2.16.2026 Sidewalk Dharma
Hello dear Friends,
“You got this! happy day.” “have a nice day!” “Your…..kind….Funny..cool…..and Smart!” “Win the DAY” “Have a nice (enclosed in a heart) or awesome (enclosed in a heart) or cool (enclosed in a heart) day! Pick one (enclosed in box)”
– Sidewalk Chalk Dharma by a 10-year-old
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I’m sitting here writing Monday’s letter. It’s fifty-seven degrees outside. It’s mid-February in Chicago. Yes, people are wearing shorts. Yes, it’s beyond glorious, and even though my bones are not made for cold, it’s concerning—there is no fluff of snow. Perhaps, like spring’s courageous early risers—daffodils, snowdrops, crocuses, and tulips—our blooms too will be blessed, our budding stems bent in prayer by the weight of a few more weeks of heavy, wet snow. It seems too soon, too "high-alert" alarming, to live in a northern climate and, year after year, welcome warmer, trending-upward temperatures of winter.
People are out washing cars, walking dogs, riding bikes, and playing ball—their coats, hats, and gloves temporarily suspended. Out for a neighborhood walk, my husband and I came upon a diligent piece of art. Messages—red, orange, yellow, green, and blue—words of encouragement written in brightly colored chalk, running some 35 feet along the sidewalk. We stopped. We read each one. Kids rode by on their bicycles. Standing nearby was a somewhat sassy, bold-looking 10, maybe tops an 11-year-old wearing sweats and a T-Shirt. She had dark, wavy, shoulder-length hair to match her brown, piercing, fiery-wide preteen eyes. She caught my eyes watching her.
“Did you write these messages?” I called over to her. She, like a young Frida Kahlo, replied, “Yes,” proud and strong.
“I love them. They’re great,” I said. You would think she’d just seen a double rainbow. She smiled, astonished, the doors of her heart, like her eyes, wide. Shrinking back to her age, a child shy, she replied, “Thanks.”
It was a kind, sweet exchange. Simple. No technology required. Her efforts, her doing her ‘magic-thing’ out in her world, her goodness touched my heart; me noticing her, her being seen, touched hers. Simple human-to-human. Not fancy. Perhaps it’s always about this: love. Perhaps this is what is ours to do (in truth, hard to do), what we each can do: love.
"Look for that something sacred today. It might just walk by unnoticed unless you pay attention.” — Diana Butler Bass
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Come Practice & Be In Community
Drop-in Meditation Today. All are welcome; no prior experience is needed—just an open tender heart.
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM: 20-min Guided Meditation: Working with Discomfort & 20-minute Metta Meditation Practice
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM: Conversations and Nourishment for the heart, for your practice of Meditation.
Dāna: Pay What You Can. (suggested donation $10-$40 )
Location: 778 West Frontage Road, Suite 111, Northfield, IL.
Gratitude, always.
Love, Wini
PS: More goodness below—two poems, three quotes, and things in between to inspire the heart. And, three closing songs!!! Always made with ♥️.
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🌸 Two Poems. “Poetry can tell us what human beings are. It can tell us why we stumble and fall and how, miraculously, we stand up.” ― Maya Angelou
Come | Andrew Colliver
Every day I am astonished by
how little I know, and discouraged,
obedient as I am to the demand to
know more -- always more.
But then there is the slow seep
of light from the day,
and I look to the west where
the hills are darkening,
setting their shoulders to the night,
and the sky peppered with pillows
of mist, their bellies burnt
by the furnace of the sun.
And it is then that I notice
the invitation didn't say, Come
armed with knowledge and a loud voice.
It only said, Come.
The Spreading | Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
There’s a place in my brain where hate won’t grow.
—Naomi Shihab Nye, “Jerusalem”
Sometimes a seed of compassion
slips into my brain and lands in a place
where before only anger could grow.
These seeds appear
when I stop seeing humans
as only our actions and start
seeing all of us as walking wounds.
They appear when I see others
finding ways to be generous, to be kind.
If I offer the seed the barest scrap
of attention, it begins to grow roots.
Then a stem. Then seed leaves.
More leaves. A bud. But what allows
for this growth is far beyond me—
rather some gift that comes through
when me and my story get out of the way.
This is how I sometimes come to find
a whole field of inner daisies thriving
in a place I once torched to the dirt.
At first, they needed my constant care.
Then they reseeded again. And again.
They spread into such unpredictable
places. Sometimes outside my inner world.
The same way the seeds arrived in me.
Through kindness. Through love.
It’s beautiful.
🍃 At the end of this poem by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s she offers us this question: How do we embody peace instead of arguing for it? What a question to live into.
A resource of care: It’s lovely to receive Rosemerry’s daily poem, subscribe here
🌸 Three Quotes | Maria Popova. bell hooks. Michael Meade.
“To begin anything — a new practice, a new project, a new love — is to cast upon yourself a spell against stagnation. Beginnings are notation for the symphony of the possible in us. They ask us to break the pattern of our lives and reconfigure it afresh — something that can only be done with great courage and great tenderness, for no territory of life exposes both our power and our vulnerability more brightly than a beginning.”
– Maria Popova, The Marginalian
“To work for peace and justice, we begin with the individual practice of love because it is there that we can experience firsthand love’s transformative power.”
— bell hooks, Toward a Revolution of Love (as seen in Lion’s Roar)
“When our world turns dark and seems about to fall apart it is part of the mystery of life that the human soul can awaken, grow greater, and reveal inner gifts.”
—Michael Meade, Mosaic Voices
🍃 If you have time, give a listen to Facing Fear, Finding Wisdom (20:20 min) Looking toward mythology, making meaning of the tensions of opposites. “run towards the roar, towards the division in the world…”
🌸 A Peace Offering | A Cello Prayer
“Only when compassion is present will people allow themselves to see the truth.”
― A.H. Almaas
🍃 Rebecca Hartka: A cello prayer of compassion for our human family. A powerful listen (4:18 min)
Her words here are just as powerful, and they speak to the question many are asking today in our troubled times and world:
"What is my part to do today? How can I help?"
Also speaks to the question above: "How do we embody peace instead of arguing for it?"
“I commend the warriors who stand up to these forces of harm, who fight the injustice and speak truth to power. Thank you! I am not a warrior in this way, but I know my sonic weaving of compassion is courageous in its own way. Music can support us to lean into love, to come together and support one another as we have seen in the singing demonstrations on the streets. Softness has great power, and art keeps us from slipping into despair or giving over to hatred. Those of us not directly in harms way also have the possibility to consider holding compassion also for those doing the harm, even as we condemn their actions, for they too suffer in these acts.” — Rebecca Hartka
🌸🎶 Two Closing Songs | Music for Your Soul in Uncertain Times
🍃 Akaal by Ajeet. A song shared with me by my dear friend Stephanie. A song to soak into your body, let it offer you sounds of care, soothe open healing. Listen here (8:51 min)
🍃 Gregory Alan Isakov & Brandi Carlile. Two of my favorites sing together, two good friends. Listen here (4:18 min)
🌸🙏 Dedicate Merit | In all Mystical traditions, there is a closing prayer – prayers of blessing, gratitude and protection.
“May you share your "magic-thing" with the world.
May you see with kind eyes, notice the sacred in the simple.
May you win the day by being exactly who you are: kind….Funny..cool…..and Smart!
May all beings be safe and protected, this I wish for everyone.
May we awaken fully to help all beings.”
– love, Wini
Have a blessed day 💖
🌸 PS. You can find all the newsletters archived on my website.
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Thank you, I am a one-woman, two-finger typing, unfolding her thousand-petal bloom.
✨ May we bloom more Light.
💞 May we grow more Goodness for the healing of all.
🌎 May each of us thread our heart-tenderness, our Beauty, into the fabric of our planet.
….Until next week. 💖 ✨
Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.
- Mary Oliver
Website: https://www.wininimrod.com/
