JoAnn Saccato

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5/6/2018

Home...

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Picture
{Repost from CSJ Blog 4/19/2013}

It's official. I'm a homeowner. For the first time. By the grace of divine unfolding and many friends assisting along the way, the house I've lived in for the past six months has become mine. The poignancy of this moment is humbling and I miss Shyla more than I can hold in my heart right now. It's spilling over.

It's full spring here--the leaves have all sprouted on the maples and dogwoods--the blooms are bursting forth as much as they can in the heavily forested pines where I live--where I now call home. The breeze dances the new green leaves in a shadowy Samba.

Gratitude? That is so diminutive of a term for what I'm feeling in this moment....

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5/1/2018

The Picture Window

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Picture
{Originally posted 2/23/2013}

My new home boasts a small picture window. It peers out at a scene that could be mistaken for a  painting. The big stalk of a pine tree is offset to the left with a crumbling rock wall cascading in front of it. The ivy wends it way up the slight slope and pine needles and leaves litter the winter floor. It's a dream come true for me.

My living room couch is positioned to look out this window and I can tell it appreciates it. I can tell, because it welcomes me with open arms to join it in reverence during morning meditation.

On this particular morning, the snow began falling just about day break. Slight flurries drifted on occasion and
as the incense stick slowly burned down, I would open my eyes to discover the changing scenery. Each time, something new presented itself--little chickadees darting in and out, scratching for a morning meal; large Stellar Jays bullying their way to the food; a sideways snow flurry; a bit of sunlight; and on.

Without a concern, care or comment, the window frame held and revealed it all.

Resting in the Buddha nature, the rest unfolds...


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7/2/2017

The Spaces In Between

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Picture
Wild lily, Tahoe National Forest, June 2017. (JoAnn Saccato)
I've recently started including the awareness of spaces in between objects as part of the centering exercise I do with clients and students. As we look at objects with a curious attention--seeing them as if for the first time through the eyes of a child--they have a tendency to come alive in a new way. A fresh crispness is experienced when our pure attention is focused.

I'm noticing that clarity to be even more pronounced when I focus on the spaces in between objects. Their three dimensional nature becomes more apparent, but something else quite fascinating happens, too.

There is a visceral connection with the object as I become aware of the spaces in between. A deeper realization that I am a part of a bigger something eventually emerges. There's a direct experience of just being an extension of the object--the object and I are one and there is no space in between.
I'm not sure any of this can make sense through the written word...These concepts are so big, that I question even writing about them...
I'm not sure any of this can make sense through the written word, but it seems to come into play with an experience I had that helped me see there is not only no space in between objects, but no time of past, present or future either. These concepts are so big, that I question even writing about them--particularly for a public audience, as they may make no sense at all. It may be one of those things that has to be experienced directly to be fully understood.

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1/21/2016

My Home Still Stands: A Case for Compassion (Pt. 3)

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It's amazing how quickly the mind can forget profound truths. Particularly those that are discovered in exhaustion and under stress. Like the wind that blew through our camp, this attitude and outlook upon the situation drifted out of my mind upon waking in the morning. My mind resorted to trying to figure out all the differing scenarios of possibility.

I had been homeless before upon the ending of a 13 year relationship. Shyla and I spent a year in a tent on a friend's property--it was one of the best experiences of healing and perfect opportunity for connecting more deeply to the Tao of existence. It also was the stepping stone to my living in the cabin for all those years. Was this a bad thing? Quite the contrary! Not anything that I would have specifically chosen for myself, but so deeply grateful the situation presented itself and circumstances were as they were where I had to live there long enough to find the depth of beauty and aliveness that held me there for over 10 years.

Is this the fate that was in store for me again? After three years of setting up home on Cobb, was it all to be gone?


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1/3/2016

New Changes Bring--Well, Changes...

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PictureMeet Greta Mae, my new canine companion
As the dust and soot settles from gentle rains and the holidays slowly pass, a return to routine filled with aspirations can seep back into our days.

My inbox is full of last minute invitations to "transform this" and "fix that". To take advantage of "great deals" and "last minute" sales. While all these offers may be excellent opportunities, for some reason, they seem overwhelming this year.

So, this new year,  I'm inviting my clients, students and friends to:


Drop all concern with the things you are not (or don't have).
Instead, spend time acknowledging, honoring and nourishing
that which you are (or have).


It's not only a good practice that helps rewire the negativity bias in the brain, but it is now part of the training I'm using with my new canine companion, Greta. I'm invited to praise only that behavior I want to see and refrain from negative attention to the behavior I don't want.

Meet Greta. It was almost 3 years to the day of Shylila's passing that we rescued Greta from a Southern California shelter. It's been a huge change full of adjustments, but, as you'll read, she's worth it.

Greta was highly submissive and extremely underweight. She's been a mommy, but now gets to spend time taking good care of herself through healthful eating and lots of exercise. She meets humans easily, will give you her belly in a heartbeat, and enjoys a good soup bone. She immediately laid beside me the first meditation and continues to do so each time. She has some separation anxiety and doggy socialization issues that we're slowly working on, but she's a keeper!

This is the stance I'm taking with myself, too. Regardless of my issues, I'm a keeper. I've gained weight over the past year. (I actually weigh more now than I ever have in my life!) But, on New Year's day, when I heard myself apologizing for my body to Jim, it stopped me in my tracks. Really?!

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9/20/2015

A Life Well Lived: A Case for Mindfulness (Part III)

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Picture
[Note: This entry was drafted on the Saturday evening of the breakout of the #ValleyFire when I was camping the Lost Coast with some girlfriends. We heard about the fire through a text received when cresting the 2,000 ft. elevation gain on our grueling 6 hour hike. Out of concern, my friend, Vicki Crystal, texted: "How close is the fire to you? Praying big time."

Each of us on the hike had something in harms way of the fire, whether it was our home or our vehicle or both. We each exhaustedly tossed and turned that night from our remote campsite with no reception.

A hot dry wind blew through the camp around 1:00AM. We were some 150 miles northwest of the fire, but the eeriness didn't go unnoticed.]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Of course! Of course this sacred spot was spared.

I suddenly felt closer to Walter and Shyla as I exerted myself up the steep hill back to the trail. Each step seemed to carry with it hundreds of memories. How many times had I walked this path? Ten years, though, not every day. The first few years, maybe three or four times a week. The latter years, five to seven.


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8/22/2015

A Life Well Lived: A Case for Mindfulness (Part 1)

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Picture
The cabin where I lived for 10+ years with Shyla burned to the ground in the notorious #RockyFire in Northern California. The fire has consumed over 70,000 acres of wild land and another fire, #JerusalemFire, is adjacent to it, multiplying in size by the minute.

When I saw on the perimeter map of the Rocky Fire that the old cabin may have burned down, and when Walter's family told me they had been notified by the Sheriff's department that they had lost three structures, I still had hopes in my mind that it somehow survived. It was tucked up the hill away from the main structures on the property, on the crest of a knoll in the oak woodlands. And though it was surrounded by small oaks that provided much needed shade in the dry hot summers, I thought there may be enough distance from the swath of chaparral behind it and the other oaks in the area to render it safe.

I drove out the first day they reopened State Hwy 20 only to find that the road to the property was still barricaded off. My thirst to know was strong, and, even though smoke was in the area, I parked the car...

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  • Home
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    • Ongoing
    • Free Workshops
    • Mindful Resilience Course
    • A six week introductory course in mindfulness
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