Próspero Año y Felicidad + FAM (First American's Museum)

Happy New Year — Feliz Año Nuevo (!) — from the American Southwest, where we’re comfortably tossing around the traditional Spanish New Year greeting, with high hopes for a prosperous year and mucho happiness ahead. Our crazy, cross-country jaunt took us from a semi-frozen South Haven, Michigan, to Chicago, Illinois, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Amarillo, Texas, Sante Fe, New Mexico, and finally Christmas eve in Tucson, Arizona, hence the festive Feliz Navidads. Along the 2,032 mile way, we saw old friends, made new ones, and, while thundering thru Oklahoma, made a meaningful stop at The First Americans Museum (FAM).

Seeing as how we’re just about to saddle up for the blessed New Year of The Horse, we found the pictures and words featured in the gallery’s signature exhibition OKLA HOMMA particularly engaging. Honoring each of the oral histories and diverse stories of the 39 tribes present in Oklahoma today, audio pods and a cool, immersive theater evoked the tribes’ historic perspective, bringing forth stories both tragic and triumphant, describing the people’s practices and experiences on ancestral lands, the hardship of removal and assimilation, as well as present day progress and hopes for the future, a very forthright history from the perspectives of America’s tribal people.

The FAM Mound shown above rises 90 feet high, with a circular shape recalling the movement of the sun across the sky, honoring Mound Builder cultures that thrived across North America from 3500 BCE to 1751 CE. Regarding time, It’s actually 11:57 p.m. Arizona Mountain Time, and while I was eager to toss up a post on January 1st, 2026, it appears to be registering January 2nd and so, more thoughts shortly on FAM, life-giving indigenous spirituality, tonight’s Wolf Super Moon, Tucson trains, etc.

Zen Hacks As Promised

Been a minute since we’ve been on the blog, with so much happening since Halloween it’s been a bit spooky. I started this piece weeks ago, but closing out the Fall retreat season temporarily pulled me away from the bounding growth experienced during my teacher Shinzen’s final virtual retreat in November, which was off the charts. Speaking of charts, two pictures grace this post. One is the world’s greatest meditation teacher giving a hopeful underling some well-deserved grief during our session together while on retreat. Shin said looked like Darth Vader, which I found apropos. The other photograph is of Shinzen and Unified Mindfulness’s Happiness Chart. Who knew such a gauge even existed? That’s the depth and width of Shinzen’s teaching. Find Relief. Elevate Fulfillment. Understand Yourself. Act Skillfully. Build Relationships. And, one day, finally, transcend all our personal conditioning as well as the pull of the past, accessing the moment-by-moment unlimited growth our practice promises.

We’ll be spending more precious time with Shinzen in Tucson soon, and hope to practice and convey more of the teachings and techniques picked up on retreat. Regarding Zen Hacks, one of the exercises we engaged in was what I jokingly call What’s My State? It’s a new game show with Shinzen as host. Here’s how it works: parsing the moment by moment feeling of sensation and action, it’s always helpful to have more than one laser beam angle on a topic. So we sliced the pleasantness or unpleasantness of each moment into four logical possibilities, with relatively better detection and resolution clarity than we do in general, daily life. Ask yourself this: is this moment pleasant, unpleasant, of mixed valiance (both) or neutral? It’s not uncommon for neutral to turn pleasant, because we feel relative relief from anger, fear, sadness impatience, embarrassment, disgust, interest, joy and physical discomforts of a gazillion possible origins, as well as terminal states.

You can potentially experience neutral sensations by way of contrast to the unpleasant. And the sought-after taste of purification that signals dropping into equanimity creates reward flavors, as well as a healing loop that works against other loops, loops where the physical or emotional pain is so bad you fight against it, or the fantasy is so compelling you continue it. If you get a little bored or caught up in memory, fantasy, or planning, just gently return to “Whats My State”. You’ll experience insights related to cause and effect, especially when the channels are open and there’s “No Self” fighting against the hierarchy of processing. Pleasantness or unpleasantness more mindfully perceived reveals a universal connector to everything, This is how we clean up the past, construct a more reasonable future, and dwell more peacefully in the present moment. More growth and stories from the road and our personal retreat time soon. Until then, Merry Christmas and HNY!

Happy Belated Heyoka Halloween + Feliz Dios De Los Muertos + Our Chill November Schedule + Winter Break

This post’s title says it all: after stepping up to the plate and ripping three home runs Shohei Ohtani style (Boo Dodgers!), all by way of Ceremony, our Fall NSMR, and a Free Fall Yoga Day, we closed out our outstanding October by donning one of thirteen home-grown Higher Haven pumpkins and celebrating 11 successful years and just over 4,000 nights spent on our farm, our first all hallowed evening here being October 31st, 2014. Then, in a contrarian twist, we did not spend Halloween night at home this year, but rather jetted off to the great state of Arizona (state motto: “God Enriches”) , a red rock land strong in the Spirit of the following day’s Dios De Los Muertos, “Day of The Dead”, to celebrate and honor the Ancestors.

In a twist of good fate, in the occidental town of Tucson, Arizona, I later crossed paths with a mad scientist, the meditation teacher formerly known as Shinzen Young. Taking him up on his invitation to his laboratory at the University of Arizona, I lost the pumpkin head, and instead sported some of Shinzen’s high tech mindfulness gadgetry. As to my Teacher’s supposed retirement, it’s looking like more of a jump to warp speed, and we’re grateful to be along for the ride, on retreat with him this month. We’re also happy this pic proves our theorem — put forth in the previous post and actually inspired by Shinzen — that your spiritual teacher best have a cool T-shirt collection. And we’re a bit amazed to have serendipitously spent time with the Mighty Shin back on the hardpan of the Sonoran desert, where we first found salvation catching rattlesnakes, cultivating inner stillness, and doing Ceremony twenty years ago.

We’ll soon be taking an informed look back at our Rocktober, revisit our Fall Noble Silence Meditation Retreat Weekend as well as free fall yoga day, wind down our 2025 retreat season, take our Winter time away, and begin the begin again in the Spring 2026. Of course there’s still a chance to come out for our final, December Way of the Contrary Ceremonial Retreat Weekend, our Holiday Silent Night, Holy Night Friday December 12th, and, for established students, private lessons or personal visits, with more 2026 offerings up for registraion soon.