Podcasts about Clintonville

On this podcast we play local travel ‘This or That' with lots of fun and insightful commentary! Join us for all this and much more!   Show Notes:  On this podcast we play local travel ‘This or That' with lots of fun and insightful commentary! Join us for all this and much more! 5 Calls - Make your voice heard. 5 Calls is the easiest and most effective way for U.S. constituents to make a political impact.   Columbus Arts Festival Columbus Summer Wine Festival Schmidt's German Village Restaurant | Iconic Columbus Dining Experience Schmidt's German Village Menu | Columbus Restaurant Favorites Historic Columbus restaurant brings back legendary all you can eat buffet for first time in 5 years Shop Schmidt's Natural Deodorant Eatery offering build-your-own bowl, burgers and more launching new location Clean Eatz Clean Eatz - Cafe Menu Popular BBQ spot announces opening date of new Clintonville location World-famous band donates $100k to two Columbus nonprofits According to ‘Yelp,' this family-owned Central Ohio bakery serves some of the best pies in America Just Pies Menu (Full Menu Update 2025) Stonewall Columbus Pride 2025 2025 Pride Month: Events happening in and around Columbus 7 Body Parts You Should Never Ignore After 50  

Balanced Family Academy of Clintonville is proudly owned and operated by husband-and-wife team Rob and Courtney Lewis. The couple began their entrepreneurial journey together by launching their Balanced Family Academy franchise, only to face the immediate challenges brought on by the COVID pandemic. In this piece, we delve into their motivation for starting a Balanced …

It's been more than four years since Riley Kasper of Clintonville found himself in the middle of the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As the calendar year comes to an end, I offer this poem as a re-write of a text that one of my Sanghas has been studying. The text is called The Eight Realizations of Great Beings, one story says it was one of the last teachings given by the Buddha before passing into PariNirvana.I re-wrote the teaching as a way of distilling and remembering the practices we did together during our Autumn Ango. The teaching is about liberation and the profound realization of our interconnected life. I offer it as a capping phrase to this Autumn of our practice life, and as something we can turn over in our hearts throughout the winter and coming year. For the dharma teachings always get better with age.The Eight Realizations: Pith Instructions for Living a Joyful LifeI—ImpermanenceAll the world is impermanent. Change is our nature.Our bodies, minds, the body of the great earth and everyone we loveThe universe with its stars and solar systemsWill change, are changing, will decay and give way toSomething newRealize the truth of impermanenceAnd wisdom will be your guideII—Clinging/SatisfactionWhen we try to hold on to something that is changingWe sufferGreed, hoarding, taking more than one's shareThis is clingingThis is sufferingPractice satisfaction, know how much is enoughLive in reciprocity with the earth and all beingsIII—SimplicityThe mind is insatiable, always wanting moreand more, and moreFollow the path of liberationLive simplyMake wisdom + compassion your sole vocationIV—Joyful EffortTo follow the WayIs like trying to swim upstreamIt takes enthusiastic perseveranceAnd great carePractice with others andYou are buoyed by their generous currentsV—MindfulnessMindfulness is a great friendAttention is healingTruly an act of loveListen to the wisdom of yourBody, feelings, mind and awarenessPractice discernmentAnd you won't be misledVI—GenerosityGenerosity is a pathA generous heart is always fullTake joy in givingAnd receivingAnd you will realizeThe gift of this lifeVII—InterconnectionVast is the Buddha's robe of liberationA formless field of interconnectionAnd kindnessTransmute unskillful desiresInto the heart of bodhicittaFill your bowl with compassionAnd offer it to allVIII—VowIn this world of suffering and loveRemember that you are not separateFrom anyone or anythingVow to walk this pathFor the benefit of all beingsThroughout time and spaceThese are the 8 realizations, the practices of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, Ancestors and other great beings. Practice them, develop wisdom and compassion, and live in reciprocity with all beings. This is the way to living a joyful life.I'm Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, budding Astrologer and Artist. I currently live in Columbus, Ohio with my partner Patrick Kennyo Dunn, we facilitate an in-person meditation gathering every Wednesday from 7P - 8:30P at ILLIO in Clintonville through Mud Lotus Sangha. If you happen to be in Columbus, feel free to stop by. We have weekly meditation gatherings and monthly Saturday offerings as well.Thanks for reading friends! The recording is from a dharma talk that was given during Monday Night Meditation. You can find out more below. Also, I would love to hear from you, please feel free to like or comment on this post—and share it!Current OfferingsSpiritual Counseling — IFS informed, mindful somatic therapyAstrology— I am starting to offer astrology readings. I have found astrology to be a helpful map for connecting to the more mythic unfolding of life. It can help us honor our gifts, navigate challenges, get perspective and connect with planetary allies. It can also offer guidance on the questions that arise in our lives and aid us in stepping more fully into our wholeness. I am currently offering the following types of readings* Natal Chart Readings* Astro Counseling Package* Transit Readings* Great Work of Your Life Reading* Astrology Gift Card — give the gift of an astrology readingArt Shop — I sell my original paintings and printsMonday Night Meditation + DharmaEvery Monday 6P PT / 9P ETJoin me on zoom for 40 minutes of meditation and a dharma talk. We are currently exploring a text called The Eight Realizations of Great Beings, which gives us an opportunity to practice inquiry and embodying love as we discover our Awakened Nature together.This event is hosted by the Zen Community of Oregon. All are welcome to join. Drop in any time.Zoom Link for Monday NightSky + Rose: An Emergent Online Contemplative Community Braiding Spirit and SoulSunday Jan 510:30A PT - 12:30P PT / 1:30P ET - 3:30P ETWhat is it? An experiment in the impossible task of excluding nothing and loving everything. An alchemy of play, presence and wandering into the shadows, you could say.Sky & Rose is a practice container that will:* Center group parts work practices to explore the fluidity, span and dream of who we are - somebody, nobody, everybody. You will be invited to express yourself vocally and physically, engage your imagination and play outside habituation.* Do interpersonal and group meditation practices of seeing, being and awakening.* Directly explore emotional embodiment & shadow work* Include Beauty, Art & Wonderment as core practice elementsThrough rituals of imagination, meditation technologies and co-created fields of intentional play, we can slip out, for a time, of confining identities defined by our histories, culture and comfort. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

While sitting under the bodhi tree through the night, Shakyamuni Buddha saw the morning star, was enlightened and said:I, together with the great earth and all sentient beings, simultaneously attain the way.In the Zen tradition today is Bodhi day. The day that we commemorate the Buddha's awakening and celebrate our buddha nature. Last night, locally, people from the Zen Columbus Sangha, Mud Lotus Sangha and Grove City Zen held a meditation vigil and sat into the dark of the night at the Pragmatic Buddhist Center. It was moving to join together across local sanghas here in Columbus, and sit with so many other practitioners across the globe.I've been reflecting on the Buddha's life this week, the story I keep coming back to is when in the midst of exhaustion he has this memory from childhood arise of sitting in contentment and ease under the shade of a rose apple tree watching the plowing of the golden grain.Here's an excerpt from the Pali Cannon.I thought: 'I recall once, when my father the Sakyan was working, and I was sitting in the cool shade of a rose-apple tree, then — quite withdrawn from sensuality, withdrawn from unskillful mental qualities — I entered & remained in the first jhana: rapture & pleasure born from withdrawal, accompanied by directed thought & evaluation. Could that be the path to Awakening?' Then, following on that memory, came the realization: 'That is the path to Awakening.' I thought: 'So why am I afraid of that pleasure that has nothing to do with sensuality, nothing to do with unskillful mental qualities?' I thought: 'I am no longer afraid of that pleasure that has nothing to do with sensuality, nothing to do with unskillful mental qualities, but it is not easy to achieve that pleasure with a body so extremely emaciated. Suppose I were to take some solid food: some rice & porridge.' So I took some solid food: some rice & porridge. Now five monks had been attending on me, thinking, 'If Gotama, our contemplative, achieves some higher state, he will tell us.' But when they saw me taking some solid food — some rice & porridge — they were disgusted and left me, thinking, 'Gotama the contemplative is living luxuriously. He has abandoned his exertion and is backsliding into abundance.'I love the reflection, could this be the path to awakening, this is the path to awakening.My teacher used to quote the bible saying, that to enter the kingdom of heaven, one must become like a child.Is it possible, that recovering something basic that we all knew as children is the path to awakening?To reclaim wonderment, to reconnect with innocence, to allow that innate curiosity and joy of just being you, alive together with the world.Today, on Bodhi Day, I wish that for us.…I'm Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, budding Astrologer and Artist. I currently live in Columbus, Ohio with my partner Patrick Kennyo Dunn, we facilitate an in-person meditation gathering every Wednesday from 7P - 8:30P at ILLIO in Clintonville through Mud Lotus Sangha. If you happen to be in Columbus, feel free to stop by. We have weekly meditation gatherings and monthly Saturday offerings as well.Thanks for reading friends! The recording is from a dharma talk that was given during Monday Night Meditation. You can find out more below. Also, I would love to hear from you, please feel free to like or comment on this post—and share it! Current OfferingsSpiritual Counseling — IFS informed, mindful somatic therapyAstrology— I am starting to offer astrology readings. I have found astrology to be a helpful map for connecting to the more mythic unfolding of life. It can help us honor our gifts, navigate challenges, get perspective and connect with planetary allies. It can also offer guidance on the questions that arise in our lives and aid us in stepping more fully into our wholeness. I am currently offering the following types of readingsNatal Chart ReadingsAstro Counseling PackageTransit ReadingsGreat Work of Your Life ReadingAstrology Gift Card — give the gift of an astrology readingArt Shop — I sell my original paintings and printsMonday Night Meditation + DharmaEvery Monday 6P PT / 9P ETJoin me on zoom for 40 minutes of meditation and a dharma talk. We are currently exploring a text called The Eight Realizations of Great Beings, which gives us an opportunity to practice inquiry and embodying love as we discover our Awakened Nature together.This event is hosted by the Zen Community of Oregon. All are welcome to join. Drop in any time.Zoom Link for Monday NightSky + Rose: An Emergent Online Contemplative Community Braiding Spirit and SoulSunday Jan 510:30A PT - 12:30P PT / 1:30P ET - 3:30P ETWhat is it? An experiment in the impossible task of excluding nothing and loving everything. An alchemy of play, presence and wandering into the shadows, you could say.Sky & Rose is a practice container that will:* Center group parts work practices to explore the fluidity, span and dream of who we are - somebody, nobody, everybody. You will be invited to express yourself vocally and physically, engage your imagination and play outside habituation.* Do interpersonal and group meditation practices of seeing, being and awakening.* Directly explore emotional embodiment & shadow work* Include Beauty, Art & Wonderment as core practice elementsThrough rituals of imagination, meditation technologies and co-created fields of intentional play, we can slip out, for a time, of confining identities defined by our histories, culture and comfort. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

What do you want?What do you really want?The cyber Monday sales have been flashing items, workshops, experiences that we could possibly want, that we should want, that we somehow need.In one of my Sanghas we are exploring a text called The Eight Realizations of Great Beings. This past week we have been exploring the nature of desire.The invitation to explore is part of what I love about the Zen Buddhist tradition. What is it like to bring a non-judgmental attention to the ordinary and natural experience of desire? To your relationship to desire?Sometimes desire carries a lot of shame, I want things that aren't good for me or that I was told I shouldn't want.Or confusion, I was told that my wanting was wrong, selfish, sinful.Some of us may have distanced ourselves from desire. Others may feel that our desires drive our lives in unhelpful ways.If we look closely we see that desire animates us. Desire fuels our life, seeds our dreams, feeds us, motivates many actions and can open the gate to actual pleasure, satisfaction, gratitude, compassion and connection.This podcast is a meditation on desire. It's an invitation to reflect on your relationship to desire and to explore how the energy of desire is linked to compassion and interconnection.As I was reflecting on desire I listened to an interview with Bayo Akomolafe called From the Skin of Things to the Bone of Things, the interview was moving and spanned many topics at some point he posited.I wonder what a sensuous solidarity looks like, maybe it lives somewhere between the cracks of problems and solutions. I wonder what a sensuous becoming monstrous looks like—I wonder what it means to shape-shift. I wonder what the humpless camel said as it approached the desert. It wasn't how do I solve this desert, maybe the solution for the desert is to shape-shift, to grow humps—to become the desert.I heard him say that and I felt a yes well up inside me. This is how desire becomes compassion, this is how longing opens to non-separation, this is how our vows intertwine with the vows of each other and the great earth. A sensuous solidarity is another name for bodhicitta.Deep love for all beings and this world.To close, I'd like to share a poem by Mary Oliver. I consider this a capping phrase to this meditation on desire. An offering and a gift to a heart that is learning to love one's self and this beautiful, heart-breaking world.To Begin With, the Sweet Grassby Mary OliverI.Will the hungry ox stand in the field and not eatof the sweet grass?Will the owl bite off its own wings?Will the lark forget to lift its body in the air orforget to sing?Will the rivers run upstream?Behold, I say—beholdthe reliability and the finery and the teachingsof this gritty earth gift.II.Eat bread and understand comfort.Drink water, and understand delight.Visit the garden where the scarlet trumpetsare opening their bodies for the hummingbirdswho are drinking the sweetness, who arethrillingly gluttonous.For one thing leads to another.Soon you will notice how stones shine underfoot.Eventually tides will be the only calendar you believe in.And someone's face, whom you love, will be as a starboth intimate and ultimate,and you will be both heart-shaken and respectful.And you will hear the air itself, like a beloved, whisper:oh, let me, for a while longer, enter the twobeautiful bodies of your lungs.III.The witchery of livingis my whole conversationwith you, my darlings.All I can tell you is what I know.Look, and look again.This world is not just a little thrill for the eyes.It's more than bones.It's more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse.It's more than the beating of the single heart.It's praising.It's giving until the giving feels like receiving.You have a life—just imagine that!You have this day, and maybe another, and maybestill another.IV.Someday I am going to ask my friend Paulus,the dancer, the potter,to make me a begging bowlwhich I believemy soul needs.And if I come to you,to the door of your comfortable housewith unwashed clothes and unclean fingernails,will you put something into it?I would like to take this chance.I would like to give you this chance.V.We do one thing or another; we stay the same, or wechange.Congratulations, ifyou have changed.VI.Let me ask you this.Do you also think that beauty exists for somefabulous reason?And, if you have not been enchanted by this adventure—your life—what would do for you?VII.What I loved in the beginning, I think, was mostly myself.Never mind that I had to, since somebody had to.That was many years ago.Since then I have gone out from my confinements,though with difficulty.I mean the ones that thought to rule my heart.I cast them out, I put them on the mush pile.They will be nourishment somehow (everything is nourishmentsomehow or another).And I have become the child of the clouds, and of hope.I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is.I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned,I have become younger.And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know?Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.…Thanks for reading friends! This dharma talk was given during Monday Night Meditation. You can find out more below.I'm Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, budding Astrologer and Artist. I currently live in Columbus, Ohio with my partner Patrick Kennyo Dunn, we facilitate an in-person meditation gathering every Wednesday from 7P - 8:30P at ILLIO in Clintonville through Mud Lotus Sangha. If you happen to be in Columbus, feel free to stop by. We have weekly meditation gatherings and monthly Saturday offerings as well.Current OfferingsSpiritual Counseling — IFS informed, mindful somatic therapyAstrology— I am starting to offer astrology readings. I have found astrology to be a helpful map for connecting to the more mythic unfolding of life. It can help us honor our gifts, navigate challenges, get perspective and connect with planetary allies. It can also offer guidance on the questions that arise in our lives and aid us in stepping more fully into our wholeness. I am currently offering the following types of readingsNatal Chart ReadingsAstro Counseling PackageTransit ReadingsGreat Work of Your Life ReadingAstrology Gift Card — give the gift of an astrology readingArt Shop — I sell my original paintings and printsMonday Night Meditation + DharmaEvery Monday 6P PT / 9P ETJoin me on zoom for 40 minutes of meditation and a dharma talk. We are currently exploring a text called The Eight Realizations of Great Beings, which gives us an opportunity to practice inquiry and embodying love as we discover our Awakened Nature together.This event is hosted by the Zen Community of Oregon. All are welcome to join. Drop in any time.Zoom Link for Monday NightSky + Rose: An Emergent Online Contemplative Community Braiding Spirit and SoulSunday Jan 510:30A PT - 12:30P PT / 1:30P ET - 3:30P ETWhat is it? An experiment in the impossible task of excluding nothing and loving everything. An alchemy of play, presence and wandering into the shadows, you could say.Sky & Rose is a practice container that will:* Center group parts work practices to explore the fluidity, span and dream of who we are - somebody, nobody, everybody. You will be invited to express yourself vocally and physically, engage your imagination and play outside habituation.* Do interpersonal and group meditation practices of seeing, being and awakening.* Directly explore emotional embodiment & shadow work* Include Beauty, Art & Wonderment as core practice elementsThrough rituals of imagination, meditation technologies and co-created fields of intentional play, we can slip out, for a time, of confining identities defined by our histories, culture and comfort. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

Greetings Friends! In these last few weeks I have been reflecting a lot on the story of Matchig Labdron and the roots of a practice known as Chod, a practice that works directly with fear through generosity. I want to share some of these reflections about fear, generosity and the awakened feminine. I also want to share that Jogen and I are facilitating our next session of Sky+Rose on Sunday Dec. 1. Sky+Rose is an emergent practice community blending soul + spirit work. More information is at the bottom of this post.What Haunts You?What are you so afraid of? Ask this question and perhaps a lot comes up, given our political climate right now, there is, perhaps, a lot to fear.Yet, what is fear?Fear has an elusive quality. Because we don't want to feel it— it quickly morphs into some other feeling, emotion or behavior. Fear's presence turns into internet scrolling, online shopping, a bag of chips, worry, etc.In this way other emotions layer on top of our fears. And fear remains hidden, we start to fear it.Facing FearIn dharma practice, we are invited to turn towards fear. Which often starts as turning towards our fear of fear.The dharma teachings remind us that all experience is ungraspable, interdependent, changing. When we actually try to stake out any experience, it starts to transform into something else. Our minds have trouble with this teaching. It is difficult to comprehend the instability of a single moment of experience. The radical empty-yet-apparent nature of feelings, sensations and emotions.When we give our attention to the direct experience of fear, fear is allowed to transform—our relationship to it changes.The Awakened FeminineThe 11th Century Tibetan Teacher and Yogini Matchig Labdron explores the relationship between fear and generosity in the practice of Chod. A practice that is rooted in the insight of the Prajna Paramita Sutras and expressed through the forms of a indigenous Tibetan healing ritual.Matchig was born with the Tibetan seed syllable AH, on her third eye—which is considered the mark of a dakini. As a young child she memorized the Prajna Paramita sutras, and was invited to recite them in gatherings throughout her village. At some point she met her teacher, who helped her awaken to the insight contained within the Prajna Paramita Sutras, the insight into emptiness and interconnection.The Prajna Paramita Sutras emerged during what is called the Second Turning of the Wheel of Dharma. A revolution within the Buddhist community that overturned monastic authority. This revolution is known as Mahayana Buddhism and with it came the understanding that all beings are inherently buddha—one did not need to become a monastic, nor did one's gender determine one's capacity for awakening.Prajna Paramita in her embodied form is the Mother of all Buddhas, Great Mother Spaciousness, Wisdom beyond Wisdom—she came to symbolize emptiness as pure potential energy—pregnant darkness—the wisdom that is beyond intellectual understanding.Around the time that Prajna Paramita emerged in Buddhism, the gnostic tradition was arising in Christianity, and with it, the image of the Divine Sophia—the feminine expression of God.The emergence of these feminine embodiments of the divine came with a set of teachings in both traditions that focused on the immanence of god/awakened nature. That right here where we stand, we are on sacred ground— this is the land of awakening. This very body, our very life— the body of buddha, the body of divine nature.These teachings also pointed to knowledge beyond the intellect. For gnosis or knowing itself need not be mediated by rational thought, a religious authority figure or dualistic mind play. Our awakened nature is immediate, here, all-inclusive and all-encompassing. We can know this for ourselves.The Places that Scare YouWhen Matchig was taking leave of her teacher she asked: How can I benefit all beings? Her teacher replied with a set of pith instructions or slogans, which became Matchig's path and practice. They are:Confess all your hidden faults Approach that which you find repulsive Whoever you think you can not help, help them Anything you are attached to, let go of it Go to the places that scare you, like cemeteries Sentient beings are limitless, like the skyBe aware! Find the Buddha inside yourself!Here are a set of instructions for turning towards our fears, with curiosity—a generosity of heart.When fear arises our normal reaction is to push it away, to get small, hide, distract, isolate…What happens when we turn towards fear, when we invite fear from a place of mindfulness, clarity and compassion?The Prajna Paramita sutras remind us that fear is elusive, that if we look for it, we won't be able to grab a hold of it, that it is empty of an independent nature.Often, we are afraid of fear. So we avoid doing things, going places, talking to people and letting go of unhelpful attachments. We really don't want to feel the sensations of fear.Generosity and FearMatchig discovered the practice that became the roots of Chod, when she had an extraordinary experience while meditating during an empowerment ceremony. Suddenly she found herself in a tree, in deep meditation being harassed by a Naga protector of the lake under the tree where she sat. Fear arose in her, but instead of giving into the fear—she offered the Naga-spirit the only thing she had—her body. The Naga spirit was so impressed with her selfless generosity and dharma practice, that he transformed himself into her dharma protector.While this story sounds grandiose or mythic in its telling. There are some very ordinary and practical teachings contained within it. This is actually something we can practice in meditation in relation to our own fears. We can summon a small fear or allow fear to arise in meditation. When it arises, instead of pushing it away, making ourselves small, distracting or fighting. We can practice meeting it with generosity. Offering our presence and our body (ie feeling the sensations of fear in our body as it arises). When we do this—when we feel the fear directly.Something is allowed to shift.I find that there is something about this kind of generosity, this kind of giving that confronts, even indirectly, our core fears. For many of us fear rests in the body, as a fear of death & bodily harm, that gives us a pervasive feeling of not being safe or an existential anxiety. When we imagine giving at the level of our bodies, when we invite the feeling of fear from the place of generosity, when we meet fear with a willingness to feel and experience fear in our body—we open ourselves up to the insight of emptiness, all inclusive awareness, interdependence.Our bodies are not our own, all is borrowed, all is shared. Fear arises from separation. Generosity is a practice of connection.The one who gives, the one who receives, the gift itself—are all one, one complete life. To practice generosity we open to the gift of this life, fear and all. And in this gift, fear transforms into the energy of life itself. Our bodies do have the capacity to feel fear, and when we do this— fear no longer has power over us. We learn on an embodied level that we don't need to be afraid of feeling fear.…Thanks for reading friends! This dharma talk was given during Monday Night Meditation. You can find out more below.I'm Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, budding Astrologer and Artist. I currently live in Columbus, Ohio with my partner Patrick Kennyo Dunn, we facilitate an in-person meditation gathering every Wednesday from 7P - 8:30P at ILLIO in Clintonville through Mud Lotus Sangha. If you happen to be in Columbus, feel free to stop by. We have weekly meditation gatherings and monthly Saturday offerings as well.Current OfferingsMonday Night Meditation + DharmaEvery Monday 6P PT / 9P ETJoin me on zoom for 40 minutes of meditation and a dharma talk. We are currently exploring a text called The Eight Realizations of Great Beings, which gives us an opportunity to practice inquiry and embodying love as we discover our Awakened Nature together.This event is hosted by the Zen Community of Oregon. All are welcome to join. Drop in any time.Zoom Link for Monday NightSky + Rose: The Ritual of Strange FlowersSunday Dec 110:30A PT - 12:30P PT / 1:30P ET - 3:30P ETHow do we know that anything is only one thing? Strange flowers bloom within and without.  What is not a flower?  What is not strange when held in a steady gaze? Each of us are strange flowers. How familiar are our own beauties?  What of the self could be revisioned ?We will actuate our own blemished bodies as intimate beauty. We may take grotesque shapes and discover them differently.  We'll look underneath and behind and move wierdly to enter new worlds. We will play in ways the authorities that haunt our minds may not give their seal of approval, releasing energy, shedding man and mind-made shackles.Sample ScheduleRitual of UnknowingSeated Meditation (bring a strange flower to meditate on)Somatic/Parts Work ExplorationsGroup Check-inClosingPlease rsvp and we will send the zoom link + additional information to prepare for the session.Spiritual Counseling — IFS informed, mindful somatic therapyAstrology— I am starting to offer astrology readings. I have found astrology to be a helpful map for connecting to the more mythic unfolding of life. It can help us honor our gifts, navigate challenges, get perspective and connect with planetary allies. It can also offer guidance on the questions that arise in our lives and aid us in stepping more fully into our wholeness. I am currently offering the following types of readingsNatal Chart ReadingsAstro Counseling PackageTransit ReadingsGreat Work of Your Life Reading This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

It's beautiful to be taking refuge together in all the various places we find ourselves.Ah. Here we are. Survivors of the election. Spiritual warriors attempting to live a vow-fueled life. Hearts turned towards love larger then fear. Even if fear is rattling in your gut, or anger is raging strong in your body or numbness has you hiding out.Whatever you are feeling is welcome.Whatever you are feeling is wisdom.Its your body telling you something—That something might be: This isn't ok. NO! I don't feel safe. I am afraid. I don't know what to do. I don't know if I have the energy to fight. This matters. This is what i love. This is what i care about.Or something else. Listen. What is your body trying to say to you? This may change moment to moment.In the Zen Community of Oregon, we are currently studying a text called The Eight Realizations of a Great Being. A set of pith instructions given by the Buddha shortly before they died.This week we explored the Fifth RealizationIgnorance leads to birth and death. Bodhisattvas are always mindfulTo study and learn extensively, to increase their wisdomAnd perfect their eloquence, so they can teach and enlighten all beings,And impart great joy to all.Dogen Zenji calls it Always Maintaining Mindfulness and comments:Mindfulness helps you to guard the dharma, so you never lose it. If you practice this the robbers of fear and desire cannot enter you. Therefore you should always maintain mindfulness. It is like wearing armor going into a battlefield, so there is nothing to be afraid of.When we have mindfulness, or heartfulness—we know who we are, and where we stand. We are aligned with vow, the great vow—to awaken for the sake of all beings!Mindfulness has its popular dimensions in our culture. Its found its way into businesses, schools, the military—its featured in taglines like Mindful Car Washing, Mindful Jogging, Mindful Eating, Mindful Sleep Therapy. Its said to help workers stay focused, increase productivity, basically make everything better…Yet, mindfulness is also subversive. A mindfulness instructor, Zen practitioner and friend said to to me in a conversation once, mindfulness is shadow work. He has taught mindfulness in business settings, and when he said this, I felt the truth in his words. Mindfulness is empowering and it also brings us into direct relationship with the wisdom of our bodies, the feelings perhaps we have been trying to run from, the fixed beliefs that drive our life.Through mindfulness we aren't lost in the wimbs or conditioning of our thinking / reactivity. We can live more authentically, we can ask questions, make space for our anger and feel the wisdom of our fears.Mindfulness is our best english translation of the word sati, which means more “to recollect” or “to remember.” What are we remembering? Our practice, the dharma, heart, we are reconnecting with what really matters.If you are feeling a lot right now, its your body saying yes, this matters, our interconnected life matters. The earth, immigrants in our country, trans + non-binary people, queer folks, women, people of color, the more than human world—matter.Love matters. Wisdom matters. Seeing through the forces of ignorance matter. Awakening from our collective delusion matters.Mindfulness also means being present with, allowing what's here to be here—in the different dimensions of our being:My teacher Chozen Roshi would often teach the four foundations of mindfulness during morning meditation at the monastery. This teaching offers a ground up approach to experiencing this precious interconnected life. Here we start with our body.Body—bringing awareness to the felt sense of our bodies, part by part feeling our bodies from within the somatic experience of the body allows us to awaken to the wisdom of our embodied experience.Feelings—next we include feelings, allowing awareness to make space for the flow of life energy that we call emotion or feeling. To feel feelings without needed to make a story about them, without needing to name them. Just to feel the energy itself. This is our energy. This is our life.Thought—So often we just take our thoughts to be true, or we get in a fight with them. To bring mindfulness to the thought stream empowers us to see/hear what we are telling ourselves. It is possible to experience thought as pure sensation, another sense in the field of awareness. To do this, gives us freedom from the tyranny of our conditioned thoughts. Mind is freed up.Awareness itself—after opening to and including body, feelings and thought, next we open to awareness itself. Resting in pure awareness, senses open, one single unified life. This is our shared being, all is included, all is allowed.Thoughts and emotions often want to take us out of our experience, into story, worry, blaming others, searching for information—we can learn to follow them back home, to the liberated self.I have been reflecting on the teaching of the Five Wisdom Dakinis that comes from the Tibetan tradition, Lama Tsultrim Allione writes about them in her book Wisdom Rising.Dakini is one depiction of the awakened feminine, known also as a “sky-dancer” or “sky-goer”, the dakini principle is here to wake us up from our habits of ego-identification. Dakinis are often portrayed in motion, dancing on delusion and decorated in bone ornaments. The five wisdom dakinis are portrayed as fierce and passionate beings who transmute/use the energy of the emotions as the liberated energy of awakening. I feel like this time is inviting us to feel and use the energy of the emotions to meet the challenges we face as a country and a global community. We need the awakened feminine with her fierce hope and embodied wisdom. The five wisdom dakinis are connected to colors, the great elements and a buddha family. Earth—Yellow — Ratna — transmutes the desire for sensual pleasure and security into the Wisdom of Sameness, Abundance and GenerosityWater—Blue — Vajra — transmutes anger into Mirror Like Wisdom and ClarityFire—Red — Padma — transmutes passionate desire for connection and sexual energy into Discerning Wisdom and CompassionSpace—White — Buddha — transmutes fear/ignorance into All Inclusive WisdomAir—Green — Karma — transmutes jealousy/comparison/insecurity into All Accomplishing Wisdom or Great ActivityThe stories and koans of the women ancestors show us how real women have embodied these energies in their life of practice-realization. Stories help us see beyond ourselves and our limiting beliefs and also remind us that others have faced challenges and difficulties on the path. They also help us connect to practitioners beyond our current teachers or community. Here are some stories I'd like to share:The Old Woman burns down the Hermitage An old woman built a hermitage for a monk and supported him for twenty years. One day, to test the extent of the monk's enlightenment and understanding, she sent a young, beautiful, girl to the hut with orders to embrace him. When the girl embraced the monk and asked, “How is this?” He replied stiffly, “A withered tree among frozen rocks; not a trace of warmth for three winters.” Hearing of the monk's response, the old woman grabbed a stick, went to the hermitage, beat him and chased him out of the hut. She then put the hermitage to the torch and burned it to the ground.Ryonen Scars her FaceLingzhao's I'm helpingSatsujo WeepsTo close, I offer some questions for reflection as we land in this moment and also look to the future.What is this moment awakening in me? (Stay with yourself, listen to your body, feelings, thoughts, vow—we gather wisdom by listening to our whole being, and then use discernment, what is coming from conditioning and reactivity, and what is wise—if you don't know, keep listening)How do I want to show up for myself / my community?What supports / teachings / practices might I need to do this?What nourishes me?Thanks for reading friends! This dharma talk was given during Monday Night Meditation. You can find out more below.I'm Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, budding Astrologer and Artist. I currently live in Columbus, Ohio with my partner Patrick Kennyo Dunn, we facilitate an in-person meditation gathering every Wednesday from 7P - 8:30P at ILLIO in Clintonville through Mud Lotus Sangha. If you happen to be in Columbus, feel free to stop by. We have weekly meditation gatherings and monthly Saturday offerings as well.Current OfferingsSpiritual Counseling — IFS informed, mindful somatic therapyAstrology— I am starting to offer astrology readings. I have found astrology to be a helpful map for connecting to the more mythic unfolding of life. It can help us honor our gifts, navigate challenges, get perspective and connect with planetary allies. It can also offer guidance on the questions that arise in our lives and aid us in stepping more fully into our wholeness. I am currently offering the following types of readingsNatal Chart ReadingsAstro Counseling PackageTransit ReadingsGreat Work of Your Life ReadingMonday Night Meditation + DharmaEvery Monday 6P PT / 9P ETJoin me on zoom for 40 minutes of meditation and a dharma talk. We are currently exploring a text called The Eight Realizations of Great Beings, which gives us an opportunity to practice inquiry and embodying love as we discover our Awakened Nature together.This event is hosted by the Zen Community of Oregon. All are welcome to join. Drop in any time.Zoom Link for Monday NightSky + Rose: The Ritual of Strange FlowersSunday Dec 1 10:30A PT - 12:30P PT / 1:30P ET - 3:30P ETHow do we know that anything is only one thing? Strange flowers bloom within and without.  What is not a flower?  What is not strange when held in a steady gaze? Each of us are strange flowers. How familiar are our own beauties?  What of the self could be revisioned ?We will actuate our own blemished bodies as intimate beauty. We may take grotesque shapes and discover them differently.  We'll look underneath and behind and move wierdly to enter new worlds. We will play in ways the authorities that haunt our minds may not give their seal of approval, releasing energy, shedding man and mind-made shackles.Sample ScheduleRitual of UnknowingSeated Meditation (bring a strange flower to meditate on)Somatic/Parts Work ExplorationsGroup Check-inClosingPlease rsvp and we will send the zoom link + additional information to prepare for the session. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

Mark Somerson of Columbus Business First has a look at local business news

A couple weeks ago I heard a sound near our back screendoor, as if an animal were wrestling with a large bag of cat food. I assumed my cat Sasha was trying to break into her bag of treats, and noted the sound but didn't respond right away.A few minutes later, the sound long faded, I went to check on Sasha to see how far she got with trying to claw her way into her treat bag. As I approached the backdoor I did not find Sasha, nor a clawed open bag of treats. Our screen door was open to the size of Sasha, outside her large bag of cat food lay open on the porch stairs. As I stood, stunned at the sight of a catless night—Sasha whipped around the backyard chasing something that remained in the shadows, her tail puffed out to the size of a racoon's tail.I have been thinking about wanting. Hunger. The pull of a certain kind of desire to grasp for, reach out for…something else. This energy often creeps up the stairs of my body from somewhere in the dark and before I even realize it my hand is holding my phone, or reading news headlines, or I'm fixing myself a snack or another cup of coffee.This time of year wanting seems heightened.Something about the seasons turning deeper into autumn. Trees shedding leaves as the sun looms lower in the fading day-lit sky.The animal in us is preparing to hibernate. The hungry heart is trying to find nourishment. The pull to nourish, to find safety— in the midst of an uncertain world heightened by a polarizing election, on-going war and climate instability—is completely natural. Our bodies and nervous systems seek balance.Yet what is nourishing? What is safety when the ground appears to be constantly moving? Who is the one whose hand slips up from the shadows, then vanishes back into hiding, as spirals of shame circle?You just wasted an hour scrolling. I can't believe you ate that. Wow, you pressed snooze again?  You're worthless. Unloveable. Unfit for human consumption. The shame says…When I lived at Great Vow Zen Monastery we had a practice of singing to the hungry heart. Calling to this part of us, this part of others and our world. And instead of shunning it or throwing shade on it or blaming and shaming it—we would invite a spirit of welcome, acceptance, love and understanding.The chant is called the Kanromon and was written together with Krishna Das and Bernie Glassman. Here are the words, if you would like to sing it too.Calling all you hungry hearts. Everywhere through endless time. You who wander, you who thirst.I offer you this bodhi mind. Calling all you hungry spirits. All the lost and the left behind. Calling all you hungry hearts. Everywhere through endless time. Gather round and share this meal.Your joy and your sorrow, I make it mine.It is part of a ceremony for the hungry heart, called the gate of sweet nectar. A version of this ceremony is part of the daily liturgy at Soto Zen Monasteries in Japan.It is one of the songs from our liturgy that I brought into my practice outside of the monastery walls. I sing it on walks through town, sometimes before I eat a meal, to my cat and before my altar with a stick of incense as my heart opens to the size of the world. It is a song of offering. It is a song of deep love. It's a song that lets me be lost—a song that speaks to those in the shadows. It has the power to save a ghost. To make the lonely, smile. It empowers us to hug our demons, and face the unpredictability of life in human flesh.This week I had the opportunity to facilitate and participate in three practice communities where we gathered together to welcome the hungry heart. The gatherings were simple. We sat in loving awareness and invited our hungry hearts to the table of our lives. And, through our collective attention, love and understanding the hungry part was given space to tell + show what it wants and needs, and then experience a deeper form of nourishment. The nourishment of compassionate attention and collective witnessing is powerful. When parts of us are hidden in shame, they often feel like they are the only ones who feel this way. Or that they are fundamentally wrong, or unloveable, or unworthy.To integrate the hungry heart into our lives, to invite them into the light of awareness— is healing. It's like reclaiming a piece of our nature. For in that invitation, transformation starts to happen, true nourishment becomes possible.As we head into election week, I feel it's important to remember my vows to myself and this world.I vow to create sacred spaces in this violent and beautiful world where we:* Center healing* Remember our true nature* Challenge our assumptions* Turn towards the shadow* And live as if love were the pointWhat are your vows? How do you intend to show up in this unpredictable, precarious, ever-changing experience we call human life, or the world, or america?Current OfferingsSpiritual Counseling — I practice at the confluence of spirituality and psychology, integrating mind, body and spirit. Spiritual Counseling can help you:* Companion Grief + Loss* Clarify Life Purpose* Heal Relational Conflict + Inner Conflict* Work with Shadow Material* Heal your relationship with Eating, Food or Body Image* Spiritual Emergence* Integrate Psychedelic or Mystical Experiences* Move Through Creative Blocks, Career Impasses and BurnoutIn addition to my Zen training, I am trained in Buddhist Psychology, Internal Family Systems (IFS), Dream Work, Hakomi (Somatic Therapy), Process Art and Mindful Eating. My approach also has a deep Jungian influence.Astrology— I am starting to offer astrology readings. I have found astrology to be a helpful map for connecting to the more mythic unfolding of life. It can help us honor our gifts, navigate challenges, get perspective and connect with planetary allies. It can also offer guidance on the questions that arise in our lives and aid us in stepping more fully into our wholeness. I am currently offering the following types of readingsNatal Chart ReadingsAstro Counseling PackageTransit ReadingsGreat Work of Your Life ReadingMonday Night Meditation + DharmaEvery Monday 6P PT / 9P ETJoin me on zoom for 40 minutes of meditation and a dharma talk. We are currently exploring a text called The Eight Realizations of Great Beings, which gives us an opportunity to practice inquiry and embodying love as we discover our Awakened Nature together.This event is hosted by the Zen Community of Oregon. All are welcome to join. Drop in any time.Zoom Link for Monday NightSky + RoseWhat is it? An experiment in the impossible task of excluding nothing and loving everything. An alchemy of play, presence and wandering into the shadows, you could say.Sky & Rose is a practice container that will:* Center group parts work practices to explore the fluidity, span and dream of who we are - somebody, nobody, everybody. You will be invited to express yourself vocally and physically, engage your imagination and play outside habituation.* Do interpersonal and group meditation practices of seeing, being and awakening.* Directly explore emotional embodiment & shadow work* Include Beauty, Art & Wonderment as core practice elements Through rituals of imagination, meditation technologies and co-created fields of intentional play, we can slip out, for a time, of confining identities defined by our histories, culture and comfort.Delivered by these practices, we can begin to inhabit perspectives and modes of being that stretch our sense of the possible and refresh our sense of the everyday. You might find yourself wearing Luminosities face or inhabiting Laughter's chest. Together we might try out Venus's view of the very life we live or we might make space to feel Chaos's dance and shake off some rigidity.All of these are just examples of where our wondering and feeling into places of vitality and expansion may take us.We will rebel against the quotidian and respect ourselves too much to only have crumbs of the sacred!It was also be a time to work together with the challenges to living heart forward with sanity and presence within this hyper-fractured funhouse/madhouse world.Sky and Rose is a place for Jogen and i to invite you into practices and explorations of 'soul work' that are not part of the Buddhist tradition but that have nonetheless been sources of growth and joy for us. Our influences in this include Paratheatre, IFS and Voice Dialogue, Hakomi, Process Work, Butoh, Jungian dream work and more.We initiate Sky & Rose as an experiment in embracing Spirit and Soul simultaneously, together imagining and practicing interpersonal liberation, playfulness and spaciousness in this time of deep adaptation.Meets monthly on Sundays from 10:30A PT - 12:30P PT / 1:30P ET - 3:30P ETNext Session is on Dec 1I'm Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, budding Astrologer and Artist. I currently live in Columbus, Ohio with my partner Patrick Kennyo Dunn, we facilitate an in-person meditation gathering every Wednesday from 7P - 8:30P at ILLIO in Clintonville through Mud Lotus Sangha. If you happen to be in Columbus, feel free to stop by. We have weekly meditation gatherings and monthly Saturday offerings as well. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

As part of Autumn Ango with the Zen Community of Oregon, we are contemplating a text called the Eight Realizations of a Great Being. A text that some sources say is the last teaching that the Buddha gave. We are working with an interpretation by Thich Nhat Hanh edited by Hogen Bays, Roshi.I want to start this reflection with a poem that was read to me by another Zen Teacher, Daniel Terrango during a sesshin he led here in Ohio a couple of weeks ago. I felt fortunate to get to sit sesshin with him, and to receive this poem. It's one of those poems, at least for me, that I want to pass along.I Was Reading A Poem By David RutschmanI was reading a poem by Ryōkan about a leaf, and how it showed the front and the back as it fell, and I wanted to call someone — my wife, my brother — to tell about the poem.And I thought that maybe my telling about the poem was the front of the leaf and my silence about the poem was the back.And then I thought that maybe my telling and my silence together were honestly just the front of the leaf, and that the back was something else, something I didn't understand.And then I thought that maybe everything I understood and everything I didn't were both actually just the front of the leaf — so that the totality of my life was actually just the front of the leaf, just the one side — which would make the other side my death. . . .Unless my life and death together were really still only the front of the leaf?I had left the branch. I was falling.I was loose now in the bright autumn air.Now the first realization.All the world is impermanent. The earth is fragile and perilous.The four great elements are both suffering and emptiness.In the five skandhas there is no self.Everything that arises, changes, and perishes, is illusive, unreal,and without a master.Thought is the root of suffering, The body a reservoir of desire.Thus, observing and contemplating, one gradually breaks free frombirth and death.Here in both the poem and realization—we are invited to really take up impermanence as a contemplation. In Buddhism impermanence is considered one of the marks of existence. My teacher Hogen Roshi would often say that these marks are part of what make a teaching, a dharma teaching, so he would encourage us to consider them whenever we gave a dharma talk.The marks are:* Impermanence—insight into change, on the minute moment to moment level as well as on the level of our own lifespan, the lifespans of institutions, societies, world systems, the earth itself. This insight is to really see directly that all things are of the nature of change.* No-fixed-self—nothing is fixed, everything is in relationship, not a single thing or being exists independent of others. We interare, our nature is shared.* Dukkah/Nirvana—we suffer when we want things to be different then they are, whether that is trying to get rid of an experience we don't want or trying to get more or hold onto to something that we do want, recognizing this we can discover through practice how to attune to the true nature of things as they are, which is interconnected, not-separate and flowingThe Buddha said: All the world is changing. We can not hold on to a single thing. Even the earth itself, our home is fragile and perilous. The four great elements (water, fire, earth, air/wind) can cause suffering, but are empty in their nature (composed of other parts, interdependent, spacious).How is this true in our experience? All the world is changing. Such a beautiful mantra. The poem I read in the beginning captures the beauty and mystery of a single leaf falling, and how in very real ways this is like our life, we are floating, tumbling, dancing, falling through space. We are really bearing witness to the unreliable nature of the earth itself, how the lives humans built isn't sustainable with the earth's natural balance. And we are seeing the loss and destruction from these great hurricanes. I happen to have many acquaintances, friends and teachers who live in the Asheville area. There has been so much destruction, devastation and loss from the hurricane. Same too in Florida, in Nepal, in parts of Africa and Europe this year. All over the world beings are experiencing devastation, loss, pain and hardship due to Climate Instability—wildfires, smoke, floods, damaged water supplies, loss of housing and infrastructure—this is the world we live in now.And, the Buddha gave this teaching before cars and planes and the industrial revolution. The earth has always been fragile and perilous, there have always been storms, volcanoes, fires, floods. Great forces of destruction rising up from the earth, from the great elements. This contemplation of impermanence is an invitation to really look deeply into the nature of our experience. What happens when we allow the truth of impermanence to be here. What do we notice? How does attuning to impermanence, contemplating impermanence help us face the climate crisis? Does it?I was listening to a podcast interview with Susan Murphy who is a Zen Koan Teacher from Australia. She writes on Zen practice and the Earth. One of her first books is called Minding the Earth, Mending the World and her most recent book is called A Fire Runs Through All Things: Zen Koans for Facing the Climate Crisis.I want to share an excerpt from her book, for I feel it is a powerful meditation on how we contemplate impermanence and turn towards the climate crisis as part of our spiritual practice. She says:The times are always uncertain until we cease longing for certainty, and only then do they become truly interesting. The planetary crisis we're in together is now simply the given the strange, inarguable gift of what is. The fervent half-prayer of “Precarious!” overhears the realization that any escape is futile. Who now in good faith can dispute planetary heating and its appalling consequences and our drift toward civilizational suicide, ruined lands, biodiversity collapse, record-breaking megafires and megafloods, and new pandemics. And then there's our shadow pandemic, too: panic, confusion, and conspiratorial rage, shadowed by dread, anxiety, and depression.The planetary dangers that haunt us make our time an exquisite moment, piercing and inescapable. Also baffling to the point of provoking fresh realizations, hence the description of this time as a “gift” brimming with untested possibilities right along with potentially dire consequences. Dare we celebrate the way it stretches us, this strange privilege of being alive right now? Can we embrace the sheer lunacy of our moment, in which the biggest human “ask” in history up to now has chosen us?A koan scandalizes all suppositions (literal, rational, empirical, neurotic) that hold up the shaky sky of human knowing and fearing, until the leaves blowing in the street, the wave welling over a rock, the eyelashes of the cow all share the same realm as this mind. The shock of this can stoke new depths of fiery, fiercely protective love for the Earth. With luck, this love is fierce enough to protect our home from the worst impulses in ourselves and turn them to good.The ecocrisis of our time raises the question of the true nature of our human presence on the Earth as a koan that rightly exerts an almost overwhelming pressure on our hearts. It cannot be resolved, and the suffering it causes cannot be relieved without breaking through the paradigm that is so relentlessly causing it. Zen koans help us grow skilled in tolerating a precarious state of mind, and not turning away but growing curious instead. That we can't go forward in the usual way becomes the strangely valuable offer of the moment. Not-knowing, in the spirit of improvisation, accepts all offers! And the Zen koan turns every obstacle into the way.Take a despairing reaction like “There is nothing I can do to stop this disaster!” Looking beyond the ideas of “I,” and “stop,” and even the activity of “doing,” can we even dare to look deeply into the crisis and not-know what it is, or that it is so? Perhaps even disaster loses its power of impasse when scrutinized by a trusting form of productive doubt. Can something be done with less doing, using the calm inside the moments that can be created within an emergency when what is happening is met with not-knowing?The way we have framed reality is plainly out of kilter and out of date. Koan mind breaks the rigid frame and makes an ally out of uncertainty, asking it to be our guide in the darkness.Every koan has a bit of the apocalyptic about it, lifting the veil that this dream of a separate self throws over the wholeness of reality. Apocalypse implies destruction of a world, but hiding in that word is the older meaning, that of a necessary revelation, a veil torn away, leaving no choice but to see what is hidden from us in plain sight.Crises shape and transform us all our lives. The limitations that grow apparent to a crawling infant become the seeming unlikelihood of learning to walk. Impasse is the unavoidable opportunity to see beyond expectations, suppositions, and impossibilities as they crumble before our eyes. Crisis, whether at the vast or intimately personal level, is what reveals that there is no “normal,” despite all strenuous efforts to coax one into being. Not-knowing is relaxing into trusting this.…To truly contemplate impermanence invites us into this kind of not-knowing and opens the creative potential of any given moment. Because this is not fixed in place, we are not fixed in place. The world, our minds, our hearts are malleable–are flowing. And these words are just dead words until we really allow ourselves into the inquiry. The living contemplation—what am I? What if anything stays the same? What is my actual experience of change?Zen celebrates responsiveness, a responsiveness that comes from un-fixing ourselves from our fixed beliefs about how things should be, which actually allows us to respond to what is.We suffer impermanence because we expect it to be otherwise. We try to create structures, systems that will be reliable, predictable, and unchanging. We have cultural values that try to hide aging, death, disability, trauma—anything that pokes a hole in the narrative of stability and progress. So much of our systems, and therefore our thought processes, are not built on basic principles of how the world actually is, how life actually is. What would it look like if we lived rooted in this first realization: everything is changing, life is uncertain?What systems or structures or basic principles would we instill in our society if we really embraced the truth of change, transformation, death/rebirth, impermanence? As well as an understanding that we are interdependent, there is no I separate from you, this great earth, the creatures who live here, the plants, animals, rivers and each human being.So how do we practice impermanence? In meditation or in our direct experience outside of meditation we can tune into the constancy of change. Notice, really notice how the sensations in your hand change, if you really look, is there a single sensation that stays the same moment to moment? We can explore the direct experience of what I like to call radical impermanence—by exploring the changing nature of our sensory environment, the components of experience that make up our sense of self. Notice, how long does a single thought last? Can you grab hold of a thought? Do thoughts have a beginning, middle and end? What about emotions or feelings? Sounds?As we explore our experiential experience in this way, a real question can arise—what if anything remains? What continues? This kind of inquiry isn't meant to be done once, but is an on-going practice. How quickly do assumptions and predictions take over and have us believing again that we are permanent, solitary, independent and alone—and that our beliefs are unquestionably true?As I practice with impermanence, I have come to appreciate that change is beautiful, its necessary, the constancy of change allows each moment to arise fresh—never before seen or experienced. When the mind isn't dragging the previous moment onto the present, or reaching out for some future experience where we are redeemed or destroyed—what is this?It is also quite rich and worthwhile to take this contemplation of impermanence into our interpersonal relationships and our connection to life on earth or in this world.Grief, anger, rage, disappointment, sadness, numbness, confusion, despair are all companions of loss. If we learn to sit with and accompany these emotional responses with compassion and curiosity—they become part of the inner/shared journey on the realization of impermanence. They teach us what it is like to sit at the threshold of not-knowing, to find acceptance in the midst of whatever is happening, to find our way back to a love that is greater than fear. Some people are elders in impermanence, for they possess a wisdom that is gained through weathering loss. These people aren't necessarily old in years, but often the wisdom of loss does come with age—as we keep meeting the various uncertainties of life, the crisis points as Susan Murphy calls it, the moments of loss or change, be it the death of a loved one, a natural disaster in our town, war, loss of work, illness, accidents, injury, or living in a body that is aging—as we encounter impermanence with a learning attitude, insight deepens, gratitude grows, the waves of grief become waters we are more familiar navigating and perhaps we deeper our capacity to help others through them.Impermanence presents us with the koan that rests at the center of our lives as mortal beings—what are we? What is this life? What is death? Koans as Susan Murphy says, make us uncomfortable. If reading this first realization makes you uncomfortable, there is something here for you to deepen into, to stay with…We have two prayers in Zen that are prayers of impermanence, reciting them helps us turn towards and embrace the uncertainty of this life—to gain traction or companionship as we move through this changing world.The Five RemembrancesI am of the nature to die, I can not escape deathI am of the nature to have ill health, I can not escape having ill healthI am of the nature to age, I can not escapeAll that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature of change, I can not escape being separated from themMy deeds are my closest companions, I am the beneficiary of my deeds, my deeds are the ground on which I stand.Verse of the Diamond SutraA star at dawn, a bubble in a stream, a flash of lightning in the summer sky,A flickering lamp, a phantom and a dreamSo is this fleeting world…This writing is a draft of the dharma talk podcast you can listen to. At the end of the talk a sangha member offered a stanza from Mary Oliver's In Blackwater Woods as a capping phrase.To live in this worldyou must be ableto do three things:to love what is mortal;to hold itagainst your bones knowingyour own life depends on it;and, when the time comes to let it go,to let it go.I'm Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, budding Astrologer and Artist. In my Spiritual Counseling Practice, I practice at the confluence of spirituality and psychology, integrating mind, body and spirit. I am trained in Internal Family Systems (IFS), Dream Work, Hakomi (Somatic Therapy) and Mindful Eating. Below are some of my current offerings.I currently accepting a couple of new clients if you or anyone you know is interested in Spiritual Counseling.Monday Night Meditation + DharmaEvery Monday 6P PT / 9P ETJoin me on zoom for 40 minutes of meditation and a dharma talk. We are currently exploring a text called The Eight Realizations of Great Beings, which gives us an opportunity to practice inquiry and embodying love as we discover our Awakened Nature together.This event is hosted by the Zen Community of Oregon. All are welcome to join. Drop in any time.Zoom Link for Monday NightSky + RoseWhat is it? An experiment in the impossible task of excluding nothing and loving everything. An alchemy of play, presence and wandering into the shadows, you could say.Sky & Rose is a practice container that will:* Center group parts work practices to explore the fluidity, span and dream of who we are - somebody, nobody, everybody. You will be invited to express yourself vocally and physically, engage your imagination and play outside habituation.* Do interpersonal and group meditation practices of seeing, being and awakening.* Directly explore emotional embodiment & shadow work* Include Beauty, Art & Wonderment as core practice elements Through rituals of imagination, meditation technologies and co-created fields of intentional play, we can slip out, for a time, of confining identities defined by our histories, culture and comfort.Delivered by these practices, we can begin to inhabit perspectives and modes of being that stretch our sense of the possible and refresh our sense of the everyday. You might find yourself wearing Luminosities face or inhabiting Laughter's chest. Together we might try out Venus's view of the very life we live or we might make space to feel Chaos's dance and shake off some rigidity.All of these are just examples of where our wondering and feeling into places of vitality and expansion may take us.We will rebel against the quotidian and respect ourselves too much to only have crumbs of the sacred!It was also be a time to work together with the challenges to living heart forward with sanity and presence within this hyper-fractured funhouse/madhouse world.Sky and Rose is a place for Jogen and i to invite you into practices and explorations of 'soul work' that are not part of the Buddhist tradition but that have nonetheless been sources of growth and joy for us. Our influences in this include Paratheatre, IFS and Voice Dialogue, Hakomi, Process Work, Butoh, Jungian dream work and more.We initiate Sky & Rose as an experiment in embracing Spirit and Soul simultaneously, together imagining and practicing interpersonal liberation, playfulness and spaciousness in this time of deep adaptation.Meets monthly on Sundays from 10:30A PT - 12:30P PT / 1:30P ET - 3:30P ETJoin us for our Opening Ritual + Practice exploringThe Ritual of LiminalitySunday October 27I currently live in Columbus, Ohio with my partner Patrick Kennyo Dunn, we facilitate an in-person meditation gathering every Wednesday from 7P - 8:30P at ILLIO in Clintonville through Mud Lotus Sangha. If you happen to be in Columbus, feel free to stop by. We have weekly meditation gatherings and monthly Saturday offerings as well. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

Since leaving the monastery a few years ago, I have become interested in how the ancient Zen teachers talked about the spiritual path. Language about the realizations that compose awakening are nested in the Zen chants that I would chant daily as a monastic, but we were so immersed in the continuous-ness of practice, that rarely would we stop and try to map out the territory. We were living it, who needed the borrowed words of those long dead to put a conceptual overlay onto something so fleeting as experience?My teacher Chozen was fond of saying that Zen was a practice without guardrails or measuring sticks—we stumble around in the dark. And somehow in this stumbling, in the dark terrain of life before concepts— our faith deepens and our sense of self loses its limiting bearings in exchange for an indescribable vastness that belongs to no-one. Zen teachers over the years have said of Zen that, “it is good for nothing”, or “a practice of non-attainment.”Others, including the early founders of the Soto school, described or attempted to show through poetry and image, some of the dynamics at play in this “good for nothing” journey of “non-attainment” and spiritual maturation.Two such teachers are Zen Masters Shitou and Dongshan Liangjie. Shitou's famous work The Sandokai or The Identity of Relative and Absolute is still chanted at Soto Zen Monasteries and Temples all over the world. And Dongshan's Precious Mirror Samadhi, which contains his teaching of the Five Ranks is similarly revered.There is a magic to language. A symbol is passed down for centuries, from spoken word, to ideogram, to letters and words in our own tongue, which become images again appearing in our imagination, references to a memory that we can almost taste.Words are sensual. We taste our words as we speak them. We feel their images and are invited into their song. Sentences are like spells. They captivate the heart. They have the power to render us transformed in this midst of their utterances. When used mindlessly words can kill the thing they are attempting to name. They can create landscapes of lies, delusive dreams that collectively capture our imaginations and send us spiraling further away from ourselves.Yet, words are also alive. Language lets us re-cast the spell on itself. A single word can be a deep medicine for the exiled heart. A point of connection—a way in.The theme of the absolute and the relative is a timeless dance of wholeness. What happens when we really venture to peer into Mind, inquire into the inner workings of our hearts, this experience we call my life?— well it's empty yet appearing, spacious yet seemingly tangible, here yet unfindable. What we call one, is also many—a relationship so intimately entwined, it can feel like a great wrong has been committed to even speak as if they were two separate and distinct experiences. And yet, we long to make meaning. To communicate the inner landscapes of the heart-mind. To celebrate the journey. We are map-makers of consciousness, knowing that as we chart the choppy, ever-changing waters of the heart, it's already shifting—there is nowhere where we truly stand besides the momentariness of standing right where we are.As I study the Sandokai and Dongshan's Five Ranks, I have come to appreciate the play of light and shadow or relative and absolute as a generous reminder once spoken by Master Ma, and later by my own teacher Hogen Roshi—”we can't fall out of the deep samadhi of the universe.” We are always on the path, and the path is always revealing a new face of this mystery.So let's explore one map of the great ocean of awareness and perhaps through these words and images we will recognize some of our own footsteps.The Light within the Dark (the Relative with the Absolute)Dongshan: The third watch of the night, before moonrise—don't be surprised if there's a meeting without recognition. One still harbors the elegance of former years.My meditation is so spacious, it reminds me of that time when…Dogen Zenji says, when the truth fills our body and mind, we realize that something is missing. As someone who spent a lot of days, months and years in zazen and retreat, a taste of spaciousness can trigger a longing for my time as a total beginner to practice, who just stumbled into this dark mystery of being and had no skin in the game, no vow, just a heart turned towards spaciousness.The Dao De Jing says, In the Dark, darken further…Have you ever meditated in the dark before moonrise? Have you ever let yourself let-go for a moment the ordinary distinctions of seeing, hearing, feeling, thinking? What kind of place is this? Does anyone remain?The Dark within the Light (The Absolute in the Relative)Dongshan: Having overslept, the elder woman encounters the ancient mirror. This is clearly meeting face-to-face, only then is it genuine. Don't lose your head by validating shadows.I love this concept called non-linear emergence. A recognition that being human is non-linear. Healing in non-linear. Awakening surely is non-linear. Because we are never outside of the mysterious grace of our awakened nature, sometimes a moment of clarity rises up in the midst of a seemingly ordinary moment or even what we might consider a moment so outside of our concept of practice. Like those days when we sleep in, or are hungover, or ate too much cake, or feel distracted, busy, on autopilot, lost, alone in our suffering, or pain.Then suddenly, there is an encounter—a stranger smiles, we notice the yellow of a sunflower, a piece of music grabs our attention, we look up at the sky—and something happens. We find ourselves gazing into the ancient mirror. A true encounter. Face-to-face—we glimpse, we remember our shared nature, we feel an enduring love and acceptance, we taste the light of being.Yes right here in the midst of the ordinary, in the midst of the colossal ways we harm each other, in the midst of all the injustices in our crazy-making world—there is love, there is peace. The sacred rises up and kisses us on the cheek. And we keep on living. We go to work, we meet with a friend, we use the toilet when we need to, we continue to heal, we face the innumerable challenges of living a human life.As one Zen master said, awakening is an accident, practice makes us accident prone.Just the Dark (Coming from within the Absolute)Dongshan: Within nothingness there is a road out of the dusts. Just avoid speaking the forbidden name of the emperor and you will surpass the worthies of ancient times, who cut off tongues.Rinzai says: sometimes I take away the person and the environmentAll reference points lostJust don't try to speak of itThough many people practice ZenFew have lost their MindCutting off tongues aside, let me ask— when your mind isn't reifying anything—where do you abide?Enter the dark cave of meditation, it's OK to not-know who you are.One Zen student said when asked, what happens when you think about the one who thinks—I find that there is nothing there at all.Just the Light (Mutual Integration / From within the Relative)Dongshan: No need to dodge when blades are crossed. The skillful one is like a lotus in the fire. Surely you possess the aspiration to soar to the heavens.In the midst of our work, our relationships, our confusion, our intellectual pursuits—the dharma is here. We don't need to look for peak experiences or make wonderment happen. Every meeting is genuine. The dharma is us. Our vow, our heart's aspiration, the bodhisattva dwells in this very ordinary, cryptic, heart-wrenching human realm.Let yourself be a lotus in the fire.Aspire to see your life as a lotus blooming in the midst of all these flames.Light and Dark Together (Arriving at Concurrence)Dongshan: Everyone longs to leave the mundane stream, still you return to sit in the charcoal heap. Zen celebrates such a complete shedding. Is such a place possible? To no longer long for some peak experience, some validation from the universe that you are OK, that all is sacred. Faith can permeate one's being so completely that the world of oneness and the world of diversity are so intertwined that it no longer makes sense to make distinctions. The tradition also celebrates responsiveness. Born from practice-realization we respond to the complexities of our lives. We walk freely through the other ranks, as we live our lives of practice. Most great Zen and Buddhist teachers continued to sit retreats and had a daily practice throughout their lives.Whether the charcoal heap is your zafu or this burning world of change and pain or the complete combustion of being so fully here for those you love + the work you do—you continue to sit in it, with it, with all beings.Thank you for your practice, thank you for living the life you have as genuinely as you do. As we walk the circle of the way, never falling out of the deep samadhi of the universe, we encounter these different expressions of the great heart of being. You might describe them differently, if you bother describing them at all. Perhaps you too are a mapmaker, a spell-caster, one haunted by a call to make meaning and embody love in our sometimes chilling yet beautiful world.In the dharma talk, I offer some other reflections on this topic—as it pertains to the practice of Ango. A time in the Zen Community of Oregon's annual practice cycle that we dedicate to intensifying practice with the support of Sangha.…I'm Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, budding Astrologer and Artist. In my Spiritual Counseling Practice, I practice at the confluence of spirituality and psychology, integrating mind, body and spirit. I am trained in Internal Family Systems (IFS), Dream Work, Hakomi (Somatic Therapy) and Mindful Eating. Below are some of my current offerings.Monday Night Meditation + DharmaEvery Monday 6P PT / 9P ETJoin me on zoom for 40 minutes of meditation and a dharma talk. We are currently exploring a text called The Eight Realizations of Great Beings, which gives us an opportunity to practice inquiry and embodying love as we discover our Awakened Nature together.This event is hosted by the Zen Community of Oregon. All are welcome to join. Drop in any time.Zoom Link for Monday NightBeyond Mindfulness: Deepening Your Meditation Practice Class SeriesStarts today! This workshop style course is designed to provide a map of the meditation path as well as:* Introduce you to the five main styles of meditation (calm-abiding, concentration, heart-based practices, inquiry and open-awareness)* Help you understand the intention of each method and how to practice it* Help you understand how the various methods and techniques fit together and support each other* Provide a fun, non-judgmental learning environment where you can try things out, ask questions and explore* Give you the opportunity to work with a teacher with an extensive background in various meditation techniquesSky + RoseWhat is it? An experiment in the impossible task of excluding nothing and loving everything. An alchemy of play, presence and wandering into the shadows, you could say.Sky & Rose is a practice container that will:* Center group parts work practices to explore the fluidity, span and dream of who we are - somebody, nobody, everybody. You will be invited to express yourself vocally and physically, engage your imagination and play outside habituation.* Do interpersonal and group meditation practices of seeing, being and awakening.* Directly explore emotional embodiment & shadow work* Include Beauty, Art & Wonderment as core practice elements Through rituals of imagination, meditation technologies and co-created fields of intentional play, we can slip out, for a time, of confining identities defined by our histories, culture and comfort.Delivered by these practices, we can begin to inhabit perspectives and modes of being that stretch our sense of the possible and refresh our sense of the everyday. You might find yourself wearing Luminosities face or inhabiting Laughter's chest. Together we might try out Venus's view of the very life we live or we might make space to feel Chaos's dance and shake off some rigidity.All of these are just examples of where our wondering and feeling into places of vitality and expansion may take us.We will rebel against the quotidian and respect ourselves too much to only have crumbs of the sacred!It was also be a time to work together with the challenges to living heart forward with sanity and presence within this hyper-fractured funhouse/madhouse world.Sky and Rose is a place for Jogen and i to invite you into practices and explorations of 'soul work' that are not part of the Buddhist tradition but that have nonetheless been sources of growth and joy for us. Our influences in this include Paratheatre, IFS and Voice Dialogue, Hakomi, Process Work, Butoh, Jungian dream work and more.We initiate Sky & Rose as an experiment in embracing Spirit and Soul simultaneously, together imagining and practicing interpersonal liberation, playfulness and spaciousness in this time of deep adaptation.Meets monthly on Sundays from 10:30A PT - 12:30P PT / 1:30P ET - 3:30P ETJoin us for our Opening Ritual + Practice exploringThe Ritual of LiminalitySunday October 27I currently live in Columbus, Ohio with my partner Patrick Kennyo Dunn, we facilitate an in-person meditation gathering every Wednesday from 7P - 8:30P at ILLIO in Clintonville through Mud Lotus Sangha. If you happen to be in Columbus, feel free to stop by. We have weekly meditation gatherings, and are offering a day of meditation in October. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

I am just returning from my first in-person Zen sesshin here in Ohio. It was wonderful to practice the familiar rhythm of a silent, Zen-style meditation retreat so close to the place I currently call home. We practiced as the winds and rain from Hurricane Helene blew through South Western Ohio felling tree branches and power lines on the property of the Jesuit Spiritual Center where we were sitting our retreat. Despite a days long power outage on the property, we continued to practice and deepen into our shared vows and sense of interconnection. Our prayers and dedication of merit began to open up and include those living in areas that are affected by the winds, floods and destruction of the hurricane as well as those suffering in other ways all over our world—may they and we find relief from suffering and realize true happiness.Sesshin has this way of amplifying our aloneness and our togetherness. With nothing to do but sit, walk, eat and sleep, we have the rare opportunity to really let-go of or soften the reification of some of the ordinary functions of the mind, such as naming, conceptualizing, narrating, story-telling, etc. One is free to just be. And what is that? Something we are invited to continuously discover. So we sit on the edge of knowing and not-knowing, the precipice of becoming, the mystery of appearance inchoate. Being nothing and everything at once. Stopping for times the need to define or find a foothold in such existential territory. For me, it has been a while since I sat a full sesshin completely as a student. I felt like I had permission to rediscover what this practice is, from the embodied source—ground up. And zazen also had permission to be nothing in particular. There wasn't something to resolve, or fix or some insight to get. In a place of such permission zazen got to be so many things. At times a warm loving embrace, other times a sharpening stone, a quiet refuge, space, a place to explore fears + tensions, to make friends with myself in all its forms and manifestations, a hub of bodhicitta, the entire universe unhinged, rain + wind, a leaf falling, love of the ancestors through our teacher + guide, an iron yoke, a lover…nothing at all.I am appreciating how the practice does practice us, and how over the decade and a half that I have been engaged in intensive practice, there are so many practices that visit me, offering momentary medicine in this process of living. I don't need to take anything with me from moment to moment, I can trust that practice truly does continue. Though I do find myself drawn to creating the conditions to recognize the dharma in all times and places.I left sesshin feeling humbled and full. Daniel Terrango, our teacher and guide kept reminding us that the dharma is generous. Ah, yes. Can you feel it too?Right here is the heart of bodhicitta, a commitment to awaken together with all beings. Right here, all beings are awakening together in the sometimes maddening, sometimes heart-wrenchingly beautiful conditions of our current world-systems.In the teaching realm, I have been exploring a Zen poem called the Sandokai or Harmony of Difference and Sameness. In this dharma talk I zoom out and look at how we encounter difference and sameness in our dharma practice as well as our daily lives. It was rich and enlivening for me to engage in this contemplation, and I would be curious for those who listen to the talk or read the transcript—how it is for you.…I'm Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, budding Astrologer and Artist. In my Spiritual Counseling Practice, I practice at the confluence of spirituality and psychology, integrating mind, body and spirit. I am trained in Internal Family Systems (IFS), Dream Work, Hakomi (Somatic Therapy) and Mindful Eating. Below are some of my current offerings.Monday Night Meditation + DharmaEvery Monday 6P PT / 9P ETJoin me on zoom for 40 minutes of meditation and a dharma talk. We are currently exploring the freedom, spontaneity and love of our original nature through the teachings of the Zen koan tradition. Koans invite us into the mythos of practice awakening, gifting us with the ordinary images of our lives, they help awaken us to the wonder, intimacy and compassion of life as it is!All are welcome to join. Drop in any time.Zoom Link for Monday NightBeyond Mindfulness: Deepening Your Meditation Practice Class SeriesThis workshop style course is designed to provide a map of the meditation path as well as:* Introduce you to the five main styles of meditation (calm-abiding, concentration, heart-based practices, inquiry and open-awareness)* Help you understand the intention of each method and how to practice it* Help you understand how the various methods and techniques fit together and support each other* Provide a fun, non-judgmental learning environment where you can try things out, ask questions and explore* Give you the opportunity to work with a teacher with an extensive background in various meditation techniquesI currently live in Columbus, Ohio with my partner Patrick Kennyo Dunn, we facilitate an in-person meditation gathering every Wednesday from 7P - 8:30P at ILLIO in Clintonville through Mud Lotus Sangha. If you happen to be in Columbus, feel free to stop by. We have weekly meditation gatherings, and are offering a day of meditation in October.Sky + RoseWhat is it? An experiment in the impossible task of excluding nothing and loving everything. An alchemy of play, presence and wandering into the shadows, you could say.Sky & Rose is a practice container that will:* Center group parts work practices to explore the fluidity, span and dream of who we are - somebody, nobody, everybody. You will be invited to express yourself vocally and physically, engage your imagination and play outside habituation.* Do interpersonal and group meditation practices of seeing, being and awakening.* Directly explore emotional embodiment & shadow work* Include Beauty, Art & Wonderment as core practice elements Through rituals of imagination, meditation technologies and co-created fields of intentional play, we can slip out, for a time, of confining identities defined by our histories, culture and comfort.Delivered by these practices, we can begin to inhabit perspectives and modes of being that stretch our sense of the possible and refresh our sense of the everyday. You might find yourself wearing Luminosities face or inhabiting Laughter's chest. Together we might try out Venus's view of the very life we live or we might make space to feel Chaos's dance and shake off some rigidity.All of these are just examples of where our wondering and feeling into places of vitality and expansion may take us.We will rebel against the quotidian and respect ourselves too much to only have crumbs of the sacred!It was also be a time to work together with the challenges to living heart forward with sanity and presence within this hyper-fractured funhouse/madhouse world.Sky and Rose is a place for Jogen and i to invite you into practices and explorations of 'soul work' that are not part of the Buddhist tradition but that have nonetheless been sources of growth and joy for us. Our influences in this include Paratheatre, IFS and Voice Dialogue, Hakomi, Process Work, Butoh, Jungian dream work and more.We initiate Sky & Rose as an experiment in embracing Spirit and Soul simultaneously, together imagining and practicing interpersonal liberation, playfulness and spaciousness in this time of deep adaptation.Meets monthly on Sundays from 10:30A PT - 12:30P PT / 1:30P ET - 3:30P ETJoin us for our Opening Ritual + Practice exploringThe Ritual of LiminalitySunday October 27 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

Life Changing Gatherings-Clintonville Commission

A thousand times at least I asked my Guru to give Nothingness a name. Then I gave up. What name can you give to the source from which all names have sprung? –Lal DedLanguage has a trickster quality. At one moment it limits. We find ourselves hard pressed to find the word that captures a feeling, mind state or emotion. Other times, a single word can invoke so many meanings and associations that we are left with a number of mind tangents or in a conversation with people who have very different images in their hearts.For example—the other day I was working with a colleague to come up with a name for an event that we are collaborating on. They wanted to use the word “vessel”, I said it reminded me of deep sea submarines, they said they thought of a cup or chalice, another friend said they immediately thought of blood flowing through their veins.Needless to say, we scrapped vessel.But, how often does this happen?One of my favorite books as a college student was The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera (who is a Czech writer and somehow captures something I know so deeply in my bones growing up in a large close knit Catholic extended family with Czech ancestry). In the book he defines words according to the different characters, which opens up a reflection on how a single word also contains personal meaning based on our histories. We all have experience with hearing a word, and an image appears in our mind, and suddenly we are in a scene from 10 years ago—smelling the ocean, filled with longing for a lost love or time of connection—or something else.Given our wide range of life experience and associations, how is it that we are able to communicate at all?In spiritual practice, we play the trickster, using language we point beyond concepts to a truth outside of our shared vernacular— a secret language of the innermost heart.Yet, the words themselves can act as traps. We say one thing, and the other side isn't expressed. Our words amount to an incomplete teaching, a partial truth. As practitioners on this path of freedom—we learn to liberate language. To hear beyond the words. To—at times—forget words. Deviating from conventional conceptualizations — playing in pure potentiality. If a tree wasn't a tree, what would you call it?If love wasn't called love, how would you name it?What is the sound you would give to oneness? How would you capture Nothingness?Don't tell me about it, my teacher would say in sanzen, show me!…For the month of September my dharma talks/podcasts will be exploring the relationship between the oneness and the many, or sameness and difference. We will be using the Zen poem by Shitou called the Sandokai, which is translated as the Harmony of Difference and Sameness or the Identity of Relative and Absolute. This podcast introduces the poem and some other teachings from Shitou, just to give you a flavor for his teaching style. On Monday Sept 16, I plan to zoom out and explore the ways sameness + difference show up in our lives + practice, exploring how we can practice integrating the teaching of one + many in our relational lives.Another theme I have been reflecting on lately, and this very much is part the exploration of oneness and many—is the relationship between Spirit and Soul in dharma practice. Almost every retreat I have led in a Zen context, someone asks at some point, where is the joy? And while I have found great joy in simply sitting in the stripped down style of a Zen sesshin. I also know that Joy, Beauty, Art, Wonderment and Ecstasy are potent elements to the unfolding and embodiment of dharma in our lives.Jogen and I have been envisioning a practice space that is both committed to the spiritual practice of waking up, while also exploring together elements of soul work. I am excited to introduce……sky + rose: an emergent, on-line contemplative community braiding Spirit and SoulMeets monthly on Sundays from 10:30A PT - 12:30P PT / 1:30P ET - 3:30P ETJoin us for our first practice session : The Ritual of LiminalitySunday October 27Spirit (sky): indestructible stillness-openness, clarity, perfection beyond the mind's capacity to grasp or reconcile, the felt unity of all this multiplicity, the cosmos in your cup of coffee. Unstoppable, ever-graceful flow.Soul (rose): everything alive as Beauty. Art in the everyday quirks, cares, agonies and curiosities. Tending the need to create, relate, build and destroy. Reconciling Psyche's movement towards wholeness. Answering the call to heal the meanness and alienation that fractures our worlds. Putting on the Altar the dark places and shining light in the shadowy corners of our very human hearts. The love and meaning for the flowers popping up in the cracks.This is a place for kisei and jogen to weave in practices and explorations of Soul Work that are typically not highlighted in the Buddhist tradition but that have nonetheless been sources of vitality, expansion and joy. Here we ask together: What if we lived as if Love were the point?We will:* Create a practice ethos of radical non-duality, a commitment to see into the dream of the self. Grounding in dharma practices of stillness, inquiry and openness.* Center parts work practices to explore the fluidity, span and dream of who we are - somebody, nobody, everybody.* Do interpersonal and group meditation practices of seeing, being and awakening.* Directly explore emotional embodiment & shadow work* Include Beauty, Art & Wonderment as core practice elementsWe initiate Sky & Rose as an experiment in embracing Spirit and Soul simultaneously, together imagining and practicing collective liberation, playfulness and spaciousness in this time of deep adaptation.We will begin with monthly 2 hour online sessions on Sundays. Each month we will have a different theme. The schedule for a session can be found below. We ask each person to commit to coming for the entire session.Opening—Sacred Invocation (10 min)Meditation/Universe Somatic (45 min)Group Shadow Work / Relational Practices (1hr)Closing Dedication ….I'm Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, budding Astrologer and Artist. In my Spiritual Counseling Practice, I practice at the confluence of spirituality and psychology, integrating mind, body and spirit. I am trained in Internal Family Systems (IFS), Dream Work, Hakomi (Somatic Therapy) and Mindful Eating.I also lead a weekly online meditation group through the Zen Community of Oregon and am leading a class series on the Zen Bodhisattva Precepts this Fall. Also if you are interested in workshopping your meditation practice join me in collaboration with Pause Meditation for a 5-week online class series called Beyond Mindfulness. More information can be found below.Monday Night Meditation + DharmaEvery Monday 6P PT / 9P ETJoin me on zoom for 40 minutes of meditation and a dharma talk. We are currently exploring the freedom, spontaneity and love of our original nature through the teachings of the Zen koan tradition. Koans invite us into the mythos of practice awakening, gifting us with the ordinary images of our lives, they help awaken us to the wonder, intimacy and compassion of life as it is!All are welcome to join. Drop in any time.Zoom Link for Monday NightLiving the Questions: 16 Bodhisattva Precepts Class SeriesBe patient with all that is unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves. Do not seek the answers, which can not be given to you, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. And perhaps you will then gradually…find yourself living the answer. — RilkeFar from being a set of rules or doctrine that we must follow, the Bodhisattva precepts act as koans, inquiries that we are empowered to take into our life. They ask us to consider, what does love look like in this situation? In this relationship, how do I work with my anger? Who is it who wants to gossip, or inflate one's self? How can I show up authentically in the world?With the final five grave precepts, pure precepts and refuges as our guide we will explore the heart of what it means for each one of us to live a life of integrity and love. We will explore how each precept touches the personal, interpersonal, global and secret dimensions of our living.Beyond Mindfulness: Deepening Your Meditation Practice Class SeriesThis workshop style course is designed to provide a map of the meditation path as well as:* Introduce you to the five main styles of meditation (calm-abiding, concentration, heart-based practices, inquiry and open-awareness)* Help you understand the intention of each method and how to practice it* Help you understand how the various methods and techniques fit together and support each other* Provide a fun, non-judgmental learning environment where you can try things out, ask questions and explore* Give you the opportunity to work with a teacher with an extensive background in various meditation techniquesI currently live in Columbus, Ohio with my partner Patrick Kennyo Dunn, we facilitate an in-person meditation gathering every Wednesday from 7P - 8:30P at ILLIO in Clintonville through Mud Lotus Sangha. If you happen to be in Columbus, feel free to stop by. We have weekly meditation gatherings, and are offering a day of meditation in October.Earth Dreams is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

We are emerging from the monthly return of the moon's dark face—where from earth's perspective the sun and moon appear to kiss, an aspect that astrologers refer to as a conjunction. In the Zen tradition, the moon cycles served as markers for the calendar year—with the new and full moons being opportunities for ritual and ceremony around atonement and renewal of vows.In my own life and practice, I have been contemplating the mystery of being, what is often unseen or unacknowledged in the ways we normally move through space and relate to others and the world. In celebration of this New Moon and the Great Mystery, I offer a reflection on the following koan, Zhaozhou's Deeply Secret Mind.Hidden Lamp: Zhaozhou's Deeply Secret MindA nun asked Master Zhaozhou: What is the deeply secret mind?Zhaozhou squeezed her handThe nun responded Do you still have this?Zhaozhou replied: You are the one who has thisI was reflecting the other day about why I started practicing Zen. In my home sangha, the Zen Community of Oregon, we have been having conversations about paths of practice. So, I invite you to reflect as well. Why did you start practicing meditation? And if you practice in a particular tradition, why that tradition?In my own reflection, it seems like Zen chose me. Someone gave me a Zen book and it resonated, then the meditation group I sat with in college was Zen, then my partner in college took me with him to a Zen Temple—at that point I didn't really think about the other meditation traditions and if one would have been a better fit. I just followed the path that was opening itself up before me.When I entered a Zen Monastery for my first retreat, I was greeted by an ambiance that felt ancient. The dark zendo, the temple bells, physical mudras that evoked stillness, gratitude and wonder as the monastery building played with the natural world in a way that the two felt indistinguishable. Though my thoughts frequently played the worries and dreams of this particular person, I had a sense that these stories weren't the whole of who I was. The ancient timeless peace of the monastery was my heart too.It was here that I felt, perhaps for the first time in my adult life, Zhaozhou's hand reaching out and squeezing mine—the monastery + zen forms provided the physical invitation into this open secret.Another way this koan is translated is: The nun asks, What is the inner-most heart?We say Zen is transmitted heart to heart, mind to mind. A few weeks ago I was at Great Vow for a weeklong silent meditation retreat called Grasses and Trees Sesshin. The retreat takes place completely outdoors, we practice with the grounds and forest, the trees, leaves, meadows, birds and bats. During our sharing circle on the last day, someone shared a story of sitting with a spider, and feeling the spider extend one of its legs, as the person held out a hand.Others spoke of touching the earth, a rock, a tree —palm to palm, hand to heart, eyeball to eyeball, soma to soma.When we spend a week, or a day or years or even minutes sitting with another being in silence, in openness, in presence—we know each other in a way that words can't even begin to explain.Think of all the hands you have held over the years. The hands you have squeezed. What was being communicated? What were you sharing? What state of Mind? What quality of Heart?All the time we are holding hands with this sacred life.Tooth brush hands, tea cup hands, peach + apple hands, dirt hands, human hands, dog hands.Sometimes maybe we are saying, I love you, I'm scared, hold me, other times especially with the seeming objects of our lives, it might feel more transactional, or maybe we fail to notice this ordinary intimacy.Chozen Roshi would invite us to take up the practice of Loving Hands. A way of really attending to all the beings, all the life energy that moves through our hands in a given day. How many hand squeezes are we giving and receiving? How many moments of intimacy kiss our lips, and pass us by?Patrick and I have been doing some teaching with a local sangha called Mud Lotus Sangha here in Columbus, OH, and sometimes the question comes up—what is Zen good for?Or another way a similar sentiment arises for folks who have been practicing for a while is, I know what Zen is good for. It helps me feel calm, or less anxious, or more connected.We have the habit of relating to this practice as another thing that we can measure—whether it is working for me, or not. Whether I am getting what I want from this, or not.This koan is reminding us that Zen or our spiritual lives don't work that way. Even sitting meditation doesn't work that way.When we try to measure our spiritual practice, we overlook the mystery—we violate the deeply secret transmissions, we forget about our inner-most heart.Many of you have heard me use the teaching tool of inner, outer and secret. Let's go into that a little bit more in relationship to the practice of Zen, or spiritual practice more generally.So, we have the physical things that we do, maybe that is meditating daily, or once a week, maybe that is doing bowing practice, or chanting or walking meditation, precepts study or some other practice. This is the outer form of the practice. It is important in that it gives us a form, a temenos, a sacred vessel and structure to our practice. This form is helpful. It reminds us that we are practicing. It gives our bodies and minds something to do, to settle into, to trust. This allows practice to deepen and open.Then we have what we are doing with our minds / attention. I call this the inner dimension. This starts with intention, and then the method—how we are actually meeting the changing experiences on an inner level. This could include practicing acceptance, loving kindness or compassion for ourselves, or learning to relate to thoughts as another sense happening. Or beginning to look into the nature of our experience (we call this inquiry). What is the source of thoughts, what are emotions made of? How long does any experience last? All these practices compose the inner dimension—what we are doing with our attention moment to moment.The secret dimension is all that can not be said, what we don't have names for. The physicist David Bohm said that if we used the analogy of the ocean to describe what we know and don't know about the universe, what we know would be comparable to the foam that rests on the surface of the ocean. What we don't know—is the rest of the ocean.The opening lines to the Dao De Jing say it this way:The dao that can be named is not the eternal dao.And so Zhaozhou gives our hands a squeeze. And it's not about the hand or the squeeze per se, but the intimacy. The connection. Not the words intimacy or connection, but the direct, living intimacy. The dissolving of self and other. Releasing the world from our concepts about it. It's the heart at home with itself. The great mystery of being and non-being—simultaneously. I think you know what I am trying to say. There are times in our practice, in our life as practice where we hear the words behind the words. We hear the secret language of a chant, dharma talk, gesture, sound and part of us understands. Chozen Roshi would invite us to listen to the birds so closely, that we could almost understand what they were saying. I think a similar kind of listening emerges in Zen, we hear and learn to speak the language behind the words and forms, the secret language of true intimacy.So we practice Zen in all its forms, we set intentions and put into practice the teachings that help us cultivate mental stability, equanimity, ease, loving kindness, compassion, gratitude, joy.And at times we are touched by the mystery. The great love of being. We sense our shared nature, and the wisdom, openness and clarity of the heart as our own nature. And then, without us even noticing it secret language emerges from our own lips.…. This dharma talk was shared live during the Monday Night Dharma event through the Zen Community of Oregon.I'm Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, budding Astrologer and Artist. In my Spiritual Counseling Practice, I practice at the confluence of spirituality and psychology, integrating mind, body and spirit. I am trained in Internal Family Systems (IFS), Dream Work, Hakomi (Somatic Therapy) and Mindful Eating.I have a few new client openings this Fall if you are interested in exploring Spiritual Counseling with me. Spiritual Counseling can help you:* Companion Grief + Loss* Clarify Life Purpose* Healing Relational Conflict + Inner Conflict* Work with Shadow Material* Heal your relationship with Eating, Food or Body Image* Spiritual Emergence* Integrate Psychedelic or Mystical Experiences* Move Through Creative Blocks, Career Impasses and BurnoutI also lead a weekly online meditation group through the Zen Community of Oregon and am leading a class series on the Zen Bodhisattva Precepts this Fall. Also if you are interested in workshopping your meditation practice join me in collaboration with Pause Meditation for a 5-week online class series called Beyond Mindfulness. More information can be found below.Monday Night Meditation + DharmaEvery Monday 6P PT / 9P ETJoin me on zoom for 40 minutes of meditation and a dharma talk. We are currently exploring the freedom, spontaneity and love of our original nature through the teachings of the Zen koan tradition. Koans invite us into the mythos of practice awakening, gifting us with the ordinary images of our lives, they help awaken us to the wonder, intimacy and compassion of life as it is!All are welcome to join. Drop in any time.Zoom Link for Monday NightLiving the Questions: 16 Bodhisattva Precepts Class SeriesBe patient with all that is unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves. Do not seek the answers, which can not be given to you, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. And perhaps you will then gradually…find yourself living the answer. — RilkeFar from being a set of rules or doctrine that we must follow, the Bodhisattva precepts act as koans, inquiries that we are empowered to take into our life. They ask us to consider, what does love look like in this situation? In this relationship, how do I work with my anger? Who is it who wants to gossip, or inflate one's self? How can I show up authentically in the world?With the final five grave precepts, pure precepts and refuges as our guide we will explore the heart of what it means for each one of us to live a life of integrity and love. We will explore how each precept touches the personal, interpersonal, global and secret dimensions of our living.Beyond Mindfulness: Deepening Your Meditation Practice Class SeriesThis workshop style course is designed to provide a map of the meditation path as well as:* Introduce you to the five main styles of meditation (calm-abiding, concentration, heart-based practices, inquiry and open-awareness)* Help you understand the intention of each method and how to practice it* Help you understand how the various methods and techniques fit together and support each other* Provide a fun, non-judgmental learning environment where you can try things out, ask questions and explore* Give you the opportunity to work with a teacher with an extensive background in various meditation techniquesI currently live in Columbus, Ohio with my partner Patrick Kennyo Dunn, we facilitate an in-person meditation gathering every Wednesday from 7P - 8:30P at ILLIO in Clintonville through Mud Lotus Sangha. If you happen to be in Columbus, feel free to stop by. We have weekly meditation gatherings, and are offering a day of meditation in October. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

Blue Cliff Record Case 39: The Golden Haired LionA student asked Yunmen, “What is the pure and everlasting body of reality?”Yunmen said, “A fence of flowers and healing herbs.”The student asked, “What's it like when I reach there?”Yunmen said, “A golden-haired lion!”I am landing back in Ohio after about two weeks visiting my old homes in Oregon, Great Vow Zen Monastery and Portland. I was at Great Vow for a weeklong sesshin that we call Grasses, Trees and the Great Earth—a unique retreat where we move the zendo outside, and sit in a circle together in ceremony with the Earth, Sky, Trees, Grasses and beings of the forest, meadow creek and pond. I initially gave this series of talks in the heart of the summer, when flowers, healing herbs, tomatoes and blueberries are fruiting on the fences, in the gardens and windowsill pots of our lives. A time of year that tropical astrologers assign to the constellation Leo, the lion—a fixed fire sign, ruled by the Sun. As Leo season ends, and we find ourselves in late summer, returning back to our own inner light, and the work that needs to be done. I offer these talks and reflections on the Golden Haired Lion, Koan Work and the Changing of the Seasons.The ancient greek astrologers saw the sun as the heart of the cosmic animal as well as the heart of the human being. To know one's heart was to connect to the wild, mysterious heart of the cosmos.Lion-imagery crosses cultures. Lions have spoken to the human heart throughout antiquity we see remnants of this relationship today on the lion panel of the Chauvet Cave in France painted 30K years ago, in the image of the lion-headed dakini in Tibet, Sekhmet the Egyptian warrior-healer goddess with a lion head and in the strength card in the tarot. The RWS version of the strength card in the tarot is quite evocative of the imagery from this koan. A woman wearing flowers in her hair and on her dress, pets a seemingly tamed lion—framed by a bright yellow background invoking the summer sun. Who or what are these part lion-part human beings?Animals and nature frequent koans. I always feel like their appearance reminds us that our spiritual lives unfold within these animal bodies, within the place that we live, within our passions and desires. The appearance of a wild animal connects to our instincts. The lion to our sovereignty as well as our magical child.So here we are again. Conversing with a Zen teacher about the body of reality. And again, the teacher points to the flowers. This time blooming together with medicinal herbs on a fence.While the image was probably something in the immediate environment of the questioner. There are always levels of meaning and exploration within a single interaction. The questioner is asking—what is it? What is always present? Is there something that you can say to express the freedom and love of our original nature, how is it—what is it—right, here–right now?Yunmen shares a bit of his mind by naming— the flowering fence, the medicinal herbs.Images of beauty as well as nourishment—medicine. Alive right here in the present. Is beauty medicine? What nourishes your heart? This koan is very much a koan with heart.Earth Dreams is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Have you ever meditated on a flower? Or attended to a flower blooming over the course of days or weeks. Budding, the opening which is a process of contraction and expansion, then the full expression of its open-ness and followed by the falling petals that slowly turn to soil.Flowers reveal nature's beauty in full display. Their sweet smells and arresting appearance attract humans as well as pollinators. Long associated with the heart, they show us something about the tender process of moving towards openness. As well as reflecting to us the nature of cycles and deep interconnection. Flowers are in-bedded in a place, they are relational.In the Buddhist tradition the nature of mind, the pure body of reality, awareness is likened to a flower that is eternally blooming—always present. While simultaneously human life, the life of the world is —seasonal, is changing, is subject to the whims of nature, the turning of the earth, night and day and all the other beings that we share this cosmos with.What's it like when we realize the pure body of reality for ourselves? A golden haired lion.Together we share the great heart of the cosmos, like the lemniscate above the woman in the strength card—we recognize our continual inter-connection, our shared being with animal, earth, flower, night sky. We find and lose and find ourselves in the heart of our being.In Hua-Yen Buddhism, the golden-haired lion is a symbol of inter-being, inter-penetration. Like a great hologram, it was said that each of the lion's hairs contained the whole lion. So the lion itself was an embodiment of Indra's net. It was a symbol for the living body of reality, where everything is contained within everything else.Majushri, the bodhisattva of Wisdom, is said to ride on this lion. Living this insight.So the appearance of this lion in this koan is an invitation to walk through the world as such. Seeing everyone you meet, every interaction as a reflection of the whole cosmos. Similar to the gnostic belief that the divine is contained within each of us. We are of one substance, and we are utterly unique in our expressions. Our heart is both the heart of the cosmos, and our personal heart (soul/psyche) which will flower in its own way, based on the causes and conditions of our precious life.The lion's gaze is another teaching in the buddhist tradition. The analogy goes that if you throw a ball to a dog, the dog will run after the ball. If you throw a ball to a lion, the lion will look back at the source. As practitioner's we train in the lion's gaze. Instead of following every thought form that flashes through our mind, we trace the thoughts back to our embodied experience, back to awareness itself—back to the source.We learn to gaze into the spacious source of our nature.The images of a koan are like the images of a dream, or even a fairy tale. Where each image is us. We are questioner, we are teacher, we are flowers opening alongside medicinal herbs, we are fence, we are lion, we are the bodhisattva of wisdom.Koans invite us to carry these images into our meditation practice and into our day. Where, like dreams, our associations carry insights into the more personal as well as archetypal dimensions of the koan. Perhaps we will find ourselves practicing our roars, or walking with confidence, embodying courage, letting ourselves shine or take up space. Maybe we will learn more about the mythological lions from fairy tales.Koans invite participation. Embodiment. Creativity.What is it like to sit as a lion? To walk down the street as your lion self? To show-up at a meeting with lion-like courage or confidence, optimism? How familiar are you with your inner strength? What would it be like to practice the lion's gaze when someone criticizes you, or when you criticize yourself? What is it like to let yourself be accompanied by such a lion? This is something I love about koans, they offer support. Companionship. As we get acquainted with the lion of our true nature, we can imagine having them around. Perhaps like in the strength card.Another dimension of this koan is the flower and the medicinal herbs. And so one tangible practice is to simply spend some time meditating with flowers or looking at flowers—really seeing them. Or maybe making yourself some medicinal herbal tea.I have a few friends who as a practice always have a bouquet of flowers on their altar or table, as a way of connecting to beauty and remembering self-appreciation (one friend realized that it was a way of giving herself a gift everyday, the other said it was a small way of connecting to joy).Last year Kennyo and I watched the early season of Twin Peaks, and there was this scene where Agent Cooper is getting pie at the dinner and he says to the sheriff Harry S Truman, “I give myself a gift everyday”.This koan is also about that. How do you nourish your heart? How can you be generous with yourself? Can you do something generous for yourself everyday?We might also try on some of the paradoxes these images hold. How can we be eternally blooming, and also allow all things to have their seasons? Can we sense our oneness, and allow each being to express themselves as they are? As you can see, each koan contains a lot of teachings even within a few images. This layered aspect of koans is what makes them potent teaching tools. So notice, was there any part of the koan, any one of the images or the teachings that the image invokes that you are curious about or do you have an area of life that you feel concerned about, that you aren't sure how to practice with—could the koan accompany you there….that might be the way to bring this teaching into your week.…Koan Practice and the Three Bodies of the BuddhaIn this next talk, I take a deeper dive into how to work with a koan using Blue Cliff Record Case 39: The Golden Haired Lion. I provide a framework for koan practice from the teachings of the Three Bodies of Buddha—three aspects of our embodied awakened life, which are:* Dharmakaya/Essence/Secret—koans point to our awakened nature, the ground of being, our shared light* Sambhogakaya/Inner/Dream Body—working with koan images and energies can help us meet and work with the stuff of our own hearts and minds and empower us to cultivate the awakened qualities that the koan points to. Koan images can also act as dharma protectors, beings we can turn towards to help us meet the inner demons, distractions and deeply conditioned patterns of mind that cause suffering to others and ourselves* Nirmanakaya/Outer/Form/Compassion Body—bringing the koan into our relationships, work we do, expression, embodiment, how we live…Seasons of Practice: Exploring Emptiness + FullnessThis final talk is a reflection + celebration of the end of summer and the practice opportunities that come with late Summer, a time symbolically represented by the Hermit. …I'm Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, budding Astrologer and Artist. In my Spiritual Counseling Practice, I practice at the confluence of spirituality and psychology, integrating mind, body and spirit. I am trained in Internal Family Systems (IFS), Dream Work, Hakomi (Somatic Therapy) and Mindful Eating.I also lead a weekly online meditation group through the Zen Community of Oregon and am leading a class series on the Zen Bodhisattva Precepts this Fall. Also if you are interested in workshopping your meditation practice join me in collaboration with Pause Meditation for a 5-week online class series called Beyond Mindfulness. More information can be found below.Monday Night Meditation + DharmaEvery Monday 6P PT / 9P ETJoin me on zoom for 40 minutes of meditation and a dharma talk. We are currently exploring the freedom, spontaneity and love of our original nature through the teachings of the Zen koan tradition. Koans invite us into the mythos of practice awakening, gifting us with the ordinary images of our lives, they help awaken us to the wonder, intimacy and compassion of life as it is!All are welcome to join. Drop in any time.Zoom Link for Monday NightLiving the Questions: 16 Bodhisattva Precepts Class SeriesBe patient with all that is unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves. Do not seek the answers, which can not be given to you, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. And perhaps you will then gradually…find yourself living the answer. — RilkeFar from being a set of rules or doctrine that we must follow, the Bodhisattva precepts act as koans, inquiries that we are empowered to take into our life. They ask us to consider, what does love look like in this situation? In this relationship, how do I work with my anger? Who is it who wants to gossip, or inflate one's self? How can I show up authentically in the world?With the final five grave precepts, pure precepts and refuges as our guide we will explore the heart of what it means for each one of us to live a life of integrity and love. We will explore how each precept touches the personal, interpersonal, global and secret dimensions of our living.Beyond Mindfulness: Deepening Your Meditation Practice Class SeriesThis workshop style course is designed to provide a map of the meditation path as well as:* Introduce you to the five main styles of meditation (calm-abiding, concentration, heart-based practices, inquiry and open-awareness)* Help you understand the intention of each method and how to practice it* Help you understand how the various methods and techniques fit together and support each other* Provide a fun, non-judgmental learning environment where you can try things out, ask questions and explore* Give you the opportunity to work with a teacher with an extensive background in various meditation techniquesI currently live in Columbus, Ohio with my partner Patrick Kennyo Dunn, we facilitate an in-person meditation gathering every Wednesday from 7P - 8:30P at ILLIO in Clintonville through Mud Lotus Sangha. If you happen to be in Columbus, feel free to stop by. We have weekly meditation gatherings, and are offering a day of meditation in October. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

For whom do you bathe and make yourself beautiful?The cry of the cuckoo is calling you home;hundreds of flowers fall, yet her voice isn't stilled;even deep in jumbled mountains, it's calling clearly.      —DongshanOne way of appreciating this experience we call life is to see it through the eyes of devotion. Whether we are conscious of it or not our lives are woven together through simple, ordinary acts of devotion. We are moved by our love, our sense of duty, our responsibilities and our passions. In spiritual practice we are invited to make our devotedness conscious. To ask —what am I devoted to? What do I devote my time and energy towards? How do I use my attention?As the poem echoes—For whom do you bathe and make yourself beautiful?What wakes you up in the morning? How do you greet your day?Why do you make breakfast, exercise, listen to music, work?And what if this was a living inquiry? Not another reason to shame yourself into being different, or think about how you should be waking up, or what you should be devoted to…But instead, perhaps allowing devotion a place at the table of your life. How are you already devoted to your living and loving? How does this devotion show up in your life? What is the shape of your love? What does it feel like to appreciate the commitments that you have? How are you already an accomplice to beauty?Sometimes we move on auto-pilot. We forget that in the midst of this giant machine of our society, we have agency. And are using it all the time in creative and kind ways. We create beauty. We nourish the ones we love. We turn towards love and compassion countless times throughout the day. We practice seeing more clearly.We are always in cahoots with the great mystery. The cuckoo calls to us. The cicadas sing. The tea pot whistles in a cadence with the mid-summer breeze. A child laughs, another cries—as our hearts and bodies respond.Our longing for healing + wholeness, our desire for connection, the passion with which we wish to share our gifts, talents and heart with others and the world—these are the ingredients for living a spiritual life. These are the seeds that open the world of wonder and interconnection.Underneath every action we take there is a thread of our devotion, a thread that can be traced back to the heart of who we are.For whom do you bathe and make yourself beautiful?The cry of the cuckoo is calling you home;hundreds of flowers fall, yet her voice isn't stilled;even deep in jumbled mountains, it's calling clearly.May we continue to hear its vital call.This podcast episode is an exploration of a Zen story from the koan collection The Hidden Lamp. It explores the themes of devotion and listening on the spiritual path. Asan's RoosterAsan was a laywoman who studied Zen with Master Tetsumon and was unremitting in her devotion to practice. One day during her morning sitting she heard the crow of the rooster and her mind suddenly opened. She spoke a verse in response:The fields, the mountains, the flowers and my body too are the voice of the bird—what is left that can be said to hear?Master Tetsumon recognized her enlightenment.…I'm Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, Meditation Coach, budding Astrologer and Artist. In my Spiritual Counseling Practice, I practice at the confluence of spirituality and psychology, integrating mind, body and spirit. I am trained in Internal Family Systems (IFS), Dream Work, Hakomi (Somatic Therapy) and Mindful Eating.I also lead a weekly online meditation group through the Zen Community of Oregon and am leading a class series on the Zen Bodhisattva Precepts this Fall. Also if you are interested in workshopping your meditation practice join me in collaboration with Pause Meditation for a 5-week online class series called Beyond Mindfulness. More information can be found below.Monday Night Meditation + DharmaEvery Monday 6P PT / 9P ETJoin me on zoom for 40 minutes of meditation and a dharma talk. We are currently exploring the freedom, spontaneity and love of our original nature through the teachings of the Zen koan tradition. Koans invite us into the mythos of practice awakening, gifting us with the ordinary images of our lives, they help awaken us to the wonder, intimacy and compassion of life as it is! All are welcome to join. Drop in any time.Zoom Link for Monday NightLiving the Questions: 16 Bodhisattva Precepts Class SeriesBe patient with all that is unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves. Do not seek the answers, which can not be given to you, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. And perhaps you will then gradually…find yourself living the answer. — RilkeFar from being a set of rules or doctrine that we must follow, the Bodhisattva precepts act as koans, inquiries that we are empowered to take into our life. They ask us to consider, what does love look like in this situation? In this relationship, how do I work with my anger? Who is it who wants to gossip, or inflate one's self? How can I show up authentically in the world?With the final five grave precepts, pure precepts and refuges as our guide we will explore the heart of what it means for each one of us to live a life of integrity and love. We will explore how each precept touches the personal, interpersonal, global and secret dimensions of our living.Beyond Mindfulness: Deepening Your Meditation Practice Class SeriesThis workshop style course is designed to provide a map of the meditation path as well as:* Introduce you to the five main styles of meditation (calm-abiding, concentration, heart-based practices, inquiry and open-awareness)* Help you understand the intention of each method and how to practice it* Help you understand how the various methods and techniques fit together and support each other* Provide a fun, non-judgmental learning environment where you can try things out, ask questions and explore* Give you the opportunity to work with a teacher with an extensive background in various meditation techniquesI currently live in Columbus, Ohio with my partner , we facilitate an in-person meditation gathering every Wednesday from 7P - 8:30P at ILLIO in Clintonville through Mud Lotus Sangha. If you happen to be in Columbus, feel free to stop by!Earth Dreams is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

Our attention is a precious resource. We use it all the time, and so, might forget what a resource it is. Contemplative traditions throughout the ages recognized the preciousness of attention. And also recognized that if we don't put in the effort to train our attention, our attention may get hijacked, scattered, frittered away by the thieves of time or thoughts of worry, disappointment, greed and hatred.With the election news blaring right now. It might feel easier then ever for attention to get hijacked in doom-scrolling, anxieties about the future, worries and fear. It is an on-going practice to notice where our attention is being pulled, and to remember that we have choice about what we are attending to. To remember that attending to joy, compassion, equanimity and loving kindness awaken these qualities in our own hearts and in the world.The intellect can only get us so far, as individuals and as a species. We have other resources and capacities that are under-valued in our capitalist society, but are life-affirming and necessary for our wellbeing. Qualities like spaciousness, presence, clear-seeing, compassion for others, curiosity and play allow us to connect beyond our differences in views and even across species-lines. These qualities potentiate other ways of showing up for ourselves, others and the world—ways of being that empower us to companion uncertainty and awaken to our inter-connectedness.About a thousand years ago, a Zen teacher named Yunmen said to their community: Within heaven and earth, through space and time, there is a jewel, hidden inside the mountain of form. Pick up a lamp and go into the Buddha Hall, take the triple gate and bring it on the lamp.In Zen, we call statements like this koans. Words or phrases that can't be understood with our intellects alone but require a different kind of attention and inquiry. Koans like this, invite us in to ways of seeing that are as multifaceted as this jewel. They invite us into their world, a world of possibility—a world that is right here, inside this one that we are already living. So if you can for a moment, slip below the apparent linearity of time—into the present—and conjure for a moment—MOUNTAIN.Maybe you live by a mountain. Maybe you have only seen pictures of them. Maybe at some point in your life you backpacked or camped or hiked on a mountain. Mountains have presence. To view a mountain, even an image of one can often invoke a sense of inner stillness, a sense of awe or even majesty.In the summer at great vow we would often study the Mountains and Rivers Sutra by Dogen Zenji. In it Dogen says:Mountains possess complete virtue with nothing lacking. They are always safely rooted yet constantly moving. You should study the meaning of always moving. You should study the green mountains. Just because the movement of mountains is not like the movement of human beings, do not doubt that it exists.We would practice sitting like a mountain. My teacher Chozen Roshi said, “If you sit like a mountain everyday for a month, it will change you.” What is it like to sit as a mountain. To sit in your completeness, to sit as though nothing were lacking. To be both safely rooted, connected to the earth, woven into the landscape, deeply connected to yourself as ecotone, as ecology, as a network of being—in constant movement, yet so Here.Mountain practice reminds us that we too are emplaced. Whether you live by mountains, or in the valley, or on the prairie, plains, forest, desert, coast—we are always emplaced. In a network of relations. In this city of sirens and heavy exhaust—a cardinal sings, a bright yellow finch bathes in the neighbors gutter, edible mushrooms grow in the metro park, walnut trees dine with paw-paws creating a ceaseless canopy near the rushing river, where a doe cleans her new born babe, whose fur is covered in white spots, legs still wobbly.Where-ever you find yourself right now, you are emplaced, connected to a geography, a living landscape of relationships. In part it is the quality of our attention that awakens a belonging to this earth community, to the breath of the wind and the space of the sky—Even though in parts of the human mind there appears to be so much division, contempt and fear. Interconnectedness is also true. We are also Mountain, landscape, a web of relatedness—we are also movement, breeze, sky, song. And within this mountain of form—there is a jewel.Within this mountain of form, within this life we find ourselves in, our particular karma—body pain, unanswered emails, childhood traumas, societal divides, violence, fear, disappointment, hope. There is a jewel.Within this body/mind with its beliefs about being unworthy, too much, not-good-enough. There is a jewel.In dharma practice, we are invited to awaken to the jewel of our true nature. To recognize it. To refamiliarize ourselves with it. And to remember that this precious jewel doesn't exist outside of the actual emplacement of our living. The actual events, fears, disappointments, pains.We don't have to go somewhere else to find it. We don't have to transcend this earthly existence. Right here in this mountain of form. This mountain of being. We are spacious clarity, love is our heart's nature—this is the great mystery. For what we are at the core is radiantly present, and vastly undefinable.The buddhist path recognizes that human life throws a lot of shade on this jewel, that we get sucked into believing things about ourselves, others and the world that appears to cover over our radiant jewel. We forget that the mountain is alive, that it is, we are— part of a great re-cycling of energy—that the re-circulating of earth, winds, waters, hope, love + bone is how the mountain continues.In our forgetting, we attempt to make sense of life and death, violence, lack of care—and develop strategies, beliefs are reinforced from caregivers or religious systems, stories are told that aren't true but helped to keep us safe when it seemed like nothing else would.Beliefs like, I alone am responsible for the injustice in the world. I alone should be able to fix this. If only I tried harder, read more, woke up earlier…was more enlightened. Or I'm not good enough. I am a failure. This shouldn't be happening….What we call practice is a path of reckoning with what is true. Coming back to the ground, to the earth, to the body, this mountain of form. Right here—there is aliveness. Right here—mysterious grace. Pure possibility.Then we have the second part of the koan. Use this mountain of form with its precious jewel—pick up a lamp and go to the buddha hall, take the triple gate and bring it on the lamp.It's not enough to recognize the jewel. Now let it shine, share it.It's a ridiculous image. I picture this giant toreii gate smashing through the buddha hall—bringing the temple entrance right here, right next to the buddha, right into our meditation space. Or bringing the buddha hall out through the temple gate. Out into the world.Dharma practice invites us to ask—what is your dream for the world?Sometimes we forget that we get to have one. We are so busy just trying to survive, to manage, to get enough of what we want. Spiritual practice really continues to ask us some version of this—why? What for? So what is your dream for yourself, others—the world? I want to allow what we usually call VOW to be a dream today. Vow can get us stuck in perfection or overly involved in commitmentDream invites imagination, process, experimentation…mystery…It invites us to smash into the buddha hall with all our fears and hopes about the world—to bring everything we've got to our spiritual practice.Dreaming also appreciates that there is uncertainty, much we don't know, that we can't be responsible for everything—but can be responsive.Part of what Yunmen is showing is a kind of radical faith. Yes, this world seems so fixed, but maybe much of what is fixed is your way of thinking about it. Maybe you are taking a limited human view.Or yes our political situation, institutions, society— appear so corrupt, and you don't have to let it corrupt you. Stay connected to this jewel, the spaciousness, clarity, love of your heart's nature. There is possibility, mystery is always right here—even though this may appear to be a mountain of form, it doesn't mean the only thing you can do is summit it, or run away. Maybe there are other options besides conquering or being defeated. Maybe you can walk around, maybe you can meet people at the base, maybe you can meander, sit with a tree, listen to the concerns of the river, get to know the landscape.Maybe we can apply this to our response to the election news or an interpersonal challenge or with our own inner life. Maybe I can hang out with this part of me that gets afraid, maybe I can make space for my grief, maybe I can call a friend and cry together/laugh together/make plans to see each other, maybe I can do something generous for a loved one, maybe I can recommit to showing up for what I care about in a really local way—feeding the neighborhood cat, attending a town hall meeting, volunteering at the library, making a donation to a shelter, getting to know people who work at the local grocery, getting to know my more-than-human community.Part of what I carry on this lamp is a dream for an awakened society. I carry it into and out of the buddha hall, I carry it—even as I meet the very real violence, bigotry, hatred and greed that is part of the manifestation of our world right now, part of my own conditioning. How does the jewel of awakened nature meet the manifestations of greed, violence, fear, loneliness? This is a living question. Something to live into and carry into the world.The koan also gives us practical medicine/instruction. Here are simple things you can do to train/reclaim your attention:Sit as a mountain, connect with the heart center. When we sit as a mountain, we connect to the earth and sky. We are invited to connect with our place, whether we live here or not, we can connect to place where ever we are. We can let ourselves feel emplaced. We can get to know the trees, birds, animals, flowers, rivers, rocks, fossils, breezes, stars and sky that we share this place with.Sit as a jewel—a jewel has many facets, many ways of seeing and responding, a jewel allows there to be complexity and empowers us to live our awakened life. In a very practical way, sitting as a jewel is a practice of appreciating your life. This embodied life. You! Only you can actualize the radiance of your inner light. Recording what you appreciate about yourself each day is a concrete way to nourish the jewelPractice seeing the jewel of each being. Not always easy to do, but such an important aspiration. Instead of judging others (including politicians) can you let yourself appreciate something about them. Or to see beyond their views, to see them as another human being who suffers and is capable of love. Carry your lamp, your dream for the world. Carry it into and out of the buddha hall, your workplace, your bedroom, your car, the establishments you frequent, your relationships. Get to know what helps nourish its light, and make a practice of doing one thing a day to nourish your dream for the world.…I'm Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, Meditation Coach, Astrologer and Artist. In my Spiritual Counseling Practice, I practice at the confluence of spirituality and psychology, integrating mind, body and spirit. Spiritual Counseling can help you:* Companion Grief + Loss* Clarify Life Purpose* Healing Relational Conflict + Inner Conflict* Work with Shadow Material* Heal your relationship with Eating, Food or Body Image* Spiritual Emergence* Integrate Psychedelic or Mystical Experiences* Move Through Creative Blocks, Career Impasses and BurnoutI am trained in Internal Family Systems (IFS), Dream Work, Hakomi (Somatic Therapy) and Mindful Eating.I also lead a weekly online meditation group, you can read more about below.Monday Night Meditation + Dharma6P PT / 9P ETJoin me on zoom for 40 minutes of meditation and a dharma talk. We are currently exploring embodiment, compassion and the principles of engaged buddhism. All are welcome to join.Zoom Link for Monday NightI currently live in Columbus, Ohio with my partner, we facilitate an in-person meditation gathering every Wednesday from 7P - 8:30P at ILLIO in Clintonville through Mud Lotus Sangha. If you happen to be in Columbus, feel free to stop by!Earth Dreams is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

Mark Somerson of Columbus Business First has a look at local business news including new owner of rebrands Harvest marijuana dispensary in Clintonville

With this and that I tried to keep the bucket together, and then the bottom fell out.Where the water does not collect, the moon does not dwell.—ChiyonoThis is the awakening poem of Chiyono, a Japanese Zen practitioner in the early 17th Century. The poem comes after a much longer story about this person's path of practice. In the story, Chiyono has a sincere aspiration to practice the dharma, but isn't able to spend a lot of time in formal meditation practice because of her work responsibilities.She seeks out an elder nun at the local convent—and though she is full of self-doubt, she expresses to the nun her aspiration to practice the dharma, as well as her situation and self-doubt. The nun meets her with reassurance, she affirms Chiyono's aspiration and tells her that there is a path of practice that she can do—even if she doesn't have time for a lot of formal practice.The nun gives Chiyono these instructions:* Affirm your sincere aspiration to awaken* Cultivate compassion for all beings* Recollect that you are complete as you are* Recognize delusive thoughts, and look into their sourceThis dharma talk/podcast episode was recorded on during the weekly Monday Night Meditation & Dharma event (learn more below). In this dharma talk I explore practices for looking into the source of thoughts. This is a vital practice that has the ability to completely change our relationship to thoughts and the power that they can have over us.What are thoughts made of?What happens when you take thoughts as the object of attention?Or trace thoughts back and feel the sensations/emotions in your body?To look into our thoughts is a courageous practice, to feel our feelings directly unmeditated by thought is also a courageous practice. Doing it can help us recognize the spaciousness and clarity of Mind's nature. Doing it can awaken the heart of compassion.How much energy do we spend using thoughts to patch together this bucket of self?How much energy do we use trying to prove that we are unworthy, unloveable, undeserving?What if instead of believing these lies about ourselves, we looked into the nature of these thoughts? What if we began to truly trust that we and all beings are complete as we are?While sitting meditation can be a great support for looking into the source of our thoughts, this is a practice we can do throughout the day—try it, its empowering!….I'm Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, Meditation Coach, Astrologer and Artist. In my Spiritual Counseling Practice, I practice at the confluence of spirituality and psychology, integrating mind, body and spirit. Spiritual Counseling can help you:* Companion Grief + Loss* Clarify Life Purpose* Healing Relational Conflict + Inner Conflict* Work with Shadow Material* Heal your relationship with Eating, Food or Body Image* Spiritual Emergence* Integrate Psychedelic or Mystical Experiences* Move Through Creative Blocks, Career Impasses and BurnoutI am trained in Internal Family Systems (IFS), Dream Work, Hakomi (Somatic Therapy) and Mindful Eating.I also lead a weekly online meditation group, you can read more about below.Monday Night Meditation + Dharma6P PT / 9P ETJoin me on zoom for 40 minutes of meditation and a dharma talk. We are currently exploring embodiment, compassion and the principles of engaged buddhism. All are welcome to join.Zoom Link for Monday NightI currently live in Columbus, Ohio with my partner, we facilitate an in-person meditation gathering every Wednesday from 7P - 8:30P at ILLIO in Clintonville through Mud Lotus Sangha. If you happen to be in Columbus, feel free to stop by!Earth Dreams is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

Mark Somerson of Columbus Business First has the latest local business news including a mass timber project and another Cameron Mitchell restaurant opening this weekend!

Between aspiration, practice, enlightenment and nirvana there is not a moment's gap. Continuous Practice is the Circle of the Way. —Dogen ZenjiIn Dharma practice we are invited to reflect on our view—the beliefs that rest at the root of our hearts and influence how we perceive, make sense of and respond to our lives.For what we think and believe has a deep effect on what we see and perceive. Our thoughts have power. As anyone who has observed or studied conflict may know—so much of the violence in the world stems from a difference in opinion, belief or view.In Dharma practice—we are invited to ask the radical question.What am I believing?What is my mind thinking right now?And is it true? Is it really true?When we take thoughts or beliefs as ultimate truth—divisiveness, conflict or isolation often follow suit. Our thoughts are powerful. And we can actually use this insight to try on other ways of viewing our lives or reality.What happens when we take up a view of unconditional acceptance? Love unbounded? Freedom for all beings?This is the heart of what we call—the Bodhisattva Vow. And it is often articulated as a vow to work towards liberation for all beings.This podcast episode is a recording of a Dharma Talk given on Monday June 17th during my online Zen Meditation gathering. During it I explore the power of Bodhisattva Vision. So often we engage our own dharma practice or meditation practice from a view of “what can I get out of this” and then judge the practice for “not giving us what we want.”Bodhisattva vision is grounded in the insight that we are interconnected with all beings and this living earth. What happens when we ground our practice and our living in compassion for all beings (including ourselves)? When our view of liberation is a view of liberation for everyone? When we recognize or even imagine that all being is shared being?….I'm Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, Meditation Coach, Astrologer and Artist. In my Spiritual Counseling Practice, I practice at the confluence of spirituality and psychology, integrating mind, body and spirit. Spiritual Counseling can help you:* Companion Grief + Loss* Clarify Life Purpose* Healing Relational Conflict + Inner Conflict* Work with Shadow Material* Heal your relationship with Eating, Food or Body Image* Spiritual Emergence* Integrate Psychedelic or Mystical Experiences* Move Through Creative Blocks, Career Impasses and BurnoutI am trained in Internal Family Systems (IFS), Dream Work, Hakomi (Somatic Therapy) and Mindful Eating.I also lead a weekly online meditation group, you can read more about below.Monday Night Meditation + Dharma6P PT / 9P ETJoin me on zoom for 40 minutes of meditation and a dharma talk. We are currently exploring embodiment, compassion and the principles of engaged buddhism. All are welcome to join.Zoom Link for Monday NightI currently live in Columbus, Ohio with my partner, we facilitate an in-person meditation gathering every Wednesday from 7P - 8:30P at ILLIO in Clintonville through Mud Lotus Sangha. If you happen to be in Columbus, feel free to stop by! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

Nicole Harrison, Principal Broker & Owner of The Harrison Co. Real Estate Group. Nicole has been a licensed real estate agent since 2000. As a Multi-Million Dollar Producer, she's helped countless Buyers and Sellers navigate their way through the real estate process. She understands the needs of her Buyers and Sellers and customizes a plan for each client so they know what's happening, each step of the way. The Harrison Co. uses the most up-to-date technology to help you buy or sell a home. After being with a large, international real estate brokerage for most of her real estate career, Nicole decided that for her to take care of her clients in the best way possible, she needed to open her own company and that's how The Harrison Co. Real Estate Group started.  With close to $50 million in real estate sales to date, Nicole knows the Central Ohio & surrounding markets. Nicole was also once a licensed title agent in the state of Ohio and is knowledgeable on title work and title insurance, which is an essential part of the real estate transaction. Nicole helps Buyer and Sellers all over Central Ohio and the surrounding areas, including, but not limited to: Columbus, Grove City, Hilliard, Worthington, Dublin, Westerville, Powell, Galena, Sunbury, Croton, Centerburg, Marysville, Ostrander, Delaware, Plain City, London, West Jefferson, Harrisburg, Orient, Ashville, Commercial Point, Gahanna, New Albany, Reynoldsburg, Pickerington, Lancaster, Upper Arlington, Clintonville, Grandview Heights, German Village, Victorian Village, Short North, Downtown Columbus, Riverlea, & Lewis Center.   Find More About Nicole: http://nicoleharrison.com https://www.instagram.com/broker_nicole https://www.facebook.com/BrokerNicole . . TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 - Highlights 00:54 - Intro 01:39 - Guns & The Right To Protect Ourselves 08:52 - The Realtor Role 36:13 - Who's actually in the Real Estate Game? 43:41 - The Biggest Opportunity in Real Estate 55:41 - Getting Qualified Leads 01:01:11 - Free Time 01:09:12 - Not Doing It All For Nothing . .

Welcome to the All For Nothing Podcast - Presented By, Tyler Bossetti _________________________________________________________________________ ALL FOR NOTHING MOTTO What are you doing to ensure you are not doing this All For Nothing? Most people live their entire lives with nothing to show for it. They go to their deathbed with regret. Others may receive an inheritance, yet over 70% of generational wealth returns back to poverty within the second generation. _________________________________________________________________________ THE GUEST: Annie Dickson Annie Dickson is a self-taught culinary enthusiast, who was born and raised in Lynchburg, VA. Her passion for cooking and baking was ignited during her childhood when she created flavorful memories alongside her grandmothers. In the spring of 2022, her culinary venture, Bite This By Annie, was born, almost by accident, as her friends and family encouraged her to elevate her culinary adventures. She began her journey by selling her baked goods at local farmers markets in Clintonville and Dublin, as well as at Budd Dairy Food Hall, where she offers a rotating menu featuring her legendary bagel bombs and sweets like fudgy brownies, soft cookies (called fat boys), and sandwich cookies (called slim boys), in addition to dishes she enjoys cooking at home, such as sausage gravy and biscuits. The drink menu is still being finalized, but Annie confirmed plans to offer coffee and a version of the black lemonade she has previously sold, which contains edible glitter. Bite This By Annie is known for its eye-catching Instagram feed, which features dark colors, mood-soothing lighting, and a goth undertone.  Check it out: https://www.instagram.com/bitethisbyannie https://www.tiktok.com/@bitethisbyannie https://www.bitethisbyannie.com _________________________________________________________________________ THE HOST:  Tyler Bossetti Based in Columbus, Ohio, Tyler Bossetti is a dynamic entrepreneur dedicated to empowering individuals through education in business, financial literacy, and investing. With a passion for subjects ranging from credit and debt to traditional investing in Real Estate, Stocks, and even the new digital economy of Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and technology. Tyler strives to make a positive impact on people's personal, professional, and financial lives. As an avid traveler, Tyler finds inspiration in exploring new places and cultures, complementing the time spent with family and friends. Balancing a commitment to fitness and a love for sports, Tyler brings a well-rounded perspective to both work and life. Known for engaging in discussions on business, investing, relationships, religion, and even conspiracy theories, Tyler's ultimate focus is building an impactful community for his members to learn, grow, and connect. _________________________________________________________________________ TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 - Highlights 00:48 - Intro 03:44 - Being married to an Army Intelligence Analyst 06:11 - Starting a Business 14:37 - Advice for Entrepreneurs 18:04 - All For Nothing 24:26 - Upbringing  39:21 - MySpace 43:53 - Kids Growing Up with Technology 57:30 - Brick-and-mortar 01:11:40 - Additional Products & Services _________________________________________________________________________ Join me each week as we feature guests to showcase their stories of overcoming challenges, rising to the occasion, and discussing many topics, such as business, finance, investing, technology, religion, relationships, politics, and how to live a life worth living! Tyler Bossetti  www.tylerbossetti.com  Text Me: +1 (614) 660-5921 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tylerbossetti/ Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/tylerbossetti/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tyler.bossetti/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tylerbossetti/

A look at Small Town Crime from around the Dairy State and we just have to ask, what is going on in Waukesha?

Jon Steigerwaldt, Upper Midwest and Great Lakes Forest Conservation Director for the Ruffed Grouse and American Woodcock societies, provides a mid-season report on grouse and woodcock hunting in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. (https://ruffedgrousesociety.org/) Eric Printz, Director of Economic Development for Florence County, Wisconsin, invites listeners to visit Florence County this month for some great hunting, trail riding, and sightseeing, plus a Hunters Dinner, and several fundraisers for local charities. (https://www.exploreflorencecounty.com/) Veteran owned Walker Forge, of Clintonville, Wisconsin, hosts a fundraiser for Wounded Warriors United of Wisconsin, November 9 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (https://www.woundedwarriorsunitedwi.org/, https://www.walkerforge.com/) In the Madison Outdoors Report, wildlife biologist JC Chamberlin reports bucks are actively seeking does this week and offers advice for bowhunting the rut. (http://pappastradingpost.com/)

If ghost kitchens sound scary, they're not – in fact, the  delivery-only restaurants are popping up everywhere in America and Columbus in particular. Fueled by the need to get creative during the pandemic, restaurant operators continue to flock to this innovative business model with its low startup costs. Among other facilities and restaurants, a 22-kitchen facility is now open in Clintonville, and three Columbus-area Kroger locations now have their own ghost kitchens run by a third party. The keys to this newest innovation in the restaurant industry are smartphone apps that make it easy to order food, fast delivery times, and minimal everything – minimal footprints, minimal staff, and minimal investment capital required of would-be restaurateurs. The growing practice hasn't been without critics, with some industry observers noting that what can appear to customers to be a diverse collection of independent restaurants may not live up to a closer look behind the scenes. Yet the kitchens have raised more than $3 billion in venture capital funding since 2020, and entrepreneurs and customers alike appear hungry for more. Join us with industry insiders for a look behind-the-scenes at ghost kitchens in Central Ohio and how this disruptive model is taking over take-out. The panelists are: Chris Baggott, Co-Founder and CEO, ClusterTruck John Barker, President & CEO, The Ohio Restaurant Association Bennett Goldberg, Partner, Maker Kitchens Lisa Gutierrez, Founder and CEO, Dos Hermanos Taco Truck, Founder and Food-Based Business Coach, Food Truck Millionaire The host is Susan Post, Associate Editor, Columbus Underground This forum was supported by the Grange Insurance Audubon Center. The livestream was presented by The Center for Human Kindness at The Columbus Foundation and The Columbus Dispatch. This forum was recorded before a live audience in Columbus, Ohio on August 16, 2023.

Carolyn Harding with Joe Motil & Adrienne Hood, Mayor and City Council candidates running for the PEOPLES' vote in Columbus, Ohio on November 7, 2023. Mayoral Candidate Joe Motil was born the 7th of 11 children and grew up in Clintonville, Ohio. He graduated from Bishop Watterson High School, attended Youngstown State University where he played college basketball, and in his 20's, aspired to be a professional jazz musician. Married for 37 years, he raised two children while working in the commercial construction industry as a union Laborer of Local 423 for 24 years, and worked as a construction safety professional before retiring. Since 1995, Joe ran for City Council and State Representative, and has been active in citizen driven ballot initiatives on voting rights, tax levies, and development projects that negatively impacted the environment. He fights structural racism, and advocates for our unsheltered, for police reform/community policing, for historic preservation, for creating affordable housing, parkland protection, and for strengthening public education through his long-standing fight against the city's tax abatement policy. www.joemotil.com Columbus City Council Candidate Adrienne Hood was born in Columbus and raised in the Linden area. She has dedicated her life service to God, family, community, and country. She is the mother of three and a grandmother to four. She is running for Columbus City Council District 4 to advocate for equitable public safety, quality mental healthcare, affordable housing, and public education. Ms. Hood graduated from Independence High School in Columbus, University of Phoenix, with a bachelor's in Criminal Justice Administration, and she completed her master's in Human Services at Liberty University. Ms. Hood retired from the U.S. Air Force in 2020 as a Master Sergeant and has used these leadership skills to serve in her church and on the boards of local grassroots organizations. She is passionate about the changes that we need to make in Columbus which will protect everyone regardless of their zip code. www.adriennehood.com You've both been active in the Columbus Justice community for years. You're both running on issues you have profound commitment to. And you're both Democrats running against incumbent, and possibly endorsed, Democrats on the November 7, 2023 Columbus, Ohio ballot. We have a lot to cover. Ready? GrassRoot Ohio - Conversations with everyday people working on important issues, here in Columbus and all around Ohio. Every Friday 5:00pm, EST on 94.1FM & streams worldwide at www.WGRN.org, Sundays at 2:00pm EST on 92.7/98.3 FM and streams at www.WCRSFM.org, and Sundays at 4:00pm EST, at 107.1 FM, Wheeling/Moundsville WV on WEJP-LP FM. Contact Us if you would like GrassRoot Ohio on your local station. Face Book: https://www.facebook.com/GrassRootOhio/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grassroot_ohio/ SoundCloud! https://soundcloud.com/user-42674753 Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/.../grassroot-ohio/id1522559085 YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAX2t1Z7_qae803BzDF4PtQ/ Intro and Exit music for GrassRoot Ohio is "Resilient" by Rising Appalachia: https://youtu.be/tx17RvPMaQ8 There's a time to listen and learn, a time to organize and strategize, And a time to Stand Up/ Fight Back!

Alex Sherwood lead all scorers with 29 points as the Xavier Hawks advanced to the Regional finals with a 79-58 win over Clintonville. Jonathan Krause had the call.

In an attempt to unpack this past Saturday's demonstration of hate courtesy of the Proud Boys, let's discuss the dangers of being passive-progressive, the sleight-of-hand of hate groups, and why Clintonville, Ohio is the perfect place to recruit the next Proud Boy.  

Jess Laughlin is the founder and head “good vibes” gifter at xoLaughlinCo., where she's helped hundreds of people overcome the fear and awkwardness of reaching out to people during heavy life moments. Her online shop features thoughtfully curated gifts, primarily sourced from small businesses and helps express just the right sentiment for loved ones who've experienced everything from miscarriage or loss of a family member, to struggles with mental health and everyday sh*t. Like many other women in 2020, Jess decided to start a business in her basement. After losing her dad to heart disease a few years prior, she experienced first-hand how a small but thoughtful gift could allow her to feel seen and understood. Her journey has been both lonely and awkward, and she believes we can all do better to support one another. Jess has been on a mission to normalize grief ever since, opening up about her own experiences and encouraging others to do the same.When she's not ranting about grief, she's wrangling her two kids and husband from their home in Clintonville, Ohio.In each episode, Jeff and Eric will talk about what emotional intelligence, or understanding your emotions, can do for you in your daily and work life. For more information, contact Eric or Jeff at info@spiritofeq.com, or go to their website, Spirit of EQ.You can follow The Spirit of EQ Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or on your favorite podcast player.New episodes are available on the 2nd and 4th Mondays every month!Please review our podcast on iTunes. Click on the link for an easy, step-by-step tutorial.Music from Uppbeathttps://uppbeat.io/t/roo-walker/deeperLicense code: LB1BTATHVF4VIFGQSpirit of EQ Mentioned in this episode:Thanks for listening to Spirit of EQThis podcast was created to be a tool to primarily help you to discover and grow your EQ. Science and our own lived experiences confirm that the better we are at managing our emotions, the better we're going to be at making decisions. Which leads to a better life. And that's something we all want. We're glad that you've taken the time today to listen. We hope that something you hear will lead to a breakthrough. We'd really appreciate a review on your podcast platform. Please leave some comments about what you heard today, as well as follow and subscribe to the podcast. That way, you won't miss a single episode as we continue this journey.

Greg Hanson recalls driving his first tractor at the age of 6 and fondly remembers the last team of horses, Duke and Dock, that were on his family's Waupaca County Farm. Greg's family farm received its Century Farm recognition this year at the Wisconsin State Fair, and he traces the farm's history back to his grandparents. They purchased land in Clintonville in 1922 and purchased a team of horses and 3 cows for $300 to kickstart the operation. Greg shares more about the farm's history.  The attached image is Greg and Kristy Hanson with their son and grandson.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Content warning: this episode features graphic descriptions of violence and domestic abuse. Katy Smith is Business Editor at The Columbus Dispatch and Editor of Columbus CEO magazine. She has been a journalist for more than 20 years, most of those covering business in Columbus. She grew up in Bexley and now lives in Clintonville in a duplex with her husband Nick, her rescue cat Dexter, and her brother Joe, who she cares for. So, Katy has been sharing other people's stories for about 20 years now — and, today, she is generous enough to share her own story publicly for the first time What Brett asks: [10:12] Can you talk a little bit more about what happened for you and how you managed to navigate domestic violence? [14:30] Let's back up and talk about your early childhood. [21:30] It must have been very difficult, whether you knew it at the time, going through that family dynamic as a young girl. [26:20] Tell me a little bit more about your brother and how that experience shaped your life. [34:23]  I think what you've shared so far is really important for others to hear, and maybe important for you to acknowledge and create real space for. [38:33] This kind of sharing is very cathartic, not just for you but for the people who hear it. To learn more about intentional living, and for the complete show notes, visit: https://gravityproject.com/ (gravityproject.com) Resources: http://www.choicescolumbus.org/ (CHOICES for Victims of Domestic Violence) https://www.dispatch.com/ (The Columbus Dispatch) https://www.columbusceo.com/ (Columbus CEO Magazine) Tim Ferriss podcast about Parts Work: https://tim.blog/2021/01/14/richard-schwartz-internal-family-systems/ (“Richard Schwartz — IFS, Psychedelic Experiences without Drugs, and Finding Inner Peace for Our Many Parts (#492)”) Gravity is a production of http://crate.media/ (Crate Media). Mentioned in this episode: Gravity Audience Survey https://gravitypodcast.com/survey (Click here to share your thoughts and feedback as a listener of the Gravity podcast.)

Here's the happenings in the Fox Valley for the week of July 18, 2022: Evers visits Neenah, Suicide & Crisis Lifeline gets new number, Oshkosh plans big extracurricular facilities, and more. Sourceshttp://rssfeeds.postcrescent.com/~/702915450/0/appleton/home~Gov-Tony-Evers-tours-small-businesses-in-a-downtown-Neenah-thats-bounced-back-since-the-start-of-the-pandemic/ (Gov. Evers buys an Elvis puzzle downtown Neenah) http://rssfeeds.postcrescent.com/~/702915450/0/appleton/home~Gov-Tony-Evers-tours-small-businesses-in-a-downtown-Neenah-thats-bounced-back-since-the-start-of-the-pandemic/ (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline number finally changes to 988) https://www.thenorthwestern.com/story/news/education/2022/07/13/oshkosh-school-board-committee-advances-extracurricular-facilities-plan/10044037002/ (Oshkosh Area School District has big plans for extracurriculars) http://rssfeeds.postcrescent.com/~/702923650/0/appleton/home~Milwaukee-chosen-as-likely-Republican-National-Convention-site-in/ (GOP planning for Milwaukee as National Republican Convention in 2024) https://www.wearegreenbay.com/news/local-news/port-of-green-bay-has-blockbuster-month-one-of-highest-monthly-totals-in-years/ (Summer of revenge shipping (by water way)) http://rssfeeds.postcrescent.com/~/702751568/0/appleton/home~Wisconsin-pharmacies-say-they-have-emergency-contraceptives-on-hand-some-cutting-prices-limiting-pills-purchased/ (Wisconsin pharmacies see spike of "Plan B" pills following Roe V Wade overturn) http://rssfeeds.postcrescent.com/~/702751568/0/appleton/home~Wisconsin-pharmacies-say-they-have-emergency-contraceptives-on-hand-some-cutting-prices-limiting-pills-purchased/ (Little Chute bridge to one lane for next two weeks) https://twitter.com/onwnews/status/1547635808789602304 (Oregon/Jackson Bridge to stay closed later, end of September suspected open) https://www.wearegreenbay.com/positively-wisconsin/compassionate-connections-hosts-trivia-night-to-help-provide-free-back-to-school-clothes/ (Clintonville non-profit provides back-to-school clothes for free) https://www.wearegreenbay.com/news/local-news/green-bay-police-department-testing-automatic-license-plate-readers-throughout-the-city/ (GBPD testing automatic license plate readers to track crime) https://www.postcrescent.com/story/money/companies/buzz/2022/07/15/fox-cities-el-agave-expands-into-kimberly/10052484002/ (El Agave opens another location in Kimberly) Did we miss a story? Got an event to share? Follow Appleton Podcast Co-op on https://whatthefoxsays.captivate.fm/apc-facebook (Facebook) and send us a message. CreditsConnect with today's hostDavid Kalsow helped co-found the https://appletonpodcast.com/ (Appleton Podcast Co-op) and hosts https://appletonpodcast.com/presents/ (APC Presents,) a podcast featuring longform interviews with local podcasters. Twitter - https://twitter.com/kalsowkalsow (@kalsowkalsow) TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@kalsowkalsow (@kalsowkalsow) Email - me@davidkalsow What the Fox Says is a production of the https://whatthefoxsays.captivate.fm/apc-website (Appleton Podcast Co-op), a collaborative network for Northeast Wisconsin locals to start and grow their own podcast.

We welcome Lee Sports Wisconsin columnist Jim Polzin to the show to hear his story of how he came to cover the Badgers. We learn how growing up in Clintonville helped foster his love for sports, the key decisions he made to land at the Capital Times, covering Barry Alvarez and Bret Bielema, how his job has changed in going from a beat writer to a columnist and more. He also helps preview Wisconsin's linebackers. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Interview withThe Clintonville Slasher's Slasher Hour! Listen as I do a Slasher Hour interview!

As a kid, he drew everything he could think of, hung out with the designers at the advertising agency where his mom worked, and constantly took things apart to better understand them. Always looking for new ways to solve problems, Jeremy was the kid, and later the adult, to whom people turned to when they needed help expressing themselves and their ideas graphically. Today, as the principal of his own firm, Jeremy puts his insatiable curiosity to work every day as he gets into the heads of his clients to understand what they want and—perhaps more importantly—need to develop a memorable brand presence. With a firm belief that he is the master of his computer (and not the other way around), he works everything on paper first to ensure that the logos he designs and the brands he creates are as thoughtful, effective and original as the clients they represent. Jeremy lives in the Clintonville neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio with his wife Becky, two teenagers and a miniature poodle. Ramblings of a Designer podcast is a monthly design news and discussion podcast hosted by Laszlo Lazuer and Terri Rodriguez-Hong (@flaxenink, insta: flaxenink.design). Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/Ramblings-of-a-Designer-Podcast-2347296798835079/ Send us feedback! ramblingsofadesignerpod@gmail.com, Support us on Patreon! patreon.com/ramblingsofadesigner Where to buy Jeremy's Chidren's books: www.happycargobooks.com   Where to buy Jeremy's illustrator brushes: https://www.slagledesign.com/brush-shop   Where to buy Jeremy's Advent book: https://newgrowthpress.com/wonders-of-his-love-finding-jesus-in-isaiah-family-advent-devotional/   Slagle Design website: www.slagledesign.com   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/slagledesign/   Twitter: https://twitter.com/jeremyslagle   FB: https://www.facebook.com/slagledesign

Mark also covers other local business news including Mypillow store closing in Clintonville

YOUTH SPORTS ARE IN NEED OF REINVENTION Team sports are a dress rehearsal for life. In fact, there is no better tool to teach kids the skills necessary to succeed in life than sports. Yet, something has gone terribly wrong. Youth sports have been hijacked by adults, and kids are literally losing out. Learn more about our youth sports leagues and the i9 Sports difference. Our mission is to Help Kids Succeed in Life Through Sports.® When parents register their child under the age of 15 for a youth sports program, we think the program should fit their lifestyle, not the other way around. Parents should have the right to expect that their child will get quality instruction and be given an equal opportunity to develop their skills to the best of their ability… but in a format that doesn't require the child and family to put everything else in their lives second. Families seeking a highly competitive format with a win-at-all-cost culture will not feel at home in our leagues. Our format is unabashedly recreational as we reclaim youth sports for the millions of kids across the nation who just want to play sports as they should be… fun. That's the i9 Sports difference. We find out more from Karen and Duane Gray from https://www.i9sports.com/franchises/387/columbus-grove-city-clintonville (i9 Sports, offering youth sports programs in Columbus, Grove City, Clintonville). To run a successful business, you need resources, valuable connections and community recognition. Business Inspires will provide you with the tools, resources, and examples to inspire you to create the business you are envisioning. With more than 60 years as an integral part of the Grandview, Upper Arlington and Marble Cliff communities, the Tri-Village Chamber Partnership is dedicated to a singular purpose - the success of the business community. Thank you for downloading, listening and following Business Inspires, https://www.chamberpartnership.org/ (a Tri-Village Chamber Partnership podcast). This season is presented by:  https://marblecliff.org/ (Village of Marble Cliff), https://www.burgessniple.com/ (Burgess & Niple), https://www.grandviewheights.gov/ (City of Grandview Heights), https://datadrivenchiropractic.com/ (Optimize Chiropractic), and https://upperarlingtonoh.gov/ (City of Upper Arlington.) To schedule a guest appearance, or find out more about sponsoring Business Inspires, send an email to: David Polakowski, President/CEO, Tri-Village Chamber Partnership david@chamberpartnership.org Follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or your favorite podcast player. HELP US SPREAD THE WORD! We'd love it if you could please share this podcast with your social media friends!   If you liked this episode, https://www.pleasereviewmypodcast.com/secpodcast (please leave us a rating and a review in iTunes. Here's how). Discover more podcasts like this at https://www.circle270media.com (Circle270Media Podcast Consultants).

This episode of The Cabin is presented by Cobblestone Hotels, the official hotel chain of Discover Wisconsin; https://bit.ly/3zv0mE9Campfire Conversation: Cobblestone Hotels opened its first property in January 2008 in the small town of Clintonville, Wisconsin. Over the past 13 years, it has expanded to more than 160 locations across 27 states. This episode explores the strong Wisconsin roots of this, now national, chain and why they love to deliver big city quality with small town values. So, to honor their small-town love, and the new official hotel chain of Discover Wisconsin, we wanted to share 7 of our favorite small towns to explore in Wisconsin in this bonus episode! To learn more about Cobblestone Hotels and to find a small town stay that's calling your name, head to: https://bit.ly/3zv0mE9

MeatBucket MINI series - Appetizer sized episodes highlighting restaurants and discussing food scene news & events, typically around Columbus, OH.Special Guest and BBQ enthusiast Fr8 Train Deevaughn Dudley joins the show to dish on one of his favorite BBQ spots in town - Hanks Texas BBQ located in Clintonville at 2941 N High St, Columbus, OH 43202. This episode was inspired by this article in the Columbus Dispatch. Huge shout out to this absolute legend for the train audio - click here for the full video - it is worth listening too haha. Thanks Big Jake for finding this. Music by Clayton Moore - click here to see the album he produced with Caty Petersilge, Alackaday

It's a special travel edition of the Atlanta Grubber restaurant podcast. With our oldest son a junior at THE Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio has become our home away from home the last three years. Your Atlanta Grubber is not going to waste and meal and has uncovered some of the finest eats in Columbus. The North Market is the favorite destination as our a few other options in the Short North. But we also check out eateries in Upper Arlington, Clintonville, Graceland, German Village, the Brewery District, Grandview, and a bit further from campus, Bexley. Discovering the best Columbus, Ohio eats is still a work in progress, so follow Atlanta Grubber on Instagramand Twitter for the latest discoveries. Get gift cards with Bitcoin. Amazon, Target, Walmart; most of your favorite retailers and online destinations are likely available. Please like, subscribe, and comment on the official dad jokes YouTube channel. Great scented wax, scents for you home, car, office, and warmers at DuffyScents.com. These great smelling scents are ideal for pet owners. You can get the best sports picks and vetted sportsbooks at OffshoreInsiders.com DuffyGifts.com the place to go for gifts for all occasions from MyThirtyOne Gifts. Please like, subscribe, and comment on the official dad jokes YouTube channel.  

Ride the bucket with Nick and Jake as they meat at CLEAVER (best restaurant in Grandview) for an exclusive one of a kind experience with Columbus Blue Jackets stars Cam Atkinson & Nick Foligno AND recurring guests Tony Tanner of The Butcher & Grocer and Spencer Syalor AKA The Wizard of Za.Listen to hilarious stories from Cam and Nick about their life and careers with the CBJ, hear about CLEAVER, and get the inside scoop on the new brick and mortar coming to Clintonville by The Wizard of Za. INSTAGRAM: camatkinson13 cleavergrandview wizardofza FOOD: Huge props to jay.klevin , executive chef at CLEAVER for an amazing meal MENTIONED: Battery Hockey Academy The Butcher & Grocer Specializing in the highest quality beef, lamb, pork, chicken, and cheese from small Ohio farms.

We resume with Jack Carmen fighting against his false confession and the ongoing search for Christie Mullins killer. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/ohioconnection/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/ohioconnection/support

A beautiful young girl is beat to death in the woods. The murder interrupted by two eye witnesses. With their description a suspect is brought in and gives a full confession. 40 years later the family was still looking for justice! What happened. Join us as we dive into this case that's almost to crazy too be true. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/ohioconnection/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/ohioconnection/support

Guests: Jamie Bratslavsky, Marketing Director & Jennifer Kubik, Design Consultant Tune in and hear all the details of the 2018 NARI Fall Home Improvement Tour featuring remodeled homes across Central Ohio. ___________________________________________________________________________________ The National Association of the Remodeling industry hosts the NARI Home Improvement tour each spring and fall in Columbus, OH. Much like the BIA Parade of Homes, the NARI Home Tour is a tour of recently remodeled homes instead of newly built homes in the central Ohio area. Dave Fox Design Build Remodelers has two homes on the tour including a master suite, powder room and mudroom in Dublin and a kitchen, powder room, hall bath and master bath in Clintonville. The tour is a great opportunity to see different types of remodeling projects and talk with the contractors that completed the work. The Dave Fox Remodelers homes on the tour have different features including square footage, age of the home and style. The homeowners in Dublin called Dave Fox with a list of items they would like to include in their master bath remodel. The steam shower was repaired and tiled with an added custom window. The vanities were updated with custom cabinetry featuring storage solutions and the large tub deck that existed was removed to add a free-standing soaker tub. A large focal point in the room includes an 18-foot, stone wrapped fireplace. The home in Clintonville includes a kitchen, hall bath, powder room, and master bath. The homeowner wanted a midcentury modern style for her 1930's home. The master bath, having minimal square footage, used unique products to increase the size and feel of the space. These features include a barrier-free shower, a floating TOTO toilet and floating custom vanity. Tickets are available at trustnari.org as well as each home on the tour (cash only). Learn more about the Dave Fox homes at www.davefox.com. Maps of the home tour are available online at Trust NARI as well as this month's issue of House Trends magazine featuring the NARI guide and more information on each project

From Women's Studies to karaoke to opening her own shops, Olivera Bratich has had a journey! Olivera is the founder of Wholly Craft and SURPRISE! Wholly Craft is a feminist gift shop in the Clintonville neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio and SURPRISE! is a modern party supply store in Columbus' Short North Arts District. Olivera is an OG of crafting. With a nationwide reputation of running quality stores and a local reputation of community involvement and treating people well, Olivera is impressive. Olivera talks about positivity, her education from women's studies to karaoke to crafting to opening her own shop.  Show Notes & Links