Viral Mindfulness the Podcast: Recent Episodes
Alexander Smith | Mindfulness Teacher
Featured on CNN, viralmindfulness.com, HIV Plus Magazine, The Gay HotSpot, and the cover of Positively Aware—my work as a mindfulness teacher and artist encourages you to discover your spiritual rhythm.
I earned a Master of Social Work (MSW) from the University of Utah in 2003, and a Bachelor of Science from Brigham Young University (1999).
During migration from a basement office (with no windows) at Salt Lake Community College’s Health & Wellness Services, I resigned from the traditional clinical world, and moved my practice online in 2012.
I live near the ocean in Huntington Beach, California, and enjoy yoga, running trails at the Wetlands, bird watching, live theater & music, and painting. As a spiritual muse, teacher, and musician, you're invited to join my online tribe.
available.This isn't really an episode about pencils.It's about remembering how to pay attention.Details about my upcoming birthday virtual piano recital! Friday, August 14 - Sunday, August 16. Three different recital times to choose from. Four ticket prices, including complimentary access.
and cultivate a spirituality rooted not in certainty, but in relationship—with the earth, with one another, and with your own life.If you've been feeling overwhelmed by the noise of modern life, this episode is an invitation to return to beauty, wonder, and the quiet practice of noticing.
Already listened to The Sound of Summer? This practice is for you.Several listeners asked for a version with fewer words and more space to simply breathe, chant, and practice. So here it is.Recorded live beneath the Colorado sky, you'll hear birdsong, fresh mountain air, and the gentle sounds of summer as we move through the traditional seed sounds of the seven chakras together.There is very little guidance; just enough to help you settle before we begin.Whether you choose to make the sounds aloud or simply receive their vibration in silence, this is an invitation to slow down, return to your body, and let awareness deepen one breath at a time.The chakra seed sounds:• Root — LAM• Sacral — VAM• Solar Plexus — RAM• Heart — YAM• Throat — HAM• Third Eye — OM• Crown — SilenceIf this is your first experience with the practice, I recommend listening first to The Sound of Summer: A Guided Chakra Meditation, where I introduce each center and offer more detailed guidance.May these sounds become companions you can return to throughout the season.Much love, soul sibling.
What if meditation didn't begin with silence?In this gentle guided practice, we'll travel through the seven chakras using the traditional seed sounds that have accompanied contemplative practice for centuries. Beginning at the base of the spine and gradually moving upward through the body, each sound becomes an invitation—not to believe anything or achieve a particular state—but simply to notice, listen, and feel.Along the way, we'll explore grounding, creativity, courage, compassion, authentic expression, clear seeing, and finally, silence itself.Whether you choose to chant the sounds aloud or simply receive their vibrations, this practice offers a spacious place to slow down, breathe deeply, and return to yourself.Find a comfortable seat, or lie beneath your favorite summer tree.Let's practice together.LAMVAMRAMYAMHAMOMSilence
and how simply returning to your breath can become a daily spiritual practice.I also share my own recent struggle with consistency, why missing a single meditation almost derailed my practice, and the lesson that helped me begin again.At the end of the episode, I invite you into a brand-new guided meditation, The Sound of Summer, where we'll explore the healing sounds of the seven chakras together.Sometimes all we need is one quiet minute.
This week I found myself reflecting on a provocative idea: no animal, plant, ocean, or nervous system in nature knows what a Monday is.Inspired by a piece from recovery writer Bobby Op, I explore how modern life asks us to live according to industrial timelines while our bodies still long for something older, slower, and more natural.I share reflections from my 11-year sobriety anniversary, a powerful memory from downtown Los Angeles during the final days of my addiction, and the simple practice that helped change everything: one day at a time.Together we'll explore:• Why your nervous system doesn't recognize the seven-day work week• The three questions your body is always asking: Am I safe? Am I rested? Am I resourced?• The recovery practice of living one day at a time• How dividing your day into three shifts can reduce overwhelm• Sharon Salzberg's teachings on presence• Natalie Goldberg's wisdom about practice and showing up for your lifeWhether you're feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, disconnected, or simply longing for a different rhythm, this episode is an invitation to slow down, reconnect, and remember that this day is enough.Summer Wise Circles are now open for enrollment → https://www.viralmindfulness.com/wise-circle-2026
What can a light scarf teach us about shame, identity, recovery, and freedom?In this Pride Month episode of Viral Mindfulness, Alexander Blue Feather shares a treasured audio recording from 01 June 2018 featuring his dear friend, Dr. Jude Theriot. What begins as a playful conversation about a lightweight scarf and grape Hi-Chew candy opens into something much deeper: the hidden shame many men carry around appearing feminine.From growing up queer in Utah and navigating masculinity as a Mormon missionary, to embracing a more gender-expansive identity later in life, Alexander reflects on the lifelong journey of liberating himself from internalized shame.Along the way, he explores Pride Month, women's equality, gender expression, sobriety, spiritual reconstruction, and the power of friendship to help us become more fully ourselves.The episode also includes reflections on the HBO series Euphoria, a powerful quote about recovery and spiritual revolution, updates on summer plans, and a delightful audio appearance from Harvey Pink Feather.Topics include:‣ Pride Month and LGBTQ+ identity‣ Gender expansiveness and self-acceptance‣ Internalized shame and appearing feminine‣ Recovery, sobriety, and spiritual transformation‣ Friendship as liberation‣ Euphoria and the poetry of recovery‣ Living authentically‣ Finding something greater than yourselfStay connected with me this Summer at viralmindfulness.com
In this first spring episode of Viral Mindfulness, Alexander Blue Feather reflects on grief, transition, and what it means to be present with someone who is dying. After sharing updates from his new South Bay home and the one-year threshold of his father’s passing, he responds to a listener’s question about how to support a brother in hospice and how to navigate the possibility of a peaceful passing.Drawing from Walking Each Other Home by Ram Dass and Mirabai Bush, this episode offers compassionate guidance on being with the dying: how to listen, how to sit in silence, how to let go of control, and how to become what Ram Dass calls “a loving rock.” This is a tender conversation about presence, humility, grief, ritual, and the mystery of death.If you are accompanying someone at the end of life, grieving a recent loss, or learning how to sit beside what cannot be fixed, this episode is for you.Spring Wise Circle Open For Enrollment. Start Tuesday, April 21 and Finish Tuesday, May 19. Save $50 Early Bird Registration Through April 5. viralmindfulness.com/
especially with yourself?This is an invitation to soften, to include your ancestors, to release rigid expectations, and to befriend your life as it is unfolding now.For spiritual explorers navigating grief, transition, and change, this episode offers a gentle and grounding prescription.
Modern life trains us to move faster. You must produce more, respond quicker and stay endlessly available. I give your soul permission to refuse this pace.In Episode Six of the Winter Soul Care Series, Alexander Blue Feather invites you into a therapeutic, imaginal space to explore geological speed. This is the pace at which the soul actually heals, remembers, and transforms. Drawing from Francis Weller’s In the Absence of the Ordinary, this episode reframes slowness not as a metaphor, but as medicine.You’ll explore the cost of our addiction to speed, the loss of intimacy with place and body, and why constant urgency leaves us spiritually exhausted. Through story, reflection, and grounded teaching, Alexander introduces three essential practices for restoring soul rhythm: patience, restraint, and reciprocity.Geological speed moves in seasons, layers, and cycles. It values stillness, spaciousness, and reciprocal relationship with the living world. This episode offers a powerful counterbalance to modern frenzy, and a practical invitation to slow down, listen, and return to what matters most.If you’re feeling overwhelmed, disconnected, or spiritually tired, this episode offers a different way forward. One rooted in time, earth, and soul.
In this episode of the Winter Soul Care series, Alexander invites you into a gentle writing practice centered on one essential question from Francis Weller:What core practices help sustain your intimacy with soul?Listeners are encouraged to pause, set a timer, and write—without editing or judgment—before returning to hear Alexander’s lived response, recorded along the ocean at Huntington State Beach. Through stories of caregiving, music, silence, creativity, ritual, and seasonal devotion, this episode explores how intimacy with soul is formed not through force or productivity, but through repeated, embodied practices of presence.This episode is an invitation to remember what has always sustained you—and to recommit to the practices that keep your inner life alive, nourished, and connected.
In this episode of the Winter Soul Care series, Alexander invites you into a simple, grounding writing practice inspired by the work of Francis Weller. Following the previous walking meditation, this episode shifts from movement to the page—using writing as a way to give the mind something nourishing to chew on.You’re offered a single reflection question:In what ways do you nourish the ritual of everyday life?Listeners are encouraged to write for ten minutes, then return to hear Alexander’s own lived response—exploring ritual, repetition, grief, tending, and the sacredness hidden in ordinary acts like laundry, sleep, movement, and daily care. This episode is an invitation to slow down, make room for intention, and rediscover how the small, repeated moments of life can become a source of nourishment and meaning.
In this gentle installment of the Winter Soul Care series, Alexander Blue Feather invites you into a shared walking meditation—recorded live along the shoreline at Huntington State Beach. Drawing inspiration from the teachings of Thích Nhất Hạnh, this episode transforms the ordinary act of walking into a practice of presence, grounding, and return.You’ll explore core principles of mindful walking—walking without arriving, uniting body and mind, and noticing the here and now—followed by a simple, embodied walking practice accompanied by the sound of the ocean. This episode is an invitation to slow down, reconnect with your body, and remember that every step can be a homecoming.Best enjoyed with headphones, outdoors if possible, or wherever you can safely walk and listen.
In this episode of Viral Mindfulness, I explore repetition as a core value of the soul and a vital practice for staying awake in unordinary times. Part five of the Winter’s Edge Soul Care series, this teaching draws on Francis Weller’s work to examine how repetition fosters depth, memory, devotion, and resilience—countering our cultural pull toward novelty, progress, and forgetting. Through stories of music, meditation, grief, recovery, creativity, and career reinvention, I invite you to consider repetition not as boring or mechanical, but as musical, rhythmic, and alive. This episode is an invitation to return—again and again—to what matters most. MidWinter Wise Circle Open For Enrollment! Grab your seat → viralmindfulness.com
In this episode of Viral Mindfulness, I explore the gift of restraint as a powerful and often overlooked soul practice. Drawing from Francis Weller’s teachings, this fourth installment of the Winter’s Edge Soul Care series invites us to slow down, hold back, and allow insights, grief, creativity, and longing to ripen rather than rush toward expression or consumption. We reflect on restraint as both an internal practice—pausing, containing, and listening—and an external one that honors our interdependence with others, the planet, and the commons. In a culture shaped by excess, immediacy, and accumulation, restraint becomes a radical act of care, humility, and wisdom. This episode is an invitation to let less become enough—and to discover what wants to emerge when we allow things to cook in their own time. MidWinter Wise Circle Open For Enrollment → https://www.viralmindfulness.com/wise-circle-winter-2026 Save $50 on Enrollment through Jan 21st. Start Tuesday, Feb 17 and Finish, Tuesday March 24. 90 minutes weekly!
In this Winter’s Edge check-in episode, I pause at the beginning of 2026 to reflect, breathe together, and tend the nervous system in the midst of winter, grief, and collective uncertainty. Lighting a candle, I acknowledge the anniversary of last year’s Southern California fires, honor those living with loss, and invite us into a moment of shared warmth and compassion. I offer a preview of what’s ahead in the Winter’s Edge Soul Care series—especially the upcoming teaching on restraint—and reflect on the soul “muscles” being strengthened during this season. Drawing on poetry, grief wisdom, and the idea that January is for roots rather than resolutions, this episode encourages gentleness, patience, and trust in winter’s intelligence. It’s a quiet invitation to start where you are, use what you have, and do what you can. MidWinter Wise Circle is open for enrollment. Start Tuesday, February 17. Finish Tuesday, March 24. Six Weeks. Six Practice Labs. One Powerful Small Circle of Like-Minded Soul-Siblings. Save $50 on enrollment through January 21st. Use Coupon Code: earlybird2026. https://www.viralmindfulness.com/wise-circle-winter-2026
In this third episode of my Winter’s Edge Soul Care series, we explore the art of vesseling. The creation of a safe, patient container where deep inner work can unfold in its own time. Drawing from Francis Weller, I reflect on how grief, sorrow, and other tender emotions require a holding space shaped by attention, devotion, silence, and trust. I share personal stories from my Mormon past, early experiences with queer community, and the importance of becoming vessels of kindness and healing for ourselves and one another. This episode teaches why not all work should be shared too soon—and how letting something “cook” protects what is sacred. Part Three invites you to slow down, trust timing, and tend what is moving in the hallways of your soul with care. Winter's Wise Circle Open For Enrollment → Tuesdays 9AM PT / NOON ET / 5PM UK (Start January 6 and Finish February 10) viralmindfulness.com
In this second teaching of my seven-part Winter’s Edge Soul Care series, we explore the reverence of approach. How the way we meet our inner life shapes what becomes possible in return. Drawing from Francis Weller and John O’Donohue, I reflect on why reverence, softness, curiosity, and humility open us to revelation, while judgment, rushing, and spiritual intensity close the aperture of perception. Along the way, I share the handwritten notes I leave for my future self in my holiday boxes each year, an unexpected teaching about “silent elders,” and the origins of the House of Blue. You’ll learn how to shift the stance of your attention so the sacred, the subtle, and the mysterious can come forward. This episode invites you to slow down, listen deeply, and approach your soul (and your life) with a gentler, more spacious heart. Winter Wise Circle OPEN FOR ENROLLMENT. Start Tuesday, January 6 and finish, Tuesday, February 10. Details + Save $59 on enrollment through Christmas Day → viralmindfulness.com
Welcome to Winter’s Edge and to Part One of a seven-episode series on how to care for your soul during the long dark of winter.In this opening teaching, I explore “the grandeur of the soul”—the first of seven soul-care themes drawn from Francis Weller’s newest book, In the Absence of the Ordinary: Soul Work for Times of Uncertainty. Together, we look at why winter is the perfect season to tend the inner life, how the night sky has served for centuries as a metaphor for our own vastness, and what it means to remember that our soul is far more expansive than the small identity we navigate the world with.I share three star-filled memories—from childhood nights on a Lake Powell houseboat, to psychedelic desert trips during my drug years, to a profound sober night in Monument Valley, and finally a recent pilgrimage to Idaho’s Dark Sky Reserve with my father’s ashes. These stories ground the teaching: when we look into the night sky, we are glimpsing the immensity of our own soul.Drawing from John O’Donohue, I also teach why genuine soul work cannot be approached with neon intensity or psychological force. The soul is shy, sacred, and secretive. It requires candlelight, softness, shadow, and hospitality—not striving or spiritual hunting.You’ll learn:❄️ Why winter is the natural season for soul work❄️ How the night sky serves as an ancient mirror for the soul’s vastness❄️ How modern life shrinks us into the “boat of self,” and how to reclaim our larger identity❄️ Why the soul prefers subtlety, spaciousness, darkness, and quiet welcome❄️ How awakening the soul invites destiny and meaning to meet us in new ways❄️ A writing practice from Francis Weller to help you experience your own grandeurI close by reading my personal writing from Idaho’s Dark Sky Reserve and offering an invitation into Winter Wise Circle, my signature 6-week soulful listening and writing community for early 2026.viralmindfulness.com/wise-circle-winter-2026
Welcome to Autumn’s Edge — that threshold space where we lean toward winter, darkness, and the long soul-season ahead.In this episode of Viral Mindfulness, I check in from Southern California on Monday, November 24, 2025, and share what’s been unfolding at the edge of autumn and winter. I tell the story of Harvey’s seventh birthday trip to Nashville — cowgirl party, barn, drum set and all — and you’ll hear a live audio clip of us recording her very first “drum song” together. Along the way, I reflect on how our rituals of play, lyrics, and basement performances are quietly shaping her creative life.I also open a holiday card I wrote to myself last January and read it aloud — a tender reminder to “deck the halls with cashmere,” surrender to winter, and let my roots rest in the dark. From there, I return to the words of Natalie Goldberg and her book The Great Spring, sharing a passage about creative life as wandering, zigzagging, and always returning to the page, the keys, the brush.This episode is an invitation to dust off your own practice — writing, music, art, whatever it is — and touch it again. I close with a glimpse of what’s coming next: teachings on soul work inspired by Frances Weller, and details about my upcoming Winter 2026 Wise Circle and my new grief group, Good Grief: The Wild Edge Circle.
Over ten years ago, in a bathroom of a swanky stranger's apartment in downtown Los Angeles, strung out and afraid, I looked up and whispered: “God, I need help.” That moment became the turning point. On June 23, 2015, I put down meth, in August, cannabis, and September 23, alcohol and every other substance. I haven’t picked them up since.A decade later, I’m celebrating ten continuous years of sobriety. In this episode, I take you through the journey: the years of relapse and secrecy, the love and loss of my first partner, the shadow of HIV stigma and IV drug use, and the long climb into recovery. Inspired by the interview styles of Terry Gross (Fresh Air) and Sam Fragoso (Talk Easy), I answer six deeply personal questions (AI-Generated) about addiction, queerness, creativity, grief, and what remains unfinished ten years in.This isn’t just a story about staying sober. It’s about what sobriety has carved within me. A canyon of stillness, a river of resilience, and a practice of presence, peace and contentment. For anyone listening who is struggling with their own relationship to substances, whether it’s meth or wine, cannabis or cocaine, you don’t have to do this alone. There is a path forward. There is peace.
On September 24, 2025, I celebrated ten years of continuous sobriety from all mind-altering substances. A full decade.In this episode, I reflect on that journey—alongside the grief, uncertainty, and overwhelm so many of us are navigating right now. From global instability to personal heartbreak, we're living through what therapist and writer Francis Weller calls “the Long Dark.”I share insights from his newest book, In the Absence of the Ordinay, and explore what it means to drop into the underworld with presence, not panic—to become immense and remember the ancient rhythms of soul.You'll hear reflections on:– Deep listening as a practice and spiritual tool– Collective grief and the disorientation of our times– Listening without fixing– Conversations across political and emotional divides– Tending to your soul through ritual, stillness, and creativityI also announce the opening of enrollment for Autumn’s Wise Circle—my 5-week small group series beginning October 28. All the details are on my website.🍂 May this episode offer you grounding, gentleness, and the reminder: you are not alone.viralmindfulness.com/wise-circle
If you’ve been craving a return to center, this episode is for you.I’m thrilled to finally invite you into Make Sit Happen—my brand new 21-day meditation adventure, created for anyone ready to build a practice that feels soulful, sustainable, and real.Whether you’ve never meditated before or you’ve wandered off the cushion and want to begin again, this course offers a grounded and gentle path:✴︎ Daily teachings with video and audio (short & potent)✴︎ Guided meditations and nature soundscapes✴︎ Weekly live Zoom calls (recordings available)✴︎ Writing prompts and walking practices✴︎ A beautiful community space to connect and reflect✴︎ Inspired by the teachings of Pema Chödrön, Jack Kornfield, Natalie Goldberg, and AdyashantiYou’ll meet the Mirepoix Sisters (Sit, Walk, Write) and explore the 5 natural elements (Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Space) as a metaphor for presence. We begin with the simplest invitation: sit down, breathe, and notice what’s here.In this episode, I’ll walk you through everything you need to know, including how to sign up, what you’ll receive, and why even one minute of sitting each day can open a portal to your soul.I built this for people just like you—curious, creative, maybe a little overwhelmed—and ready to deepen their connection to what matters most.✨ Enrollment closes tomorrow morning.✨ Listen in for the full invitation.✨ We start together, and we begin right where we are.→ makesithappen.org
This is your first September dispatch and a quick intimate check-in. In this soul-bearing State of the Union, I reflect on the wild swirl of the past six weeks: illness, unexpected change, travel to the East Coast, and a frightening accident with my beloved Harvey. She’s healing. We’re healing. And in the quiet aftermath, I return to you, with a voice steadied by presence and gratitude.I share a quote that’s been holding me: about noise, influence, and the sacred need to hear yourself again. I talk about an upcoming meditation course (yes, you can still join makesithappen.org ). And I close with a basement ritual that is pure House of Blue: a hand game called Sally performed with Harvey, charting the journey from infant to forgotten soul—with giggles, tenderness, and theatrical flair.It’s silly. It’s serious. It’s real life.“To be here is immense.” —RilkeLet’s pause together. Come listen.
Meet the piano piece that’s been with me most of my life.In this solo episode, I share the story behind Waking Blue. A song I began composing at age 13, long before I had language for who I was becoming. From Beethoven to Salt Lake City, from Ensign Peak to Southern California, this melody carried me through moves, grief, queerness, and awakening.Waking Blue is a piece about impermanence and memory, about the moment (and years) before we fully wake up. I offer the 2011 studio version here: played on a Steinway, wrapped in decades of life.May it meet you in your own season of becoming.
In this heart-forward installment of Dear Alexander, Blue Feather responds to a soul sibling’s question: What stories do you remember of your dad, Cardell, and what’s helping you now in the midst of grief?What unfolds is part tribute, part time-travel, and full embodiment of what it means to grieve with depth and beauty. From fire poles and Lake Powell to sleeping beneath stars and sneaking HBO glances in the ‘90s, Alexander shares radiant memories of a father’s devotion. We end with a sacred offering: the first time Alexander returned to the piano after Cardell’s death, playing a live version of “Waking Blue.”With grief as teacher and Francis Weller’s The Wild Edge of Sorrow as guide, this is a field guide to remembering, breaking open, and blooming.This is part of the Dear Alexander series: where spiritual correspondence meets queer Dear Abby, with a piano in the background and a splash of watercolor. Listeners from around the world send in questions, insights, heartbreaks, and aha moments. If you’d like to share what’s stirring in you get started now at viralmindfulness.com/dear-alexander.Let’s keep asking brave questions and listening for the music that answers back.
For years, I’ve carried around a simple little illustration: a kid sitting beside a river, with the words: “Everyone should sit next to a river and listen.”This 10-minute meditation was recorded during my first morning camping near Redfish Lake, Idaho, beside the Salmon River and under the gaze of the Sawtooth Mountains.It's green. It's lush. And it's a quiet invitation to make sit happen.Bring your breath to the banks. Let the sound of the river remind you: there's nowhere else to be but here.🪶 Perfect for a morning pause, midday grounding, or evening reset.🎧 Best with headphones.🌊 Part of the Scattering Ashes, Gathering Love series on Viral Mindfulness the Podcast.
Welcome to a 10-minute "Make Sit Happen" meditation recorded in real time on the shores of Redfish Lake, Idaho (my father’s home-state, where I recently scattered some of his ashes).This is a gentle, contemplative sit, accompanied by the natural music of lake water meeting the shore. The rhythm of the waves invites you into presence, stillness, and breath.Come take your seat. Let the Sawtooth Mountains hold you. Let the water teach you how to soften. No performance, no perfect meditation, just you, your breath, and this moment.🎧 Best with headphones.🌲 Background: Redfish Lake, Stanley, Idaho.🪶 Part of the Scattering Ashes, Gathering Love series on Viral Mindfulness the Podcast.
🎧 UPDATED AUDIO – Now Ears-Approved!This re-released version comes with smoothed-out sound for your comfort. The original audio had a few sharp turns (thank you for your grace). This one is tuned to invite you into stillness, memory, and meaning. Same content as previous episode in the feed. Feel free to move right along, to the next episode, if you already heard this episode.In this deeply personal episode, I take you with me to Redfish Lake, Idaho. Idaho is my father’s birth-state and now the resting place of part of his ashes. You'll hear raw, real-time reflections from the lakeshore and Redfish Creek, the steady hush of water moving downstream, and a live recording of the words I shared at his celebration of life.We begin with a poem close to my heart, The Long Boat by Stanley Kunitz, read by my dear friend Jude Theriot. a poem I happened to read the morning after my dad passed.This episode is a mosaic of pilgrimage, poetry, grief, and devotion. A dispatch from the road. A ritual in sound. An offering for anyone carrying love and loss in the same tender hands.
In this episode of Viral Mindfulness, Alexander Blue Feather invites you along on an intimate pilgrimage through Idaho’s Redfish Lake, a landscape of dark skies, towering saw-toothed mountains, and quiet revelation. Carrying his father’s ashes, Alexander reflects on grief as a deep form of praise—an apprenticeship with sorrow—and shares how letting go of the search for extraordinary signs revealed the power of simply being present.You’ll hear the poem The Longboat by Stanley Kunitz (read by Jude Theriot) which became a guiding touchstone in the first hours after his father’s passing. This episode includes the original live recording of Alexander’s words spoken at his father’s celebration of life—a tribute to their healing, their chosen relationship as father and gay son, and the courage to love beyond inherited frameworks.Along the way, Alexander brings you into the raw moments of scattering ashes in Redfish Lake and Redfish Creek, offering simple rituals of farewell stitched with humor, gratitude, and tenderness.Part travelogue, part elegy, and part love letter, this is an exploration of how grief, memory, and devotion can transform loss into something luminous.This is a story of lineage, healing, and the way love continues; long after a life has ended.'The Wild Braid: A Poet Reflects on a Century in the Garden,' by Stanley Kunitz (Author), Genine Lentine Marnie Crawford Samuelson (Photographer)
In this 10-minute guided meditation, you’re invited to settle into the sound of water and memory. Recorded live on the shore of June Lake Beach, this track features the gentle tide and natural surf—a found-sound meditation bed from the Eastern Sierra’s alpine shoreline.Let the rhythm of the water carry you inward. Let the hush between waves soften what’s been loud inside you.This lake held me during the first days of my summer pilgrimage—a time of reflection, remembrance, and scattering a dusting of my dad’s ashes in the hush of morning light. Now, it’s here to hold you.Find your breath.Find your stillness.Come rest beside the lake.🎧 Best experienced with headphones, somewhere you can pause and be.
Alexander Blue Feather takes us deep into the heart of the Eastern Sierras in this rich, reflective, and often hilarious travelogue. Recorded over several days during his solo summer road trip, this episode is an audio journal of wonder and wandering. From chipmunks and cold plunges in June Lake to the tender salt-and-peppering of his father's ashes at June Lake on Father's Day. Come along for unexpected wisdom, campground comparisons, and a bucket of dildos in a small-town Oregon bar. Yes, really!
n this guided meditation, Alexander Blue Feather leads us through a loving-kindness practice inspired by the grief-woven wisdom of Francis Weller. You’ll begin by grounding your body like a tree—rooted, upright, and open—before stepping into a visualization that invites you to face your own suffering with tenderness and compassion.With each breath, you’ll offer gentle blessings to yourself, then to someone you love, and slowly out to the world, expanding the radius of kindness to all beings everywhere. This is a practice of remembering: that every being you encounter knows suffering, and therefore every being is worthy of compassion. Including you.May you be happy.May you be free of suffering.May you be at peace.
What if progress isn’t the point? What if your soul doesn’t move in a straight line, but in spirals and stillness?In this poetic reflection, Alexander Blue Feather reads from The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller and Rumi’s The Guest House, exploring the sacred art of self-compassion. You'll hear about grief, letting go of the “muscular agenda” of self-improvement, and why setting a place at the inner table—for sorrow, disappointment, and loss—is an act of courage. Includes a laughter offering from Harvey Rose and a preview of upcoming fall offerings: grief-wise circles, a weekend silent retreat, and a 21-day guided meditation.Stay tuned for a guided loving-kindness meditation in the next episode.
In this weekend's special edition of Viral Mindfulness, Alexander Blue Feather invites you to step behind the velvet curtain into the sacred glow of Broadway. As CNN broadcasts George Clooney’s "Good Night, and Good Luck" live from the Winter Garden Theatre and the 2025 Tony Awards light up the stage, Alexander reflects on the electric drama—both on and off stage.From Audra McDonald and Nicole Scherzinger’s showdown to Megan Hilty’s triumphant return, this episode is a love letter to the theater. A temple of truth and belonging. You’ll hear personal stories from Alexander’s first Broadway pilgrimage in 1998, complete with tap shoes, playbills, and spiritual awakening in the balcony's glow. It’s a celebration of queer joy, memory, grief, and resurrection, told with sparkle and soul.
“Elphaba wasn’t the villain. She was the spellbreaker.”In this powerful Pride Month episode, Alexander Blue Feather reflects on the moment Wicked became his lifeline. It was June 2003, freshly diagnosed with HIV, newly exiled from the Mormon church, and standing at the edge of a new life. Then Elphaba soared across a Broadway stage, green-skinned and defiant, and something shifted forever.Now, 22 years later, Alexander returns to that sacred moment as the trailer for Wicked: Part Two, For Good is released. He shares how Elphaba became a queer archetype and teacher, how sobriety reshaped his soul, and why pride means more at 52 than it ever did at 30.This episode celebrates 10 years clean from hard drugs, explores the grief of losing a parent, honors gender expansiveness, and affirms that queerness is holy. It’s part memoir, part spell, part sermon for the ones who had to leave to live.Topics include:• Queer identity and Pride then vs. now• Living with HIV for 22 years• 10 years sober from crystal meth and hard drugs• Elphaba as a mirror for queer becoming• Gender expansiveness and chosen family• Spoken-word taglines and healing through BroadwayFor the ones with glitter in their scars -- you were never wicked -- you were always becoming.
Rabbit rabbit! Welcome to June. In this heartfelt kickoff to the month, Alexander Blue Feather invites you into an intimate exploration of quirky traditions, grief rituals, spiritual recommitment, and summertime synchronicity. He shares the folk origins of the “rabbit rabbit” custom, begins a 30-day wake-up challenge guided by spiritual teacher Adyashanti, and reflects on the continued apprenticeship of grief following his father’s passing. From salt-and-peppering ashes under the avocado tree to planning a soulful road trip to Glacier National Park, this episode is a soft-spoken invitation to slow down, notice your wanting, and meet the month with presence.
In this deeply personal episode of Viral Mindfulness, Alexander Bluefeather shares an intimate reflection on the passing of his father. Recorded in real time as he heads across the desert toward a family gathering and celebration of life, this episode is a raw meditation on grief, memory, sacred moments, and the practice of presence at the threshold of death. Alexander offers stories from his final days with his dad, reads from The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller, and offers final call for the upcoming Spring's Edge Wise Circle, a soulful sanctuary for shared healing. Starts Tuesday, April 22, for 5 Weeks. If you are navigating loss or seeking to better understand the terrain of grief, this is a tender companion for the journey.
In this tender and whimsical episode, Alexander Blue Feather invites you into a weekend of poetry, play, and presence with Harvey Pink Feather. From basement pirate poetry sessions to the gentle rhythms of 'Blossomise' by Simon Armitage, their world unfolds in haikus, laughter, and the quiet magic of shared moments. As winter lingers and spring stirs beneath the surface, this is an offering to hold both—the hush of snow and the promise of bloom. Harvey’s voice rises like birdsong, her love for haikus and pirate tales weaving joy into the stillness. Come, linger in this space where poetry and love lead us home. Winter's Edge Wise Circle starts Tuesday, March 4, 2025 (6 weeks) Grab your seat at viralmindfulness.com/wise-circles
As winter lingers and the first whispers of spring stir beneath the surface, how do we honor this in-between season? In this episode, Alexander Blue Feather reflects on Imbolc, the Gaelic festival marking the midpoint between winter solstice and spring equinox. He explores the themes of rest, renewal, and the quiet work happening beneath the surface—both in nature and within ourselves. Drawing from Katherine May’s wisdom and his own creative practices, he invites listeners to slow down, tend to their roots, and embrace small rituals of light and stillness. Plus, updates on Wise Circles, new watercolor prints, and the music that’s been carrying him through this season.Mentioned in this episode:✨ Imbolc and the art of honoring winter’s pause✨ Katherine May’s reflections on midwinter✨ Music as a companion in silence and transformation✨ Small rituals to welcome renewal✨ Updates on Wise Circles & creative offeringsTune in and join this journey of deep listening, reflection, and gentle awakening.
Join me in solidarity for a powerful moment of silence. As I approach the final 30 hours of an at-home profound noble silence journey, I’m inviting you to step into your own quiet for just ten minutes.It all began at 4 AM PT on Monday, December 30, 2024, when the call of an owl—an extraordinary first in my 13 years here—woke me from sleep. These past days of silence have been intense yet illuminating, and I’d love for us to connect in this shared stillness.What might emerge for you through the practice of silence?To help you "make sit happen," I’ve created a ten-minute silent meditation. Take a moment for yourself, and send your love and light my way as I complete this week of silence.I’ll return on Monday with words and the opening of enrollment for Winter Wise Circles. Curious about the schedule? Visit viralmindfulness.com/circle to learn more.
Join me for a calming guided meditation where we explore the quiet beauty of winter. Together, we make “sit” happen, creating a space for stillness amid the busyness of life. With the soft glow of a candle and Katherine May’s reflective words as our inspiration, we’ll journey inward to connect with the rhythms of this season. Through grounding practices and mindful breathing, we’ll honor the winter’s lessons of rest, deceleration, and tending to our roots. You'll learn to invite all aspects of yourself—thoughts, feelings, and sensations—into the present moment, cultivating a sense of belonging within. Key Takeaways: Practice inclusivity by inviting your feelings and thoughts to "sit" with you.Connect with your inner light and explore how it flourishes in the quiet margins of winter.Embrace winter’s lesson of slowing down and honoring stillness. Reflect on nurturing your roots and keeping the sun’s energy alive through light and silence. May you leave this meditation with peace, kindness, and a renewed connection to the steady heartbeat of life.
In this reflective holiday episode, Alexander shares a cherished memory from 1985 as a seventh-grader in Salt Lake City, Utah. He recalls performing in a regional production of Scrooge, The Musical, playing several roles, including George, the lovable street urchin. This experience, filled with camaraderie and creativity, left a lasting impression—especially a poignant interaction with a kind, artistic gay man who gifted him a hand-painted Christmas card.Alexander transitions to the present, sharing how winter solstice and the holiday season are shaping his emotions and spiritual journey. He reflects on missing time with Harvey, adapting to family gatherings, and navigating feelings of vulnerability and sadness. Inspired by Katharine May’s “Incantation for Solstice Eve,” he emphasizes the importance of rest, stillness, and embracing the rhythm of winter.In a metaphor of trees shedding their last leaves, Alexander finds clarity in letting go of expectations and honoring his internal season of winter. He reminds listeners that New Year’s resolutions don’t have to start on January 1st and celebrates the power of candlelight, music, and silence to sustain light in the darkest days.This episode blends nostalgia, mindfulness, and heartfelt honesty, encouraging listeners to embrace their own cycles of rest and renewal.
In this episode of Viral Mindfulness the Podcast, I invite you into a season of slowing down, reflecting, and reconnecting. From howling at the full moon in Provincetown with Harvey and Nova Rain to embracing the calming metaphor of snail juice, I share stories and insights from my 31 Days of December at-home-retreat. Together, we explore themes of reweaving ourselves, cultivating silence, and resisting the allure of constant digital distraction. Plus, I have an exciting announcement about my new limited-edition watercolor prints inspired by rainwater and nature's gentle beauty. Tune in for inspiration to embrace winter’s stillness and steep in life’s deeper rhythms. Podcast Soul Siblings: Enjoy 20% Off WATERCOLOUR PRINTS, Enter Code at checkout: BLUE20 → https://www.viralmindfulness.com/gallery/prints
Before you dive into a longer meditation, take a moment to check in with your mind. Where are you at right now? To ground yourself in the present, it can help to ask a few simple questions, ones that bring you into direct contact with what's unfolding inside you.Here's another question and touchpoint: What is the quality of you thoughts right now? Is your mind busy? Drowsy? Is your mind surprisingly still?Are your thoughts raging? Peaceful or gentle? Obsessive or calm?Explore the quality of your thoughts and the landscape of your mind, in this present moment...*Inspired by the words of Pema Chödrön
In this episode, I reflect on the experience of engaging in a 7-day meditation challenge, offering insights on the power of simple, short meditations and the universal struggle with meditation. I share personal experiences of how incorporating even brief, 1-minute meditations has led to greater consistency and depth in my practice this week. Drawing from the wisdom of Pema Chodron, the episode emphasizes that meditation is not about achieving perfection or escaping thoughts, but about creating space to witness the mind's activity without judgment. This process of noticing and allowing thoughts to come and go, Alexander Blue Feather suggests, is at the core of true meditation practice.I also share the joy of community meditation sessions, expresses gratitude for a birthday gift, and looks forward to upcoming personal events and gatherings, including attending a retreat at Kripalu. The episode closes with words of encouragement, reminding listeners that meditation is a revolutionary practice that allows us to hold space for our thoughts, feelings, and deeper emotions, such as grief and pain.
Before you dive into a longer meditation, take a moment to check in with your mind. Where are you at right now? To ground yourself in the present, it can help to ask a few simple questions, ones that bring you into direct contact with what's unfolding inside you.Here's the next question: Are you experiencing any physical sensations? Pain, tightness, relaxation? Explore your body and its sensations, in this moment, on your own...*Inspired by the words of Pema Chödrön
Before you dive into a longer meditation, take a moment to check in with your mind. Where are you at right now? To ground yourself in the present, it can help to ask a few simple questions, ones that bring you into direct contact with what's unfolding inside you.Start with this: What are you feeling? Can you connect with that? It could be an emotion or a sensation in your body—maybe you're feeling calm, agitated, tired, or even in pain. Don’t try to fix or change it, just notice. Can you simply be with what’s here, in this moment?Inspired by Pema Chödrön.
In this episode, we explore why hope, while seemingly positive, might actually be keeping you stuck. Drawing inspiration from the slang "sus" (popularized by the game Among Us), we’ll dive into how hope can sometimes feel like a trap—suspicious, even. With teachings from Pema Chödrön and Stephen Jenkinson’s Die Wise, we’ll uncover how clinging to hope can numb us from reality, especially at life’s end. Join me as we unpack the idea that letting go of hope could be the key to finding true peace in the present moment.
In this episode I'll introduce you to Massachusetts largest waterfall. Sit next to Bash Bish Falls and listen for 3 minutes. Listen. Notice. Love. Sit. Stay until the three minutes is up.
Welcome to Autumn's Edge. Let's start with a 7-day meditation challenge. Super simple suggestions in this episode! Start today and finish Thursday, October 3, 2024. The next few episodes will be guided meditation tracks, also called MAKE SIT HAPPEN. More resources for your meditation practice → https://www.viralmindfulness.com/guided-meditation-starter-kit
"In Chinese lore, the Fifth Season is late summer, when the glare is gone and only the color of things as they are can reach us. It takes all the seasons to become this bare. All the turmoil to be worn of edges. All the loss to hold on to nothing. All the seasons to wear our hands open. Landing here, I no longer want things. I only want moments. In the sun. In the rain. With you. When confused or sad, I only want to look to what is and tumble into joy. Together. Alone. I want to put down all I've been carrying" (Mark Nepo). Second Summer Wise Circles are open for enrollment → viralmindfulness.com
Join me for an early morning cup of coffee next to a cozy campfire in Copake, New York. We'll discuss joy as an opportunity, even a "calling --precisely in a moment like this" (Krista Tippett). My joy dances intimately with the pain, struggle and impermanence of modern life. Can you create space to hold joy while you're navigating the difficulties? I'm integrating my Summer on the East Coast while sharing a couple audio clips of Harvey and I reading/singing poems and spells to each other. She told me she's been writing poems since she was 3 years old! Are you joining me for the next round of WISE CIRCLES? The magic and OVERTURE starts Tuesday, September 3. Now enrolling soul-siblings who are interested in exploring their spiritual life and practicing together every week, for 5 weeks. Details + Price + Testimonials + Enrollment → viralmindfulness.com
Behind the scenes of my Spring Piano Recital and Watercolour Series: Romance With Rainwater. Harvey Rose and John Harvey Cates pop in with a little audio fun from their garden in New City, NY. All things Alexander → viralmindfulness.com → Get your tickets for my recital next weekend. XXOO Yours Bluely
In this 20 minute guided meditation we'll explore a garden within your heart and mind's eye, as we simmer on the words of Maria Papova:"The life of a garden is a vivid reminder that anything of beauty and radiance takes time, takes care, takes devotion to seed and sprout and bloom, gardens have long been living cathedrals for the creative spirit.And, suddenly, the flower emerges not as this pretty object to be admired, but as this ravishing system of aliveness — a kind of silent symphony of interconnected resilience."Energize Your Meditation Practice! Sometimes all you need is a new guide with a different perspective. Let me be your muse and accountability to your mindfulness practice. The Ultimate Guided Meditation Starter Kit. The Affordable Must Have Mindfulness Resource for the Beginning Meditator and Those with Courage to “Begin Again” and Trust a Fresh Field Guide (That’s Me). Updates twice a year. Over 34 guided meditations ready to go. Video teaching and suggestions for you practice. Get started → viralmindfulness.com/meditate
Kitty girls, squirrel friends and soul siblings! We just hit 20,000 downloads on the podcast. Thanks for the love! Are you ready to sashay your way along the trails with me? Honey, we're talking about Flagstaff, Arizona, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, serving you trail realness. As I make my pilgrimage to Taos, New Mexico, this episode is a journey packed with adventure, and conversations on fear. I'm here with PART TWO. According to Pema Chödrön, we're not here to conquer fear darling, oh, no, we're here to embrace it (wholeheartedly), to lean into it, to make fear our fierce companion. Flirt with fear!Speaking of fierce, mark your calendars because you're invited to the event of the season, My Spring Piano Recital! Picture this: I'm tickling the ivories, playing Alexandra Streliski's album NEO-ROMANCE from start to finish, right from my living room to your screens via Zoom. I've been practicing all year and now it's time to shine and share it with YOU.Let's talk tickets, because you don't want to miss this event. We've got options for every budget, from $FREE to $VIP BLUE baby! Standard ticket price $24. Student and financial need prices at $12. Four recitals, 75 minutes each, filled with music, magic, and a watercolor giveaway at each recital. Snatch your tickets, and get ready to join me for a musical extravaganza you won't soon forget → viralmindfulness.com/piano
LIVE from Santa Fe, New Mexico | Conversations On Fear by Alexander Smith | Mindfulness Teacher
This is the second year I'm celebrating the New Year at the Spring Equinox. I thought March 25th, being the full moon and all, would be the perfect beginning. Do you know about my Guided Meditation Starter Kit? I'll tell you about it. Don't just take my word for it, Bryce Orvin recently left me a comment after practicing one of the guided meditations: "What a soothing, gentle introduction to making sit happen. Your love resonates with every soft word, encouragement, and thoughtful soundscape. Thank you Alexander for sharing the gifts you’ve developed and the powerful peace you have cultivated. My anxiety has evaporated and restful slumber awaits.Yahoo!" Harvey Rose Cates, my almost 5.5 year old Goddess Daughter has her iPad set up for communication. We're in the beginning phases, and you're luck has it, because today she audio texted me for the very first time, and I've copy and pasted some of the fun for your lovely ears to enjoy. We'll finish the podcast talking about taking your time to build your life, sobriety, creative projects, relationship, next career endeavor. All of it! "Good things take much longer than you think" (Sean Einhaus). Viral Mindfulness has taken me years to build. I'll introduce you to someone I love following. His name is Julian Curi, known on socials as "Righteous Robot." He makes art and movies and just launched his newest papercut Short Film called GRUFF. It's divine. He cuts and films and make paper people. You have got to see this! We'll finish this episode with the gorgeous prose of Brianna Weist for gentle encouragement: "Happiness is something that is gently built. It is what you make ritual within your life, what you allow yourself to get used to. You think of happiness as a constant forward motion, a kind of growing that looks a lot more like reaching — always toward some newer, brighter horizon. Yet, happiness is consistent effort in the same direction. It is the way you strengthen bonds, uncover beauty, and grow to become most comfortable with yourself. It is how you learn to trace the lines of your innermost desires outward into the world, to find within them the pockets where you most belong. It is to live in a way that makes you feel grateful you are here, that affirms how connected you are to something greater, that makes you remember you are working toward something that will one day add up to be more meaningful than all of its parts." Show Notes → viralmindfulness.com/march25 Guided Meditation Starter Kit → viralmindfulness.com/meditate May of Mindfulness Spring Offerings → viralmindfulness.com/circle
Watch the CNN interview, explore pictures from my World AIDS Day Keynote (2011), and learn more about Dime Stories (today's reading) → blessyourvirus.com
Winter's Edge: My Melancholy and a Public Service Social Worker Announcement (PSSWA) by Alexander Smith | Mindfulness Teacher
In this episode I talk about my Midwinter Melancholy and how music is at the top of my "treatment plan." I read an essay I wrote in 2002 applying for an international Summer practicum in Eastern Europe (Bulgaria). It's called, MUSIC LESSONS. I got the internship and had an epic summer (circa 2002). I finish the episode offering you a blessing from John O'Donohue entitled: As A Child Enters The World. Explore my Spring Wise Circle and Piano Recitals at viralmindfulness.com.
Snotty tales of mucus, textiles (my new bedding) and cashmere of course. I've emerged from a January whirlwind. Let's start with the cold/flu/covid which drop kicked me into bed for seven days. Thank Goddess I bought new flannel sheets and two down pillows (with Mulberry silk cases) in December. I'll share a juicy quote from Katherine May's WINTERING and details about Midwinter Wise Circles which start the week of February 17. viralmindfulness.com
I'm not sure forgiveness is real. I like to think of it as a riddle. May this guided meditation encourage ideas related to "forgiveness." It's a process, not a decision or an event. You don't have to forgive everyone. Here are the three phrases we'll work with: 1. I forgive you for the harm you have caused2. Knowingly or in ignorance, you were suffering and lost3. I forgive you
"If everything around seems dark, look again, you may be the light" (RUMI).I'm writing on Winter's Eve to remind you that your light matters.The darkness and sorrow within my life is the reason I can hold authentic joy, peace and playfulness.Lebanese-American poet and philosopher Kahlil Gibran suggests "the deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain."May you trust the pain and discomfort in your life, and shine your light as it circles around.In 2016 I was in the audience of Oprah's Super Soul Sessions when India.Arie sang her beautiful song "I Am Light." Watch and Listen Now → https://youtu.be/OL-gxfx2QtYExplore My Love Letters of Mindfulness → https://www.viralmindfulness.com/love-letters
I've been a little quiet here on the podcast as I've been processing big events, including time with Dad, in my Desert of Dementia (Arizona). He's been living with dementia since 2015 and this was our first time face to face where he didn't know who I was most of the 5 days. This episode presents in a "Blue's State of the Union Update" highlighting quick plot points from the past 8 weeks. I answer a question about whether I offer 1-on-1 sobriety coaching sessions? The answer is no, and my therapy has expanded to something I call "therapeutic mentoring." Find out more in this episode. Expect weekly episodes through the rest of the year and into 2024.
Let me intimate my response and thoughts on a few sentences from Gabor Maté's book, 'The Myth Of Normal.' Inside you. Think of your trauma as an inner injury. “Trauma is not what happens to you but what happens inside you.” Details about Late-Fall Wise Circles which start the week of November 13 and run for five weeks. Early bird discount on tuition available through November 1. All of the details at viralmindfulness.com/wise-circe
While visiting Yosemite I did some reading about John Muir and his adventures in the Sierra Nevada, including Yosemite. I found a phrase by an author named Gretel Ehrlich that left an impression; she was referencing John's early life and his lack of "intellectual interludes." I carried the word interlude with me along the trails and rivers of Yosemite National Park, and found a way to integrate it with my spiritual and creative practice. I'm excited to share it with you today!
Make Sit Happen: Healing Trauma, A Guided Meditaion Journey, Written by Belleruth Naparstek by Alexander Smith | Mindfulness Teacher
Swap your brown noise, green, white, or violet for this unique Yosemite waterfall. Blue Noise, an offering from Foresta Falls, which is deep on the edge of Yosemite National Park (in Foresta, CA). Recorded live, on location, Saturday, September 9, 2023 at 6:02PM PT.
Enjoy the beautiful voice of Crane Creek in Foresta, California. On the edge, right in Yosemite National Park.
I spent last week in Yosemite National Park for 7 nights. I have some ideas I want to share with you. Details about Fall Wise Circles. Piano Recitals With Watercolour Giveaways THIS WEEK. Four to choose from. 45 minutes on ZOOM. Thursday, Sept. 21, 7PM-7:45PM PT, Friday, Sept. 22, 6PM-6:45PM PT, Saturday, Sept. 23 (First Day of Autumn), 2PM-2:45PM PT and Sunday, Sept. 24 (My Eight Year Sober Anniversary), 3PM-3:45PM PT. Links and free tickets at viralmindfulness.com/piano."The role of spiritual practice is basically to exhaust the seeker. If the practice does what it’s supposed to do, it exhausts our energy for seeking. And then reality has a chance to present itself" (Adyashanti)."I’ve learned a great deal drifting in and out of wakefulness over the years. In the beginning, I used to do a lot of things—write, play music, draw, garden—one after another. But along the way, it stopped being about creating things and started being about the space that is opened in the active of creating. Now the experience of creating brings me such joy, because somehow I came to realize that it is the space that creating opens that saves me, not what it produces. Now it doesn’t matter if I finish anything. I just need to be in that space. In that holy interlude, I am grounded. Only when in conversation with what-is-eternal am I able to stand in a fundamental knowing that is unshakable. When I stand there, I feel calm. When I stand there, I’m attuned to different weather" (Mark Nepo)."Go within every day and find the inner strength so that the world won't blow your candle out" (Katherine Dunham).
I’m home from Summer on the East Coast, ready to begin Second Summer in Southern California (find out what this means). I talk about my big blue birthday party on Broadway and the surprise visitors who flew across the country. In this episode I welcome new listeners I met (in-person) in Boone, North Carolina through Laura McKowen’s weekend retreat at Art of Living Center. I answer questions, discuss Fall Wise Circle Enrollment, and share ideas related to this juicy thought by Brianna Wiest: “Your new life is going to cost you your old one. It's going to cost you your comfort zone and your sense of direction. It's going to cost you relationships and friends. It's going to cost you being liked and understood. It doesn't matter. The people who are meant for you are going to meet you on the other side. You're going to build a new comfort zone around the things that actually move you forward. Instead of being liked, you're going to be loved. Instead of being understood, you're going to be seen. All you're going to lose is what was built for a person you no longer are. Let it go.”You don’t want to miss an appearance by Harvey Rose (from one of our play sessions) and my new friend, Dharamjeev. She reads a Mary Oliver poem, ‘At Blackwater Pond’, live from Beech Forest, during our visit to Provincetown, Massachusetts.
I'm simmering this summer with two words: MUSCULAR HOPE. Krista Tippet has inspired this adventure in idea. "I talk about hope being a muscle.It’s not wishful thinking, and it’s not idealism. It’s not even a belief that everything will turn out OK. It’s an imaginative leap, which is what I’ve seen in people like John Lewis and Jane Goodall. These are people who said: 'I refuse to accept that the world has to be this way. I am going to throw my life and my pragmatism and my intelligence at this insistence that it could be different and put that into practice.' That’s a muscular hope. So, to your question, I don’t always feel robustly hopeful. Depression is something I’ve struggled with. I’ve found the world an unbearable place for months at a time in the last two years. But at the same time I don’t feel like there’s a place in my work for my despair." Read the full interview here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/07/05/magazine/krista-tippett-interview.html Learn more about Summer, Fall and Winter Wise Circles → viralmindfulness.com/wise-circle
In a snack-size, Summer's almost here episode, I share one of my favorite four-letter words. COAX always arrives, right on time, and encourages me. Coax is like a mantra, or prayer, that influences a shift, with gentle persuasion, flattery, etc. Even cajole! Only one more rainwater poppy painting available to purchase: viralmindfulness.com/gallery
Question from a Potential Wise Circle Traveler: "I have been subscribed to your newsletter for a bit, and also interested in what group therapy might offer me. I've been exploring the stuff on your wise circle. Could you explain a little bit about how this functions as group therapy, and what makes it different?" Welcome to Dear Alexander! Share insight, beauty and aha's. Ask me a question: viralmindfulness.com/dear-alexander. Enroll Now For A Spring Wise Circe. Tuesday Mornings → viralmindfulness.com/tuesday Wednesday Nights → viralmindfulness.com/wednesday Join me on ZOOM for a Piano Recital (and free watercolour giveaway) Saturday, April, 29, Sunday, April 30, Monday, May 1 → viralmindfulness.com/piano
Maria Papova paints with words: "The life of a garden (wise circle, podcast) is a vivid reminder that anything of beauty and radiance takes time, takes care, takes devotion to seed and sprout and bloom." Thank you for being a part of my podcast! If you'd like to go deeper with me, in a small group setting, I just opened enrollment for my Spring Wise Circle(s). Choose from two different circles. Let's bloom and flower together during the Month of May. Tuesday Circle: 9AM-10:30AM PDT. Wednesday Circle: 7PM-8:30PM PDT. Learn more and enroll at viralmindfulness.com/spring
Question from Tara: "Dear Alexander, How do I witness a loved one's pain and be supportive without becoming overcome with their pain myself?" Welcome to Dear Alexander! Share insight, beauty and aha's. Ask me a question: viralmindfulness.com/dear-alexander.
Winter's Edge 13 The Practice of Writing, Learn from it, write from it, teach from it! by Alexander Smith | Mindfulness Teacher
Winter's Edge (Guided Meditation) Tend to the Waves of Mind by Alexander Smith | Mindfulness Teacher
The ultimate guided meditation starter kit. An affordable (must have) mindfulness resource for the beginning meditator and those with courage to 'begin again' and trust a fresh field guide (that's me). Make sit happen now → viralmindfulness.com/meditate
Winter's Edge 11 (Spring Equinox) Stop and Notice and Thaw and Melt and Soften by Alexander Smith | Mindfulness Teacher
In this 24-minute guided meditation we'll DRAW compassion for yourself and others. I know it's a long one, but it's juicy! Inspired and read from the REFUGE RECOVERY (book) and appendix. With additional "drawing" metaphors added throughout the meditation by Yours Bluely.
Winter's Edge 09 The Practice of Drawing, "Everything is better when you draw together!" (Wendy Mac) by Alexander Smith | Mindfulness Teacher
In this ten-minute guided meditation we'll focus on the melody that lives deep within you.
I wrote this song and it's traveled with me for decades. At 13 I started this composition in the mountains of Salt Lake City, Utah, and finished it at age 16 in sunny Southern California. I remained 'Untitled' until recently when I officially named it BECOMING BLUE.
Winter's Edge 07 The Practice of Music, Become the Song of Your Heart by Alexander Smith | Mindfulness Teacher
Inspired by the words of John O'Donohue, we'll relax into the body, and imagine a light all around you (the soul light) and with your breath draw that light (love, energy, i.e.) into your body. "The soul is not within the body as a little light or white spirit somewhere but the body is actually in the soul."
Practice is essential to my path, and I always start with movement of body. "Your body is a community of organs, all living with consciousness, that work together to house you in this story (Joy Harjo, 'Poet Warrior')." Move your body. Offer loving attention to your body today. It sounds simple and yet we struggle. You're not alone. I'll share some of my body struggle and how I'm moving gently on Winter's Edge.
I typed this in a note on my phone:Ditch perfection, be gentle with progress, indulge in practice and demand playfulness.The episode I wanted to call: A Mouthful of P's.We're talking progress, perfection, practice, playfulness, politics, pedestals, pretending and pretension.
Short phrases that invite you into this moment. With background water sounds from a small creek in Bryce Canyon. I like to call them Viral Mindfulness Invitations or VMI's. Drop into your own being or presence. Even into silence or stillness. You’re welcome to sit, or to make this a moving meditation. Carry me with you as you gently walk. Access the full list over at my website: viralmindfulness.com/mantra
Do you ever catch yourself wondering what the hell your friend is talking about when she says: "I just got back from a silent retreat." Musing from Alexander on how to wrap your mind around a mini spiritual retreat (at home); even a silent retreat!
Winter's Edge 01: Spiritual and Soul Solutions by Alexander Smith | Mindfulness Teacher
Feeling dissatisfaction is a natural part of the human experience. I believe it's connected to depression, anxiety and stress. What you do with your dissatisfaction is an invitation. In today's episode I'll share my best solution to combat your Midwinter's dissatisfaction. "We are smothered and saturated without being in the least satisfied" (John O'Donohue)
Let me sing 'Every Breath You Take' by The Police. In this episode we'll explore the truth about therapists and counselors. We don't know what you should do! For decades we've gotten it all wrong. We're not hear to empathize, feel your pain and walk in your shoes. We need to listen, trust, believe you, and help you write the map -- you are the mapmaker with the next steps. We need to be better about walking-with and sitting next to your pain and trauma. Learn about how we can work together in a small wise circle, or if you're a DIY -- explore my guided meditation starter kit. virlamindfulness.com/circle virlamindfulness.com/meditate
Weather check! It's midwinter... How's your emotional weather? Welcome back to the podcast with my first episode of 2023. Let's start at my piano with a gorgeous song written by Alexandra Stréliski. I'll talk about a tender experience Harvey Rose and I shared while playing make believe during our last weekend together. Viral Mindfulness Academy presents "A Midwinter's Wise Circle." Explore details about my upcoming 5-week wise circle: viralmindfulness.com/circle.
Harvey Rose and I sing the Christmas carol, 'O Christmas Tree.' Let's talk about cravings! I'm uncovering why I reach for technology, chocolate, and "I must buy one more cashmere sweater!" Using a few paragraphs from the Recovery Dharma book, I'll walk you through my normal desires and how they move into stronger cravings, even an unsettled and agitated mind. I'll share the strategies I'm using to soothe and take care of my painful feelings, instead of spinning off into another craving loop. Download a free copy of the Recovery Dharma book over at my website: viralmindfulness.com/sobriety (scroll towards the bottom of the page and look for the clickable link, which reads "Get the free Recovery Dharma book → ").
Do go chasing waterfalls baby... Sit next to this waterfall and practice for five minutes. Use the sound of water-only for a five-minute guided meditation. Explore my guided meditation starter kit. It's an affordable Must Have mindfulness resource for the beginning meditator and those with courage to “begin again” and trust a rresh field guide (that’s me). Get instant access now → virlamindfulness.com/guided-meditation-starter-kit 🧘🏻♀️
Sit for five minutes next to this lovely creek run-off from Mossy Cave Waterfall in Bryce Canyon, Utah.
Inspired by the words of Chögyam Trungpa. Book: 'Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior '
Take a scroll through my new online home at viralmindfulness.com. Buy an original piece of art in my online gallery.
Viral Mindfulness provides spiritual resources and tools to help on your path. In this 10-minute guided meditation you'll be invited to "experience all the textures of the roadway." Inspired by the words of Chögyam Trungpa (Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior)."Our life is an endless journey; it is like a broad highway that extends infinitely into the distance. The practice of meditation provides a vehicle to travel on that road. Our journey consists of constant ups and downs, hope and fear, but it is a good journey. The practice of meditation allows us to experience all the textures of the roadway, which is what the journey is all about. Through the practice of meditation, we begin to find that within ourselves there is no fundamental complaint about anything or anyone at all."
May I read you a poem by Mary Oliver, 'Can You Imagine.' Let me walk you through a specific situation where I found myself stuck in resistance. With the help of Jame Clear and his book 'Atomic Habits' I found some insight. COMING SOON! My online art show: Exhibition Blue opens October 17, 2022.
Pema Chödrön suggests we might learn to let our thoughts “come and go as if touching a bubble with a feather?” How is this possible? Doesn’t the bubble pop? To touch my thoughts and feelings in this attitude, without popping them, requires precision and care. This metaphor feels like a riddle and paradox. It’s part of my deep spiritual and meditative practice and I want to share it with you in this episode. I’ll bring in Adyashanti’s words to unpack this practice as it relates with grief, loss, death, and… anxiety. “When you just sit (meditate) and you’re not manipulating then you actually start to see things you need to see and experience the things you need to experience. Old experiences may arise that have been waiting there for thirty years just to be experienced, not to be figured out necessarily, or analyzed, but just to be experienced without going unconscious (Adyashanti).” Questions or inquires: alexander@viralmindfulness.com
Summer circa 2002 (Part 3) My Big Takeaways from a Summer in Europe by Alexander Smith | Mindfulness Teacher
In part two we'll talk about how I met perceived obstacles with effort, heart and imagination. The seed had been planted for me to apply for financial aid and a paid social work practicum in Easter Europe for the Summer of 2002. In Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria. I found the essay I wrote to win the scholarship and practicum. I wanted to read it to you. It's called 'Music Lessons.' Today's episode is sponsored by my newsletter-- Love Letters of Mindfulness, from Yours Bluely. Are you subscribed? viralmindfulness.com/subscribe
Every great Summer starts with a challenging Winter and an idea of something better (Spring). In my case the idea came from Daphne Maramaldi at the Graduate School of Social Work (University of Utah). “David” she said, “What if you applied for an international practicum for the Summer?” Join me over the next few weeks as I take you along the summer that changed my life. I read to you from Ocean Vuong’s novel about beauty and being gorgeous, and share one of my favorite quotes on travel (it’s painted and printed in my very first sketch book).
In order to train a cow or horse, it's important to give the animal plenty of space and land to wander and graze.
In this ten-minute guided meditation we'll train your mind and heart by giving plenty of space to travel and wander. I'll help you pick an anchor to continually come back to as you watch your mind and heart.
Don't get lost. Don't toss yourself away. Don't hold on to your thoughts or emotions. Let them move and wander across a large field.
Uncle Blue's "The State of the Union Address" (Summer 2022) by Alexander Smith | Mindfulness Teacher
The Space that Opens Through the Act of Creating by Alexander Smith | Mindfulness Teacher
My phone and I are taking a break today while I let her dry for 24 hours. It certainly has me questioning our relationship. My dependance and distraction. Here are 3 questions we explored recently in a wise circle of Buddhist friends: 1. Which substances and/or activities do you find the most "intoxicating"? 2. Are you mindful of the intoxicating effects of media? 3. What is your current strategy for consuming mindfully?
This is the abridged version (music only) of the previous episode: Winter's Birdsong. Hand curated audio recordings of Harvey Rose and I singing Moon River at bedtime. From The Piano: Alexandra Streliski: 'Ellipse' and 'Changing Winds.' Moon River: Words by Johnny Mercer, Music by Henry Mancini & Arranged by Brendan Fox.
Grab your cashmere and cozy-up! This episode is packed with music and absolute Harvey Rose cuteness. She's my Goddess-Daughter in case you don't know it. Why do we sing? What is a song? Are you gifting the children in your life lullabies? Here's your podcast pep talk! Music is one of the great love affairs of my life. My second longest relationship after the one with my body. I share audio recordings of Harvey Rose and I singing Moon River at bedtime, and play several songs from my piano. Alexandra Streliski: 'Ellipse' and 'Changing Winds.' Moon River: Words by Johnny Mercer, Music by Henry Mancini & Arranged by Brendan Fox.
It's my mid-winter! Let me tell you about my wintering state of mind and heart. I'll read passages from Katherine May's beautiful book, Wintering: the Power of Rest & Retreat in Difficult Times. Listen to a sneak peek of Harvey Rose & I singing MOON RIVER. Learn about my BigThree, how I landed in an at-home spiritual retreat for the month of February, and taste a gorgeous idea from John O'Donahue. Get instant access to my free meditation starter kit: viralmindfulness.com/free
In this episode I tried something a little different. I wrote this episode out on paper, by hand, during a timed writing practice exercise. Pen to paper while hand and mind keep moving.
I recently heard a behavioral scientist share a story about her friend -- a man that had lost one of his legs to amputation. She said: "He's transcending the loss and deep changes in his life."
The other person listening made some comments and finished with "he transcended his experience."
Before I could take a breath the behavioral scientist is correcting this comment so thoughtfully: "No, that's not accurate. It's important to note he is transcending the circumstances. He has not finished nor was it a one time event. It's a continuous intentional choice."
We are in the process. There's often not an answer, but a process. Stay wild, playful, and flexible. Live in the ING of it all!
Learn More About Parker Smith https://parkersmusic.com/ IG: https://www.instagram.com/prkr.music/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@prkr.music? Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/04AqcDO5RszqB6PKJFd59w
The Luckiest Club https://www.theluckiestclub.com/team
Recovery Dharma https://recoverydharma.online/ https://recoverydharma.org/
Refuge Recovery https://www.refugerecovery.org/
Alcoholics Anonymous https://www.aa.org/
Narcotics Anonymous https://na.org/
Crystal Meth Anonymous https://www.crystalmeth.org/
2 Days Until I'm Officially 6 Years Sober from Drugs & Alcohol by Alexander Smith | Mindfulness Teacher
3 Days Until I'm Officially 6 Years Sober from Drugs & Alcohol by Alexander Smith | Mindfulness Teacher
4 Days Until I'm Officially 6 Years Sober from Drugs & Alcohol by Alexander Smith | Mindfulness Teacher
5 Days Until I'm Officially 6 Years Sober from Drugs & Alcohol by Alexander Smith | Mindfulness Teacher
September is National Recovery Month, and I want to share what's working for me, one-day-at-a-time, over the next week, leading up to my 6 year milestone of continuous sobriety from drugs and alcohol on Friday, September 24, 2021.
Enjoy these two quotes, in written form, as they are featured in this pop-up recovery podcast extravaganza!
“You’ve got to believe in the poetry, because everything else in your life will fail you, including yourself.
“A real fucking revolution is—at its core—spiritual. It is a complete decimation of one’s priorities, beliefs, and way of living. A reconstruction in the spirit of...
“... you have to create a new god or gods.
“It is imperative that you believe in something greater than yourself.”
—Ali to Rue HBO’s Euphoria ‘Trouble Don't Last Always: Part 1: Rue’
“Addiction is finding a quick and dirty solution, to the symptom of a problem, which then prevents or distracts one, from the harder and longer term task, of solving the problem.”
—Donella Meadows
viralmindfulness.com/free
After building a foundation of calm attention to the breath in this meditation, we will expand awareness to include a range of other arising and passing phenomena.
You may notice sounds arising.
Smells or tastes.
Physical sensations of the body.
Sight and visions (even behind closed eyes).
Rather than engaging with the content of these sensations, try paying attention to the process of their arising and then of their passing.
Notice that the sensations appear, disappear, or change over time.
Notice how the flow of experience is constantly changing. How nothing stays quite the same.
Be aware that sensations, thoughts and emotions are all part of the flow of experience. They come and go, they are temporary, and impermanent.
For free access to more meditations, including my exclusive 5-minute creek meditations (the water sounds of running creeks), get instant access now: viralmindfulness.com/free.
Conversation on Stanley Kunitz's poem, The Layers.
"How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses?"
I've been swimming in the deep end of grief and mourning after one of my dearest friends died in May.
Poetry make sense, and teaches me at a primal level.
Here's what has been helping me make meaning of my grief, and reconcile to the losses all around us during year two of the pandemic.
Yours Bluely, Alexander
LAST CHANCE to get FREE ACCESS to my Guided Meditation Playlist. → https://viralmindfulnessacademy.com/
Returning students LOGIN & Make Sit Happen with the new Equanimity Meditation, or a new 5-Minute Creek Meditation → https://viralmindfulness.com/login
Equanimity Guided Meditation
In Buddhism, equanimity (Pali: upekkhā; Sanskrit: upekṣā) is one of the four sublime attitudes and is considered: Neither a thought nor an emotion, it is rather the steady conscious realization of reality's transience. It is the ground for wisdom and freedom and the protector of compassion and love.
In the dictionary, equanimity, as a noun: mental or emotional stability or composure, especially under tension or strain; calmness; equilibrium.
With synonyms, equanimity:
aplomb calmness composure coolness serenity tranquillity assurance ataraxia calm confidence cool detachment imperturbability patience peace phlegm placidity poise self-possession steadiness ataraxy equability presence of mind sangfroid
We'll work with the following three phrases in this meditation.
- Suffering is determined by our relationship to experience.
We let go of the illusion that happiness or sadness are inherent parts of any experience.
- All beings are responsible for their own actions
We accept the results of our karma, and hold others accountable for theirs.
- The happiness of others is outside my control
We release ourselves from the burden of responsibility for things we cannot change.
For free access to more meditations, including my exclusive 5-minute creek meditations (the water sounds of running creeks), get instant access now: viralmindfulness.com/free.
Give, said the little stream, Give, oh! give, give, oh! give. Give said the little stream, As it hurried down the hill; I’m small, I know, but wherever I go The grass grows greener still.
Singing, singing all the day, Give away, oh! give away. Singing, singing all the day, Give, oh! give away.
Give, said the little rain, Give, oh! give, give, oh! give. Give, said the little rain, As it fell upon the flow’rs; I’ll raise their drooping heads again, *As it fell upon the flow’rs.
Singing, singing all the day, Give away, oh! give away. Singing, singing all the day, Give, oh! give away.
*Alternate ending to verse 2: As they bloom and come to life. Alternate spelling: blue-m 💙
Welcome to LULLABY BLUE!
A brand new segment of my podcast, where I teach you to sing lullabies to your children and infants.
Sing and lull yourself into more peace and calm when feeling overly stressed or disconnected.
Feel free to lullaby yourself if you need some TLC.
In this episode we are exploring 'Give Said The Little Stream.'
Music: William B. Bradbury Lyrics: Fanny J. Crosby
For quick access to sing, using the accompaniment, look for the episode entitled, LULLABY (Music Only): Give Said The Little Stream.
Sing! Sing! Sing!
I'm in an 8 week online writing retreat with Natalie Goldberg and it's awesome. I'd love to share what I'm learning with you. Have you read WRITING DOWN THE BONES by Natalie Goldberg?
She inspired the connection between my writing practice and sitting meditation. What make a writer?
They write, and write, and write, and read literature, and listen to others read their words. Be the verb, not the pronoun! Writer's write. Today's episode will inspire your writing practice. Natalie’s book, ‘Writing Down the Bones,’ was gifted to me in my late twenties. My Aunt wrote a few words in the cover: “Find your passion: enter the flow.” Years later, with a different virus as my intimate teacher (HIV-positive since March 17, 2003)— I know my passion and consistently put myself in the flow one-day-at-a-time. I obsess less over what I’m creating these days, with words, paints, notes, and podcast episodes; and focus on the space that opens within me through the process of creating. Natalie’s words and essence have inspired my path for decades. I’ve read all but two of her 15 books. She connects writing practice to sitting meditation in a brilliant manner. I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to sit and write, and learn and listen, and observe the nature and quality of MIND with my beloved Natalie.
It's a Viral Mindfulness Monday episode.
The SPACES we live and visit (Inspired by John O'Donohue).
Creating SPACE with your language to meet the emotional and psychological impact of life one year into the Pandemic.
What I'm noticing about my music after SPACE away from my HIV Birthday Recital & Concert.
Making SPACE and time each day to cultivate and strengthen your spiritual muscles.
I've created a SPACE for you to practice guided meditations with me. viralmindfulness.com/free
Part 2 of your behind-the-scenes access to my rehearsals.
Get your golden ticket to my HIV Birthday Concert & Recital.
Wednesday, March 17, 2021.
5PM-6PM PST.
viralmindfulness.com/birthday
Do you wonder what it's like for a pianist to prepare for a recital?
I'm taking you behind-the-scenes into practice sessions for my upcoming HIV Birthday Concert on Wednesday, March 17, 5PM-6PM PST.
I'll check in between rehearsals, and Doctor Blue pops in with new assignments each time!
Get your ticket now: viralmindfulness.com/birthday
If you need a sliding scale fee ticket, or scholarship, please email, alexander@viralmindfulness.com.
What's most important is that you bring yourself to the party!
Sneak Peak Poem I'd like to read you one of my original poems inspired by Emily Dickinson's envelope poems.
It's March, a brand new month, and I have two ideas for you.
TIP ONE:
Instead of wrestling in conflict with statements like: "Why am I feeling this way?"
Stimulate compassion, paint space, and ask yourself: What am I feeling? What does this feeling feel like? Look like? Taste? Smell?
We'll discuss the difference between expressing your feelings and feeling them.
TIP TWO:
I came across a few notes, in pencil, inspired from a talk by Pema Chödrön about meditation.
I've added some of my own words and ideas as well.
A Pema-Alexander snack!
I thought you might like to chew on these.
MEDITATION:
🧘🏽♀️Is a process of developing unconditional friendship with yourself. 🧘🏽♀️Increases our empathetic relationship with humanity. 🧘🏽♀️Is not about feeling good. 🧘🏽♀️Is about waking up. 🧘🏽♀️Allows us to attend compassionately to ourselves. 🧘🏽♀️Teaches us to witness, observe and notice (without judgement). 🧘🏽♀️Gets uncomfortable quickly. 🧘🏽♀️Benefits with practice. 🧘🏽♀️Is not doing, more like being. 🧘🏽♀️Encourages a new generation of human beings who sit with pain (#MakeSitHappen) 🧘🏽♀️Is making friends with ourselves. 🧘🏽♀️Reminds us of humanity's deep seated propensity to avoid pain. 🧘🏽♀️Can break open an ego part of us that keeps us looking into a small world.
Two words I've learned (and love) from Pema Chödrön are "Begin Again."
During meditation, each time you find yourself thinking, planning, feeling, making lists, checking off lists, worrying, i.e.
Find your breath, with an exhale or inhale, and focus your attention on the words: begin again.
Whisper them to yourself.
Begin again.
Free Guided Meditation Starter Kit: https://viralmindfulness.com/free
Get all the details about my HIV Birthday Concert on Wednesday, March 17, 2021 5-6pm PST.
https://bit.ly/HIVBirthdayConcert
We spend so much time focused on people we love and the humans we're frustrated, hurt, and angry with?
What about the billions of neutral people?
In the middle, through equanimity, there is fertile soil to relate and connect with the neutral person.
It's Soul-Sibling Sunday and I have a quick bite of mindfulness for you.
I finally read Anne Lamott's book BIRD BY BIRD in 2020.
"....it may take you many years to find out that the stranger you talked to once for half an hour in the railroad station may have done more to point you to where your true homeland lies than your priest or your best friend or even your psychiatrist."
I share an incredible story about a stranger I met on the streets of Salt Lake City, Utah.
I read a poem by Mary Oliver called 'Kingfisher.'
TIME IS RUNNING OUT! LIMITED TIME FREE OFFER $49 Value Guided Meditation Starter Kit viralmindfulness.com/free
On January 3, 2020, I saw Part II of The Inheritance.
11 Tony Award Nominations Including Best Play.
"The Most Important Play of the Century!" —The Telegraph
I was deeply moved by The Inheritance by Matthew Lopez. I'll tell you why it matters to me and HIV, as I read several passages from the play.
Don't miss my exciting announcement at the end of this episode.
You're invited: viralmindfulness.com/birthday
This is my first trail talk recorded LIVE, on the trail, broadcasting from Joshua Tree National Park.
I have two suggestions for depression, or depressed mood (blue moods)!
Where do you start in the process of working authentically with your depression?
Research shows the most effective interventions include medication and talk therapy.
I’d like to add deep compassion to unearth the stigma of depression; and the power of connecting in conversation with friends, loved ones, or community about your depression.
Today’s episode includes a reading of Terry Tempest William’s poem ‘A Meditation on Phelpss Lake’ and access to a free mindfulness/meditation tool to jump start your practice.
viralmindfulness.com/free
Blessed be the fruit! Under her eye!
Viral Mindfulness Academy is officially open.
I have a limited time offer for you—my podcast listeners. You've been gifted free admission, and complimentary access to a special guided meditation playlist.
Get the secret link in today's episode, head over to that landing page, and set up your "digital campsite."
In this episode I'm talking Birds & Bees and how they influenced my path to Viral Mindfulness Academy. I'll discuss my PSD (Post Silent-Retreat Discoveries) and share 5 interesting realizations since my 7 day silent retreat which ended on January 3, 2021.
Don't miss my reading of Mary Oliver's poem, 'I Worried', at the end of this episode.
Learn More About The Academy: https://viralmindfulness.com/
You'll b
You're the first person I've talked to in seven days. I got this crazy idea to try an at-home silent retreat to ring in the New Year. I've never done more than a day of silence, and it certainly was not what I was expecting.
I'll share some of the highlights and realizations.
Playing music at my piano was such a gift. I'd like to introduce you to pianist Alexandra Streliski. I'll play an expert from her song 'Plus tôt' on the album 'Inscape.' It's awesome.
AND... Viral Mindfulness Academy opens its doors to students on Monday, January 11, 2021. You'll be the first to get the details; as well as my email subscribers. Are you on my list?
ONE WINTER DAY, RUNNING ON THE SAND, ALONG THE OCEAN, I THOUGHT:
“WOULDN’T IT BE COOL IF I SENT A SPIRIT-CENTERED EMAIL TO MY PEOPLE ON MONDAYS WITH A MINDFUL SUGGESTION."
And so it began. Your support, questions, insights, ah-has, & heartfelt emails quickly stole my heart. Soon we were achieving powerful practice and synchronicity together. Through email.
You're my tribe, and I claim each one of you as you subscribe. I bring you into the circle of my heart, to teach and elevate with mindfulness.
I'll trade awesome mindfulness challenges for your email address. Join my tribe, it's called Viral Mindfulness Monday.
https://viralmindfulness.com/subscribe
Have you left a podcast review and rating on the podcast? It would really help new people find our tribe. Thanks!
Take it "From The Top" Alexander...
I'm playing a Christmas Carol from my piano to start this episode: What Child Is This? arranged by David Lanz
This is a Podcast Piggyback Episode Extravaganza.
My episode talks about another podcast called FROM THE TOP.
From the Top, distributed by NPR, features the astounding performances and captivating personal stories of extraordinary classically-trained young musicians from across the country.
I was in the audience when they recorded their episode, LIVE, on March 4, 2020 in Beverly Hills, CA, at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts.
At their event, I was moved by the talent and performances of these young artists.
My Christmas wish is that after you listen to me talk about the power of classical music, and how it can expand your life, you'll hop over to their episode.
I believe it's important for us to get out of our music listening ruts, and open ourselves up to new artists and different genres.
https://viralmindfulness.com/126 For all the details.
***If you're currently in Apple Podcasts: Piggyback right now to From the Top. Here's the link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/from-the-top/id121493653?i=1000492866747
I'm so excited!
My friend Daniella is reading us a poem in this segment of 'Trail Talk.'
We'll talk about my false-positive-obsession when I was diagnosed with HIV in 2003, and how it informed deeper strategies of denial.
Wise leadership encourages us to come to grips with the results of the election and the global health crisis and current surge of COVID-19.
Shenanigan: deceit; trickery.
I tricked and deceived myself for years. I embraced a narrow mind of thinking, to describe my being gay, as someone who struggled with same sex attraction (SSA).
I reached out to a close friend who voted for Trump, to check-in, listen and connect. It was my turn to call, so I decided to put into action what we're all confronting with The Great Divide and Dysthymia of 2020.
In this guided meditation we'll scan the body and focus on loving awareness.
For example: "I am not these ears, or what they hear... I am loving awareness."
This meditation was inspired by Ram Dass and the book 'Walking Each Other Home' cowritten with his friend Mirabai Bush.
I finished this fantastic, and very insightful book, last Autumn, shortly before he died on December 22, 2019.
There were many years I didn't realize he was a gay man.
I'm grateful for his queer presence and powerful teachings.
XXOO Alexander
It's November 4, 2020. The day after the Presidential Election and we're waiting for "more to be revealed." How about I read you a stunning poem?
Written by TTW (Terry Tempest Williams) called 'A Meditation on Phelps Lake.'
It's TRAIL TALK and I have thoughts about the weight of a feather, kangaroo rats, the desert, a blip, viruses (HIV & COVID-19), getting back to our practice after drifting away, and how the word KEEP dropped into my lap with a message from Moana.
XXOO Alexander
How Do I Integrate Spirituality Into My Life Right Now?
Often we use our spiritual practice as way to escape our life.
We use the music of our practice—the melody, harmony, and lyrics—as a way to avoid the pains and difficulties of human experiences.
Have you ever entered a temple, church, mosk, synagogue, festival, ceremony, and monetary looking for the "Special-Spiritual-Effects?"
Have you every sat down to meditate, or pray, to try and feel better?
Do you use your body, rather that inhabit your body (and breath)?
How do we develop the energy, commitment and courage to not run from our lives right now? To not cover it over with any philosophy, or teaching….
In this new episode of Viral Mindfulness the Podcast I’m sharing some soul-sibling thoughts about how to integrate spirituality into your life.
Right now. In the world and lives we are each living.
Let me know if you have any questions.
viralmindfulness.com/podcast
Saturday, September 2, 2017 was a hot, dry start to the 2017 Labor Day Weekend in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. A popular hiking destination just east of Portland along the I-84 corridor. People flock to the Gorge on any given day, but the last holiday weekend of the summer lured hundreds of hikers to Punch Bowl Falls on Eagle Creek Trail. I was one of the 153 hikers lured to swim under the falls that day. Shortly after 4PM a fire erupted from a firework tossed into this pristine and sacred forest.
I actually met the fire at the trail, and moved up the mountain with 152 other hikers. We hunkered down, over night, huddled on the forest floor, miles above lower Punch Bowl Falls. In this episode of Viral Mindfulness the Podcast, I take you to the trail with audio clips from my phone that day, and share my story.
I offer lessons from the tail, and a quick fire take-away of how heat and fire impact our relationships, online business, and spiritual growth. For pictures and interest videos on the Eagle Creek Fire explore my website podcast page. https://viralmindfulness.com/124
This episode is sponsored by Viral Mindfulness Academy.
Doors open September 22, 2020—the first day of Autumn. Learn more in this episode.
We'll talk in great detail about The Great Dysthymia 2020.
Even Michelle Obama said in her podcast that she's been struggling this Summer with 'low-grade depression.'
In this episode I'll walk you through a day in my life. Offering more insight on how to integrate spiritual solutions to your life, while managing your 'mild persistent depression' (dysthymia).
I read a poem which calls to "carry within us an orchard" and "take what we love inside."
From Blossoms by Li-Young Lee
Make Sit Happen is a mini-episode of my podcast.
It's a guided meditation.
Either I've written one myself, or I'm reading another person's work.
We start and finish with a bell, guided with an attitude of #Practice.
Grounded In Being was written by Adyashanti. I've added a few phrases for emphasis. Initially I took this guided meditation during retreat with Adyashanti in 2020.
May you find peace in your Ground of Being.
Would you like to add a couple guided meditations to your laptop or desktop?
You can access them for free right here → https://viralmindfulness.com/free-meditation
I've found great value in connecting online with wise spiritual friends. Here's a few ideas for you.
It's a Podcast Review Giveaway.
Enter to win a hand-made sketchbook.
Get more details here: https://viralmindfulness.com/122
Alexander ru-veals the perfect clinical word to diagnosis 2020. It’s… drum roll please… DYSTHYMIA. You’ll giggle when you hear an adorable rendition of Ootsie-Cutesy-Baby. Mister Blue reveals his birthday wish (August 6 1973).
We’ll identify the first step to name and own your ‘depressed’ or ‘dysthymic’ symptoms. Alexander gets personal to illustrate his struggles in July and offers three interventions to help you meet the swelling of emotions in your body. And our collective body.
❶ Begin your practice again, as if you were a kindergartener. All bets are off emotionally right now. Embrace your inner Ootsie-Cutesy-Baby
❷ Enhance your space within through creativity, spirituality, mindful eating, and intentional movement of your body. When dysthymic feelings arise you’ll have more space within to meet them.
❸ “One-Day-At-A-Time” as a transformational practice. Stop giving this mantra lip service. Alexander has found great wisdom in practicing one-hour-at-a-time right now.
Have you subscribed to Viral Mindfulness the Podcast? This ensures you’ll never miss a new installment, including #SoulSiblingSundays & #MakeSitHappen episodes.
For his birthday month (August), Alexander has one request. Will you leave a podcast review through the Apple Podcasts APP?
Anyone who posts a new review during the month of August, will be entered in a Sketchbook Giveaway. Enter and possibly win a beautiful handmade sketchbook made by the incredible artists from Instagram @sketchbookcoshop.
https://viralmindfulness.com/122
Soul-Sibling Sunday (SSS): Strength To Pose For Life & Death by Alexander Smith | Mindfulness Teacher
- Suggestions to Soften the Edge of Your Spiritual Practice (COVID-19 Series) by Alexander Smith | Mindfulness Teacher
- To Retreat! Or Not To Retreat! (COVID-19 Series) by Alexander Smith | Mindfulness Teacher
Soul-Sibling Sunday (SSS): Oooshka! A word for the current state of affairs. by Alexander Smith | Mindfulness Teacher
- Good Grief! Learn to Make Meaning of Your Difficult Emotions (COVID-19 Series) by Alexander Smith | Mindfulness Teacher
MAKE SIT HAPPEN #Practice: Sitting With Difficult Emotions by Alexander Smith | Mindfulness Teacher
- Leave What You BELIEVE Behind & PRACTICE (COVID-19 Series) by Alexander Smith | Mindfulness Teacher
MAKE SIT HAPPEN #Practice: Mindfulness of Body & Breath Guided Meditation by Alexander Smith | Mindfulness Teacher
What happens in the last fifteen minutes of a one-hour infrared sauna session?
Crazy town!
Your heart rate rises, it's hard to breathe, and you suddenly feel like there's no way you're going to make it out alive.
I recently visited my soul-sister Vanessa in Portland, OR, and we obsessed over the opportunity for practice in the last fifteen minutes of an uninterrupted sixty minute session.
Take it to a macro level in your life, and ask yourself what you do when the fire and heat rises in your life.
I'll discuss two strategies of focus for you you to access when the heat and discomfort rises in a situation. And a sauna!
I read David Whyte's beautiful poem 'My Daughter Asleep.'
I reference two episodes of Alexander IGTV in this episode. You can find them here:
Harvey Rose Cates: A Birth Story https://www.instagram.com/tv/B71zDzTBIoU
Harvey Rose Cates: Singing Time at the Harlem NYC Public Library https://www.instagram.com/tv/B8J3krnBPOR
- Dead Man Posing: Here's What A Yogi Who Died With AIDS Taught Me by Alexander Smith | Mindfulness Teacher
Are you choosing ONE WORD for the New Year?
Will you be collecting intentions on a VISION BOARD? Do you prefer the power of pen-to-paper in setting goals?
Are you participating in @marieforleo’s #MFDecadeInReview?
What’s your ritual this year? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. 👁
I recently found a suggestion from John O’Donahue—“what if we were to write a prayer big enough to carry our wild soul across the planet for the rest of our lives?”
We could take our time and find the prose (prayer), then memorize it, and whisper, shout, and sing it as we explore the Earth.
How Do I Find Time To Devote To My Spirituality? by Alexander Smith | Mindfulness Teacher
How Do I Follow My Intuition Without Question? by Alexander Smith | Mindfulness Teacher
It's my AA Birthday today: September 24, 2019! Four years sober. At first, recovery was about saving my life, and taking stewardship over the soul I had been entrusted with. Over the years my uncovering (or uncovery) has become an offering to others. It is possible to find freedom from your addictions. Even recovery is #Figureoutable Marie Forleo!
107 Are You Afraid Of Sharing Your Truth? Spreading Slogans by Alexander Smith | Mindfulness Teacher
102 What's The Difference Between Guided Imagery & Meditation by Alexander Smith | Mindfulness Teacher
101 Why Learning To Meditate Might Be Your Biggest Mistake by Alexander Smith | Mindfulness Teacher