Three Blessings – Peace Be Still Inspirations aim to inspire learning and practice for healthy, creative and joyful living through postings on yoga, meditation and other wellness modalities. We, especially, hope the African Diaspora finds this a giving, peaceful space.

Inspirational meditations these past few weeks have been centered around finding peace in the chaos. I wanted to share three today.

Last Saturday, I headed out to the Sky Lake Boardwalk about an hour away in Belzoni. Thank you @MississippiRoads for introducing this place to me. If it weren’t for GPS, I probably wouldn’t have found it, but what a wondrous site to behold once I did! The boardwalk is 12 ft. above a glorious forest floor of cypress trees, some of which are said to be more than 1,000 years old.

For a good while, I had the place all to myself. When others arrived, I wasn’t too disturbed because I asked a couple of them to take some yoga pose pictures of me.

After the walk, I enjoyed a little knosh before the ride back home. It was a beautiful day for finding peace in nature and meditative celebration of a new day in so many ways.

Yesterday, I went to visit the gravesite of Fannie Lou Hamer in Ruleville, about an hour away as well. A visit to see her has been on my mind for a while and I decided not to let another day go by without doing so. The power of her spirit emanates from the stature towering over the memorial garden.

There was no rolling clap of thunder or epiphany; just a long moment of peaceful quiet and stillness as I paid my respects. Driving out of the neighborhood where her memorial garden is located, a little girl smiled and waved to me. Taking in the view, I waved back thinking there’s still so much of Mrs. Hamer’s call to work and action to be done.

My third inspiration was this morning’s walk around my neighborhood. An early morning rain lowered the temperature enough to remind you of a glorious Fall day. There are no sidewalks in my neighborhood; only rural roads with barely any gravel shoulders. However, the beauty of the walk was the cool stillness and quiet, broken occasionally by a barking dog or passing car. I arrived back home and an hour’s walk gave me peace to start a new week.