A Joyful Practice

A Quick Note & (2) EXCERPTS RE: “The Roots of Your Story” and “Exploring & Having Our Say” (a 2-for-1 post-practice Monday post) August 18, 2025

Many blessings to everyone and especially to anyone observing the Dormition (Theotokos) Fast, and/or exploring friendship, peace, freedom, and wisdom — especially when it gets hot (inside and outside).

Stay hydrated & be kind, y’all!

The 2-for-1 post practice post contains excerpts related to Monday, August 11^th and Monday, August 18^th. The August 11, 2025, prompt question was, “How many generations back can you trace your family and have you shared any stories of the previous generations with younger family members?” 

The August 18, 2025, prompt question was, “If you have had the chance to travel, do you like to travel (and if so, why)?” 

You can request an audio recording of this practice or a previous practice via a comment below or (for a slightly faster reply) you can email myra   (at) ajoyfulpractice.com.

In the spirit of generosity (“dana”), the Zoom classes, recordings, and blog posts are freely given and freely received. If you are able to support these teachings, please do so as your heart moves you. (NOTE: You can donate even if you are “attending” a practice that is not designated as a “Common Ground Meditation Center” practice, or you can purchase class(es).

Donations are tax deductible; class purchases are not necessarily deductible.

Check out the “Class Schedules” calendar for upcoming classes.

“Healing stories guide us through good times and bad times; they can be constructive and destructive, and are often in need of change. They come together to create our own personal mythology, the system of beliefs that guide how we interpret our experience. Quite often, they bridge the silence that we carry within us and are essential to how we live.”

— from Waking: A Memoir of Trauma and Transcendence by Matthew Sanford

Every person, every group of people, and everything in the universe, has a story. Actually, we all have multiple stories — and some of those stories overlap and/or run parallel to each other in oddly specific ways.

Telling one of your stories can be just as important as listening (or reading) someone else’s story; because the telling — as well as the listening — takes us all a little deeper into ourselves and into the world.

“When you start talking about family, about lineage and ancestry, you are talking about every person on earth.”

— Alex Haley

Click on the excerpt title below to discover the stories of two storytellers born on August 11^th: Alex Haley (b. 1921) and Andre Julian Dubus II (b. 1936).

The Roots of Your Story (the Wednesday post)

“I love short stories because I believe they are the way we live. They are what our friends tell us, in their pain and joy, their passion and rage, their yearning and their cry against injustice. We can sit all night with our friend while he talks about the end of his marriage, and what we finally get is a collection of stories about passion, tenderness, misunderstanding, sorrow, money….”

— quoted from the essay “Marketing” in Part III of Broken Vessels: Essays by Andre Dubus

The more you travel, the more you explore, the more stories you will discover.

Click on the excerpt title below to explore a story about how (some) women were able to tell their stories and the stories of explorers born on August 18^th: Captain Meriwether Lewis (b. 1774) and Margaret “Mardy” Murie (b. 1902).

FTWMI: Exploring & Having Our Say

“If we allow ourselves to be discouraged, we lose our power and momentum. That’s what I would say to you of these difficult times. If you are going to that place of intent to preserve the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or the wild lands in Utah, you have to know how to dance.”

— quoted from Two In the Far North by Margaret “Mardy” Murie

There are no playlist for the Common Ground Meditation Center practices. 

NOTE: If you are interested, you can click on the excerpts above for the playlists related to each date. 

If you are thinking about suicide, worried about a friend or loved one, or would like emotional support, you can dial 988 (in the US) or call 1-800-273-TALK (8255) for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also call this TALK line if you are struggling with addiction or involved in an abusive relationship. The Lifeline network is free, confidential, and available to all 24/7. YOU CAN TALK ABOUT ANYTHING.

White Flag is an app, which I have not yet researched, but which may be helpful if you need peer-to-peer (non-professional) support.

If you are a young person in crisis, feeling suicidal, or in need of a safe and judgement-free place to talk, you can also click here to contact the TrevorLifeline (which is staffed 24/7 with trained counselors).

### Tell Me One of Your Stories ###