In this third installment of the first week of this newly-launched podcast, Host Derek Denckla reads and discusses a passage from a daily meditation reader, Answers in the Heart, sharing his own Inspiration Practice before interviewing renowned poets about theirs for May’s Poetry Month. I hope you get some practice ideas here today!

Host Derek Denckla reads from daily meditation reader, Answers in the Heart, for May 9th and discusses how we can seek comfort in idle time, which has never been more present in our minds since enduring the solitude of the last year during the COVID quarantines.

In this episode, Derek Denckla reads the May 8th entry from a daily meditations reader, Answers in the Heart, and discusses the implications of the passage as it touches upon the practice of affirmations and self-love. He explores how we frequently hear discomfort expressed about the practices of self-love and self-affirmation and some related beliefs that those who engage in these practices are self-indulgent versus healthy. He then compared how the Developed world, ironically organized around individualism, inclines towards Romantic Love of the Other as the height of personal growth, even when it borders on unhealthy obsession. The stark contrast between the preference for Romantic Love over self-love in an individualistic culture is profoundly upside-down and may reflect the weakness of the individual as the measure of all things versus a divine power as the creator of all things.