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writer and teacher of heart-centered living

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  • Meet Maria
  • Writing
  • Living
    • Yoga
    • Testimonials
  • Blog
  • HeartCampsDC
  • #HeartCenteredMedia
  • Contact
  • ananda-leeke-maria-de-los-angeles
    podcast

    Mindfulness in the Media Storm

    September 19, 2019 /

    What can Hurricane Dorian teach us about mindfulness? The storm begs a question: ‘who am I without the chaos?’

  • farmers-market-peach-tantra
    tantra

    Shawn Roop Talks Tantra and Sex

    November 14, 2018 /

      Tantra coach Shawn Roop’s talk “You Think You Know Sex?” offered juicy insight about spiritual tantric practices. “Dang, that looks so good,” I thought. “Imma eat one right now.”

  • tantric-sex-busy-couples
    review

    Book Review: Tantric Sex for Busy Couples

    November 14, 2018 /

    Tantric Sex for Busy Couples by Diana Daffner looks at the physical and spiritual benefits of practical tantra exercises. Tantra for one? You’re probably wondering why I’m reviewing a book about…

  • alzheimers-holding-hands
    caregiving

    Alzheimer’s as call to love: why caregiving is more than a job

    July 19, 2018 /

    Open yourself up to the challenge of a diagnosis to understand the role of Alzheimer’s in your own spiritual growth.

  • fishhooks-story-maria-fathersday
    stories

    Fishhooks: A Caregiver’s Story

    June 16, 2018 /

    When I became a caregiver, visits to dad’s nursing home shored up childhood memories. Alzheimer’s robbed him of memory, but gave back love.

  • gillian-anderson-x-files
    living

    Suicides and near-deaths: a tether snaps even when heaven is now

    June 8, 2018 /

    This week’s celebrity suicides are a reminder of how fragile our ties are to the body, and a moment to shift into a practice of love.

  • march-for-our-lives
    media

    What is #heartcenteredmedia?

    April 10, 2018 /

    One jaded writer’s fresh take on producing and consuming media in the age of #fakenews: #heartcenteredmedia holds space in mindfulness to hone in on truth.

  • warrior-pose-epic-yoga-dc
    yoga

    Think outside the yoga mat

    March 29, 2018 /

    Do you really need a mat to practice yoga? Here’s one yogi’s lesson in detachment.

  • andrew-wyeth-christina-world
    yoga

    Catharsis is everything

    November 26, 2017 /

    A yogi’s look at the role of catharsis in everyday life.

  • red-riding-hood-mondongo
    weight loss

    A weight loss lesson from Little Red Riding Hood

    September 18, 2017 /

    I thought I had lost weight simply through diet and exercise, but a chance reminder of an old fairy tale gave me new insight. Three years ago, about a month after…

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  • HURRICANE DORIAN AS TEACHER: WHO ARE YOU WITHOUT THE CHAOS? When fellow teacher and soul sister @anandaleeke asked me to address "how activists, changemakers & everyday people use mindfulness to navigate the media, fake news, and the 2020 elections," I took a deep breath. Wow. That's a mouthful, yes? But let's step back for a moment. The center of a hurricane is space, a no-thing, a formless peace, stillness -- surrounded by the pressurized chaos of spinning, spiraling reality. Let's step back even more and see that at the center of all media, is you, as the citizen in a democracy, owning your own media company everytime you open your mouth to speak, or share information -- hopefully taking a moment to discern. YOU are #heartcenteredmedia. YOU have the power to shift into compassion. You are that imprint. Am I truly coming from a place of love? Or is my life dominated by knee-jerking headlines that spiral out of control? . I live in a city surrounding the seat of power of the United States where there are thousands of organizations employing people trying to change the world. Who holds power? To me, the mom breastfeeding her baby on the bus is just as much a changemaker. We are ALL changemakers, activists in today's world, even in the littlest ways. . After reading the Heart Sutra last night at meditation, I realized even more fully that an even deeper practice is to navigate personal and collective outrage while imagining who you'd be as that center, the place where you let go. Sounds counterintuitive, but it's not. . Does this mean you ignore the problem? No. It means that no matter what life throws at you, you pivot accordingly from stillness, and this makes you a helluva lot stronger. Easier said than done, I know, and I realize my privilege. Still, took me fifty years to find serenity. I shouldn't even be alive. And that's why mindfulness is a practice ... the heart sutra says: "there is no attainment," because, in fact, it always just is, can't be helped, there you are: a consciousness with full potential in every breath. Every breath you take is the beginning of change. The center is breathing you. . Link to #podcast via linktree bio and in comments. Repo
  • HURRICANE DORIAN AS TEACHER: WHO ARE YOU WITHOUT THE CHAOS? When fellow teacher and soul sister @anandaleeke asked me to address "how activists, changemakers & everyday people use mindfulness to navigate the media, fake news, and the 2020 elections," I took a deep breath. Wow. That's a mouthful, yes? But let's step back for a moment. The center of a hurricane is space, a no-thing, a formless peace, stillness -- surrounded by the pressurized chaos of spinning, spiraling reality. Let's step back even more and see that at the center of all media, is you, as the citizen in a democracy, owning your own media company everytime you open your mouth to speak, or share information -- hopefully taking a moment to discern. YOU are #heartcenteredmedia. YOU have the power to shift into compassion. You are that imprint. Am I truly coming from a place of love? Or is my life dominated by knee-jerking headlines that spiral out of control? . I live in a city surrounding the seat of power of the United States where there are thousands of organizations employing people trying to change the world. Who holds power? To me, the mom breastfeeding her baby on the bus is just as much a changemaker. We are ALL changemakers, activists in today's world, even in the littlest ways. . After reading the Heart Sutra last night at meditation, I realized even more fully that an even deeper practice is to navigate personal and collective outrage while imagining who you'd be as that center, the place where you let go. Sounds counterintuitive, but it's not. . Does this mean you ignore the problem? No. It means that no matter what life throws at you, you pivot accordingly from stillness, and this makes you a helluva lot stronger. Easier said than done, I know, and I realize my privilege. Still, took me fifty years to find serenity. I shouldn't even be alive. And that's why mindfulness is a practice ... the heart sutra says: "there is no attainment," because, in fact, it always just is, can't be helped, there you are: a consciousness with full potential in every breath. Every breath you take is the beginning of change. The center is breathing you. . Link to #podcast via linktree bio and in comments.
  • WHAT IS #HEARTCENTEREDMEDIA Looking forward to being guest on my soul sister's #ThrivingMindfully podcast later today ... @anandaleeke is asking how we can use mindfulness to navigate the media, fake news and the 2020 elections. Broadcast date TBA. . As many of you know, I've been exploring #heartcenteredmedia as a practice since I left Miami, but really it goes back to #heartcamp. . What is it today after living in D.C. for almost two years? More evolved. At one point I entertained the idea of a media company. Not everything has to be a company ... in fact, I am loathe to add to the noise; now there's a genuine editorial dilemma in the age of hustle. It's OK to linger in the question and unfolding of answers. A non-entity may have more power. Don't do everything for the 'gram -- it blocks the signals. Deeper platforms, the bedrock of you, need attention. . #heartcenteredmedia is an intentional movement that focuses on media literacy in the era of fake news (mindful, ethical “reading”), as well as slow media in the age of digital saturation. HCM asks if we are, at our core, living an authentic narrative of self-realization and community engagement inspired by compassion.
  • THROUGH A GLASS CLEARLY Three years ago today I had no idea where I'd be, but here on the shores of Miami Beach, in dancer's pose, I was beginning to root more firmly in my presence. What am I looking at in this photo? Literally, the Atlantic horizon. But I'm not the one looking. Life is always "looking" through our eyes, with the gaze of love, to all that is. And yet we blind ourselves, obscure the view, with so many murky filters. And of course it's not about the eyes, but about the heart pointing true north. I've been thinking a lot about "living truth" lately because of some circumstances in my life. What is the practice? Asking myself if my ego is imposing conditions upon my looking. If I am not firmly rooted in the now, knowing the future is a beautifully evolving extension of this now, then what is my truth? This is why the book is called Journey to Now. We are all on now-journeys, always. As I sit here writing from Washington, D.C. looking out the window at the tree-lined street, still amazed that I'm here and not in some corner of my past, I know now more than ever that now-journeys of truth make for better balance.
  • ONE WORD AT A TIME Read the opening vignette of my book, a prose poem titled "Spoonfuls," @thewriterscenter open mic today. Tomorrow will be five years since mami passed ... five years to birth the stories in A Journey to Now. . I also heard many other local writers share their words. I love my art, and inspiring others to express their truth creatively ... one word at a time
  • RESTING BLISS FACE Tuned in, tapped in and turned on to 174 & 528 HZ, baby! Thanks to Jorge Lugo for an educational session on sound healing and a powerful #biofield healing session. Love what this and other heart-centered places offer in the DMV. We need more of this in the world. I can't help others if I'm not at peace myself. It's ALL an illness ... our minds, bodies and things we can't see ARE connected. . Sound healing is a very powerful modality. I arrived here with some shoulder pain (workout-related, nothing emotional) and fatigue. I left free of pain, and refreshed, elated. I wasn't even expecting any healing. So it is.
  • Favorite mudra. How far does your heart extend into the world?
  • Tropical baby in the Blue Ridge dreaming of opening a creative writing and movement retreat. Friend said, "call it Escuela de Angeles."
  • "FROM MUD THE LOTUS BLOOMS ..." words I wrote yesterday, then found a kid trapped in the mud during my morning meditation walk. She was behind a neighbor's fence, and I saw her butt jutting out. Didn't seem right. I clipped the wire, got her out, carried her, looked for the rest of the tribe. It's WIDE here, really WIDE, folks! Fences stretch for miles. When I found the other goats, the kid bleated and mama came running from over a slope ... baby immediately suckled! They recognized each other ❤ . Last night, a dense fog clung over the fields -- I couldn't see a foot in front of me, let alone the strawberry moon, or the fireflies. I hope she wasn't stuck through morning, wondering in her little body, what the sun would bring, if she would even see the sun. Haven't we all been there? . Sometimes compassion comes in the form of an animal stuck in the mud. Sometimes we are stuck in the mud. Compassion brings out the best in you, and you get dirty to get through it, all for the sake of love, and life. . My work is done, lol. Well sort of. Book? What book? I see why I needed to be in Virginia.

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Heart-Centered Journalism

hurricane-grief-trauma

Confronting the Emotional Toll of Hurricanes  — The time to put life on hold gives an opportunity to shatter the conventional illusion that everything is stable.

Stories on Medium

pomegranates_acai_bowlOf Pomegranates and Pain — The currency of forgiveness won’t always feed the hungry, but choosing compassion over condemnation is the right price for a meal.

recent posts

  • ananda-leeke-maria-de-los-angelesMindfulness in the Media Storm
  • farmers-market-peach-tantraShawn Roop Talks Tantra and Sex
  • tantric-sex-busy-couplesBook Review: Tantric Sex for Busy Couples
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