Waylon Lewis Bike Stylish © Tanya Dueri Photography

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Help! elephant is in a tight spot! 

Facebook recently restricted the ability of all Pages to connect with fans. Our hard-won readership has dropped by one million readers in a month. This will, if it continues, force us to lay off 30% of our staff & has already slowed our ability to share “the mindful life” beyond the choir.

Inspired to help?
1) Forward this newsletter to a friend…
2) or copy+paste elephantjournal.com/join-the-cause to your FB Wall & encourage your friends to subscribe, free, and in so doing connect directly with indie mindful community. For every new subscription, our partner Namaste plants a tree!

 

Life is a rough path—unpaved—
the sky above a pale deep blue, a contradiction of clouds and beauty and fresh air that can not be described
our online lives fade into the present moment as
the breeze touches our cheek, flowers blind our ego, our heart pumps fresh mountain air
my dog is eager, but limping slightly
he has much to catch up on: smells, joys, chasing balls, playing with dogfriends new and old
life is busy with nothing
the creek runs, or does not run
the world turns, through joy and pain, death and life
the seasons revolve through our karma
and we remember there’s only one thing worth remembering

A true path is worth traveling.

So: commit to that which you love. Or quit, fast. Do not proceed with doubt.

 

Editor’s notes are posted atop our free weekly email newsletter magazine.

Today I helped a childhood friend and his wife move into their new home.

My typical Spring Saturday is meditation, brushing teeth, a walk or run with my dog, farmers’ market for food and community, then 12 hours of work, hopefully with some form of exercise somewhere in the middle.

But today, I have only been online for a few hours. I will work all night. But all day, I was offline–no phone, no computer, no work.

Instead, I worked to support my childhood friends—many of whom have children and babies whom I hardly know, because I’m such a busy-busy workaholic.

I moved boxes. A year of fun adrenaline came out and I happily sweat and reconnected with these dear friends.

A brand new house: Sol, and Ulrike had moved out of their old house of many years for 8 months while they rebuilt it, expanded it to fit their two big teenaged boys. The footprint is the same, the yard is the same, the layout is mostly similar—designed around their many barbeques and football watching parties…the house is built around the happy human community that is always welcome there. It’s a warm home.

And I’m so proud of Sol, one of my childhood friends. A beautiful sweet loving wife, two strong handsome sweet sons who are not too cool to play with the little babies, but are cool enough to skateboard and toss me a football and generally make trouble.

It’s an adult home: beautiful cabinets and stairs and huge windows opening to blossoming apple trees and the Rocky Mountains, west—but it’s a simple home, rich in living but not yuppie, lifeless, pretentious in the way so many huge homes can be.

And there’s a part of me that thirsts for this community, for family (I spent a good amount of time after we were all done playing with children and babies and catching up with childhood friends, and their parents, now grandparents). But there’s also a larger part of me that is committed to devote my considerable energies to creating a web site that is sharp, true, nurturing of enlightened society and unwelcoming to charlatans. Elephant is mission-driven, but part of that mission is to reach all sentient beings.

And so I have a lot of work left to do. We all do, if we are to create a forum to support truth, humor and equality. And compassion. And wonderful writing.

Please help, if so inspired.

Yours in the Vision of Enlightened Society,

Waylon Lewis