Open Heart Studio

11/09/2024

Read David's writing, learn about his upcoming events and programs, and sign up for his email newsletter.

11/08/2024

06/10/2024

This artist’s work is amazing ans a wonderful example of the power of art to heal and transform…….

05/20/2024

This seems like a great idea to try here……

In Svezia, ad Helsingborg, esiste una struttura chiamata Sällbo apartments, con circa 50 appartamenti, dove gli inquilini provengono da generazioni e culture diverse e si impegnano a socializzare tra loro per almeno due ore a settimana. Un modo, questo, escogitato dai servizi sociali, per combattere l'abbandono delle persone anziane, che si ritrovano spesso sole e isolate. Questo complesso residenziale offre un condominio con servizi condivisi, dove giovani e meno giovani vivono insieme. Di solito gli inquilini si incontrano in cucine e spazi condivisi dove possono cucinare e condividere i pasti, fare un puzzle o guardare un film insieme, oppure un inquilino più giovane può aiutare a cambiare una lampadina al suo vicino anziano, e così via. Allo stesso tempo, avendo spazi comuni, queste soluzioni abitative sono solitamente molto più economiche di quelle classiche, e permettono ad ogni inquilino di risparmiare sull’affitto e le bollette.

04/02/2024

150+ ideas from nature that fill your life with calm, clarity, creativity and good health.

04/02/2024

How good are you at making decisions? One of life’s indispensable skills, the art of decision-making is seldom given the importance it is due. In the labyrinth of our minds, making big decisi…

11/21/2023

"The ones who cause suffering must also become the objects of your love. They are the product of an unstable society, and they need our help."

-Thich Nhat Hanh, Touching Peace

05/09/2023

The Ultimate Healing, Resilience and Post-Traumatic Growth Summit

05/09/2023

04/26/2023

Can’t help it! Keep making art everyone! www.lunarbaboon.com

01/19/2023

When the mind is festering with trouble or the heart torn, we can find healing among the silence of mountains or fields, or listen to the simple, steadying rhythm of waves. The slowness and stillness gradually takes us over. Our breathing deepens and our hearts calm and our hungers relent. When serenity is restored, new perspectives open to us and difficulty can begin to seem like an invitation to new growth.

This invitation to friendship with nature does of course entail a willingness to be alone out there. Yet this aloneness is anything but lonely. Solitude gradually clarifies the heart until a true tranquility is reached. The irony is that at the heart of that aloneness you feel intimately connected with the world. Indeed, the beauty of nature is often the wisest balm for it gently relieves and releases the caged mind.

~ John O'Donohue: excerpt from Beauty

[Art: Ruth Evans Art]

12/26/2022

We are not meant to stay wounded. We are supposed to move through our tragedies and challenges and to help each other move through the many painful episodes of our lives. By remaining stuck in the power of our wounds, we block our own transformation. We overlook the greater gifts inherent in our wounds — the strength to overcome them and the lessons that we are meant to receive through them. Wounds are the means through which we enter the hearts of other people. They are meant to teach us to become compassionate and wise.

~ Caroline Myss

[Art: Lisa Lach-Nielsen]

12/24/2022

Merry Christmas, Happy Solstice, Happy Hannakah, Happy New Year to all. We are having a covid Christmas, my husband is positive and symptomatic, so far I am negative. So a quiet holiday with time for reading, reflection and art. We will hopefully have Christmas with family for New Years.

A CHRISTMAS MEDITATION: When I was a kid, the Christmas story gripped my imagination. All these years later, that grip is even stronger. Two themes speak powerfully to me: the reminder that we live among dark forces devoted to protecting wealth and power at all costs, and the implausible notion that something as small and defenseless as a newborn—every one of whom incarnates light and love—could illumine, warm, and transform a cold, dark world.

The darkness is easy to see. Millions in the U.S. and around the world suffer at the hands of thugs who hold (or held) positions of power. To add insult to injury, many who support these thugs believe God has ordained them and the living hells they create, including misogyny, homophobia, antisemitism, white supremacy, and assorted hatreds. How anyone can celebrate Christmas AND endorse these evils is simply beyond me.

In darkness this deep, it’s hard to find the kind of hope that isn’t wishful thinking, hope that’s muscular enough to do business in the real world. To get there, we must work thru the fear that keeps us from speaking and acting in service of love, truth, and justice—especially when that means saying “No” to toxic beliefs held by people we live among, and “Yes” to things they rail against.

Here the Christmas story has a pointed word for us: “Be not afraid.” Those words do not say, “HAVE no fear.” Instead, they say we don’t need to BE fear when we show up in the world. Our inner landscapes offer many places to stand—alongside fear, there are places with names like compassion, trust, faith, and a devotion to truth. By making a conscious choice to stand in one of those places when we speak and act, it’s possible to BE something better than our fear. We can be light, illumining, warming, transforming light.

For me, the Christmas story is a reminder of a simple fact that transcends creeds: all of us have a chance to live as lights in the darkness, right here, right now. Standing alone, my little light makes little difference to anyone but me. Multiply it by the millions who want to take back the night, and we can write a new story for our time: it’s been done before, and it can be done again...

In that spirit, I wish everyone the blessings of light, and a resolve to BE the light!

12/22/2022

Our minds, as well as our bodies, have need of the out-of-doors. Our spirits, too, need simple things, elemental things, the sun and the wind and the rain, moonlight and starlight, sunrise and mist and mossy forest trails, the perfumes of dawn and the smell of fresh-turned earth and the ancient music of wind among the trees.
~ Edwin Way Teale

~ Image by Marinus Keyzer

12/22/2022

We never know what any of our fellow humans is going through or where their journey has taken them………