There’s still time to register for my Fall Contemplative Photography and Meditation Workshop, coming up on Saturday, October 4 at a lovely, rural site in College Grove, TN (about 35 minutes from downtown Nashville). Full information and registration is here.
Here’s a shot from our 2012 photography workshop, by Bobby Zahn:
Cultivating Clarity, Receptivity and Joy With a Camera
Saturday, October 4, 8:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.
Rural College Grove, TN
Registration deadline, Friday, September 26 
Please join us in a beautiful rural setting for a day of mindfulness as we combine meditation and the practice of contemplative photography. We will use our cameras as a means to reflect our awareness of this moment in its ever changing forms. This approach often yields unexpected and remarkable results that differ from conventional shots. There’s no need for expensive equipment or technical knowledge, just a willingness to meet the moment in an open and receptive state. A simple, yet profound joy often arises in this alliance of mind and heart, camera and surroundings.
Led by meditation teacher and artist Lisa Ernst, the workshop is suitable to beginning and experienced meditators. In addition to several photography sessions, the workshop will include meditation, silence and group interaction. The retreat site, about 35 minutes from downtown Nashville, includes wooded hills, fields, rock formations and interesting structures.
The fee is on a sliding scale from $75 – $100. Two reduced fee slots are available for those who need financial assistance.
A $50 deposit reserves your space and is due by 9/26. Paypal is available here. If paying by check, make it out to One Dharma Nashville and send to One Dharma Nashville, c/o 12 South Dharma Center, 2301 12th Avenue South, Suite 202, Nashville, TN 37204. Please include your email address. Details and directions will be sent in advance of the retreat. For more information email onedharmaretreat@gmail.com.
Guest meditation teacher Lisa Ernst from One Dharma Nashville will lead The Joy of Presence: A Mindfulness Meditation Workshop on Saturday, April 5, 2014 at
The Yoga Center of Huntsville
This workshop will help you learn effective techniques to establish or deepen an ongoing mindfulness meditation practice. You’ll learn correct sitting postures and concentration as well as how to work with thoughts and emotions. You also learn deep listening and mindful communication, along with powerful forgiveness and loving-kindness practices that you can offer to yourself and others. The workshop will include periods of sitting and walking meditation, instruction, discussion and Q & A. Appropriate to beginners as well as more experienced mediators who wish to refresh and deepen their practice.
Lisa Ernst is a meditation teacher and founder of One Dharma Nashville. She has been practicing Buddhist meditation for 25 years in both the Zen and Vipassana traditions. In her teaching, Lisa emphasizes both transformational insight and everyday awakening as n invitation to embrace all of the path’s possibilities. Lisa leads daylong and residential meditation retreats and has taught meditation in universities, corporations and prisons. She also offers individual meditation instruction and guidance. For more information about One Dharma Nashville, visit http://www.onedharmanashville.com.
Session duration: 12:30–5 pm
Pre-registration price: $85 (if registered and paid by Friday, March 28)
Drop-in price: $95 (if registered after March 28 until day of workshop)
To register, email Annette Beresford at annetteberseford@hotmail.com or call
256-658-9748.
February is always a little tricky for scheduling events — there’s always the chance, no matter how slight, of snow. Last year I awoke to snow on the day my writing and meditation workshop was scheduled and I deliberated for a couple of hours whether to cancel it. Ultimately I went forward as the temperatures warmed up just in time to melt the snow. This Friday on the eve of my workshop, the Weather Channel predicted an 80% chance of snow with a 1″ accumulation for Saturday morning. I went to bed unsure whether the workshop would happen. Thankfully, though, the snow passed us by again here in Nashville. We may be one of only a few southern cities to have avoided snow this year – so far.
During the workshop everyone had a chance to read their writing in small, intimate groups or at the end of the day, to everyone there. Andrea Hewitt read a beautiful and inspiring essay she wrote that morning and I want to share it with you here:
Andrea Hewitt
What touched me today was reading about the actress Ellen Page’s coming out and particularly watching the video on the Human Rights Campaign website. Here was this accomplished young actress speaking in front of a crowd–something I’m sure she has done many times before. You could hear the nervousness in her voice–the wavering and uncertainty.
But what I was most transfixed by were her hands. They were shaking so much that she had to hold them cupped together for almost the entire time. At one point, she let them go to make a point, and they were like tiny birds released, but still unsure of how high to fly.
About halfway through her speech when she finally said the words, “I’m gay,” and the audience stood and cheered for her, I thought, “Wouldn’t it be marvelous if everyone upon coming out had a cheering audience swelling with whoops of joy, mirroring back to you the terrifyingly awesome feeling of finally releasing your authentic self out of your mouth and into the world?”
It’s like watching a birth: the long wait and gestation before, the agonizing pains of labor, but then the deep knowing that there is no going backwards–in fact, what’s back no longer exists even–and you are propelled into a shiny, brand new, sparkling world that blinds you with its rightness. And you wonder how you ever lived in the dull past with you old, small, tightly-reined-in self.
Letting it all go–the expectations, the dreams of someone else for you, your own dreams that never quite fit no matter how you cut and sewed and re-sewed them–it’s the scariest thing ever. It’s tough enough to do that for yourself and your family & close friends privately, let alone on a widely-broadcast YouTube video.
But to live every day as authentically as you can–what a gift to yourself and the world! I could see the relief on her face when the words came out of her mouth. Naming ourselves, saying the words, and believing that you can say them and there will be a bridge to carry you to the other side requires such a leap of faith.
I remember testing out the words myself before I dared to speak them aloud to anyone. It felt like I had a tiny baby bird inside me–me, its nest–and it was time to push her out. Keeping her in the once-safe nest was no longer an option for that would only stunt her growth. I had to have faith that her wings were ready and strong enough to take on the world. It was her time to fly.
Saturday, February 15, 2014
9:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m., Nashville Friend’s House
Led by Lisa Ernst
Still Lake with Clouds
Photography by Lisa Ernst
Please join us for a day of contemplative writing and meditation practice. We will cultivate writing inspiration through meditation and exercises that help us open our hearts to the truth of what we most want to express. These practices will also help us to communicate more eloquently from our authentic voice, both in written and verbal form. In addition, we will have an opportunity to share our writing in an atmosphere of compassionate support. This workshop is suitable to beginning and experienced writers and meditators.
Cost is $75 – $100, sliding scale. Two reduced fee spots are available in the case of financial need. Your fee reserves your spot and you can pay by PayPal here using the “donate” button.
Lisa has been meditating for 25 years in both the Zen and Vipassana traditions. She is the founder and guiding teacher of One Dharma Nashville. In addition to regularly teaching meditation classes and retreats, Lisa has written numerous articles for magazines, newspapers and newsletters. She was the technical editor for the current edition of Meditation for Dummies. Her blog includes many essays and poetry: http://www.thelotusbloomsinthemud.com.
For questions email onedharmaretreat@gmail.com
Our calendar is on order and will be available for sale on November 25. We have ordered only a limited quantity, and they’ll be sold at the 12 South Dharma Center during One Dharma’s meeting hours. Here are a few images:
Photo by Patsy Cutillo
Calendar Cover, image by Tracy Wilson
Special thanks for Shelley Davis Wise for putting together these wonderful images.
Orange Bugs on Pod
photography by Lisa Ernst
On October 5 I led One Dharma Nashville’s 2013 Contemplative Photography Retreat at Penuel Ridge in Ashland City. It’s a beautiful retreat site and very conducive to meditation and photography. Rather than writing a general recap, I thought I’d share something written by one of the attendees, Tracy Wilson about her experience at the retreat:
Some Things I Learned on My Contemplative Photography Retreat
by Tracy Wilson
1. Birds, butterflies, caterpillars and bees wait for no one! They are as engaged with their busy little comings and goings as I am. All things change and change is constant and uncontrollable.
2. I tend to stop breathing when taking photos. When I don’t breathe, my shoulders tense up and I feel uncomfortable. So…breathe!
3. I tend to want to make adjustments to the subject of my photo…moving a leaf here, adding something there. The best photos are taken when I just let things BE as they are and accept. When I let go of trying to control them, I am more at ease and mindful and get better shots.
4. Light changes with the whim of the clouds and the turning of the earth. Photography depends on the amount of light available. It changes what and how I see things and what the camera picks up. When the light changed from morning to afternoon, the world was “new” and many things were illuminated that I had not seen before. Light changes everything.
5. Moving through my day mindfully is very relaxing and decreases inner conflict. The more I slow down, the more I see and hear.
6. Focusing on a leaf floating in a reflective pond quiets the mind.
7. Walking a Labyrinth is a lesson in patience and a beautiful way to walk mindfully. I’d love to have one!
Leaf and reflection in pond at Penuel Rigdge, photograph by Tracy Wilson
To see more of Tracy’s shots from the retreat, go here.
The registration deadline for the Contemplative Photography and Meditation workshop is this Friday, September 27th. The location at Penuel Ridge offers many excellent opportunities for interesting and varied photography. Also, I’m pleased that Shelley Davis-Wise has generously offered to create a calendar of our photographs as she did last year. The beautiful calendar was a big success, and also a nice fund raiser for One Dharma.
An image from our 2012 Mindful Photography Calendar
You can see images from last year’s calendar here.
To register for the workshop, go here.
The Joy of Refuge in This Moment
September 14, 2013, 9:30 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Led by Lisa Ernst
Please join us at a beautiful and secluded West Nashville location for a day of sitting and walking meditation. We will cultivate appreciation and joy through taking refuge in this moment.
Led by meditation teacher Lisa Ernst, this silent retreat will focus on developing a quality of compassionate presence that embraces our experience with an open heart. Through this practice, we begin to find true refuge in the way things are.
This retreat is suitable for both beginning and experienced meditators; it will include sitting and walking meditation, practice instructions, and a dharma talk.
Cost: $50, plus dana (donation) to the teacher. A deposit of $50 reserves your spot and is due no later than September 9. Paypal is available here. You can also bring your deposit to one of our Monday meditations or send a check made out to One Dharma Nashville to: 12 South Dharma Center, c/o One Dharma Nashville, 2301 12th Avenue South, Suite 202, Nashville, TN 37204. Be sure and include your email address. Directions and additional information will be emailed prior to the retreat.
Please contact onedharmaretreat@gmail.com with any questions.
For those of you convenient to Huntsville, or anyone who wants to learn how to combine yoga and meditation, please join us on August 24.
Afternoon Session 1 – 4PM
Sitting and Walking Meditation Instruction with Lisa
Q & A session included
Mixed Levels Class, beginners welcome
Yoga Center of Huntsville
500 East Pratt Avenue
Register with Suzanne Newton via email : suzanne.m.newton@gmail.com
Pre-payment by check or cash is due by 8/17/13 (sent to Suzanne)
Morning Class Fee : $40
Afternoon Class Fee : $50
Both Classes Fee : $75, pre-registered or $90 ‘drop in’ if space is available
The Lotus Blooms in The Mud 