicca"... This is impermanent. Thus, I got up and went to pay. The sensation had been gone!

Then I realised the huge power wich this Vipassana experience brought me. It is an another part of the transformation. Observe sensations, the good ones AS the bad ones, with equanimity, changes everything. It will be a great tool to face things more easily and calmly. If this is all what these 10 days have brought me, well it's already a HUGE thing. I suppose that this is what I was ready to acept and learn for this step; that this is what my pasts experiences were there for... and this last one have been there to prepare me to some other ones. And I am grateful for this.

May all beings be happy.
LOVE

Small AND greatest pleasures in life.

I spent the most wonderful weekend!

It all started with a nice walk across the city on the awesome sunny friday afternoon (with a hot 25 degrees). Everybody was outside, showing their most beautiful smile. Birds everywhere, singing and chasing each others; squirrels and cats running all over the lands and sidewalks. Marvellous!

I left in the evening to go in the campain to join some friends at my brother's house for a poker. I did not saw these friends for too many weeks. In the morning, I woke up with my adorable - 8 months old - little niece. With these two round eyes staring at me, and this most beautiful gum smile. Ain't no better way to wake up, I can tell!

We spent our saturday afternoon (again 25 degrees and no clouds...never saw for this time of the year here) in hiking, with a wonderful bunch of people, up to the top of the great Saint-Hilaire Mountain. We had a pic-nic there, observing the huge birds of prey flying around. Some played music with improvised tam-tam and a guitar, some danced, others were simply in communion with the nature, relaxing.

In the late evening, we prepared and have a yummy meal at one of these friend's house, well in fact, she's also my living food teacher. Interresting talks with all of them. I love you guys!

On sunday morning, another awakening in campaign. Then, my brother, his wife, my little niece and me, drove to my grandma's house for the dinner. We spent a wonderful afternoon there, and finally stayed for the supper also. Grandma was so happy to see us, and learn that she will soon be great-grand-mother for the 4th time! Yes!! Soon, I'll sometimes wake up with two pairs of beautiful bright eyes! That will be SO fun!

Kisses Grandma, it's time to go! My brother drop me at a subway station in the evening, and I slowly walked back home, thinking to this extraordinary weekend I got.

Life is good to me!

Hope you all had a fantastic weekend!

LOVE

Introduction to permaculture

Agriculture must change. We have to go back to the old way to work our lands. But for sure, for the success of it, all the distribution and the consumption must change, as the people’s mentality and priorities too. But it IS possible. Recently, I learned about permaculture, a sustainable and organic agriculture, in self-sufficient human settlements. This type of agriculture reduces society's reliance on industrial systems of production and distribution. Many places around the world are already experiencing it, and you know what? It is working PERFECTLY! Take a look at these videos, and open up your mind!


Change consumption and distribution.
How to feed the world ? from Denis van Waerebeke on Vimeo.

The biologist Willie Smits, explaining permaculture.


Esalen Farm & Garden, doing permaculture.

The Esalen Farm & Garden (THE 3rd VIDEO) grow all their own seedlings, and they compost every little waste from the kitchen, and also the cardboards! They also are providing the Big Sur community, in California, with their local organic produces. CHEER!
And what do they use to do all that? Their hands!...and one tractor. Voluntaries and apprentices are doing their part the whole year long.

Don’t you think that they look truly happy in the way they are living their life large? I have learned on all that because of the SuperForest team. So, do as they do: talk about it to as many people as possible, and together, we’ll make it change!

Full of hopefulness for our futur,
LOVE