Meditation to me is the practice of returning to your breath in the moments of your days to become more present, to feel and let go of your feeling states, to receive love and light, and to grow your oneness of being.  This does not require a mat and a tranquil place.  It does not require soft music or a candle burning (although those things are lovely and can certainly inspire us to turn inward). 

All that is necessary is that which we carry with us:

Our Breath

Our Body

Our Divine Will

Our Light

And consciously choosing to open to what is always present:

Love, Light & Fire

The Earth Mother

The Great Spirit

Our Sacred Heart Center

This blog is devoted to offering the Human Family the opportunity to choose love in more moments.  Our lives are packed full of situations and experiences that bring up anger, fear, pain, judgment, and shame (just to name a few).  The beauty of our journey comes when we embrace these feelings and turn them into love.  That is the request.  And here you will be offered the tools to turn it into a practice.  For love.  Isn’t that life's greatest purpose of all?

Yes, Even in America

This morning, my dear friend who teaches at a culturally diverse prep school is in the throes of attempting to support her students (“from every possible background and belief system you can imagine”) process the events that took place yesterday at our nation’s capital. My quick text back to her: Fear is universal. It knows no boundaries. Yesterday afternoon, an example of what it looks like to act out of fear (if not terror) was on display for the whole world to see. Yes, even in America. (Of course in America.) Trump chooses fear in every breath he takes, and …
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Bringing Love Where Love Is Not

“Bring love where love is not” is a mantra of mine that I use at times when I’m faced with a challenging situation that is laced with anger, fear, judgement, pain…you know, all the things that are surrounding us in every moment these days.  It’s so easy to get seduced by the drama and lose ourselves by falling into our old familiar patterns of blame and anger, and feeling absolutely justified in doing so.  Being committed to bringing love where love is not can sometimes feel like you need to channel the energy of a samurai warrior to overcome our …
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The Trappings of Self-Care

Especially now, in these times of Covid with the stress of everyday uncertainty and what feels like continuous loss, the reminder to “self-care” keeps popping up. Little ditties on your social media accounts, ads for spa treatments, vacations, and wine therapy are abundant. Published “self-care” lists suggest such things like binge-watching your favorite TV show, buying flowers for yourself, taking social media breaks, and organizing a cluttered space. Burn a candle. Take a bubble bath. Go on a hike. Sounds wonderful, right? Sign me up! (Except for the organizing clutter one, let’s be real.) Lately, the world around us feels …
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Brightening the Light Within

‘Cause God knows the sun hasn’t been shining in Vermont! You can’t bump into people these days without hearing about how miserable the weather’s been. Cold, damp, raw, and yes, even snowy. “When will it feel like spring?!” has been on the minds of everyone you meet. May 15th and we are still lighting a fire in our wood stove. So is it the dark days that have been getting people down, or the lack of light? I have a sneaky feeling it has something to do with both (and throw in the unmet strong preferences of Vermonters this time …
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Growing our Light through Death…and Life

Today is the anniversary of my niece Morgan’s death. In the picture below, Morgan is holding my son (now 12 years old), three days before she died. There are so many astonishing things that I could share with you about Morgan, about about her spunk and vitality, about the lessons she taught us, about how many lives she touched. But today, I’m going to share with you something that sometimes gets missed when watching a loved one die, because it’s easy to get swallowed up by the fear and pain that is breaking your heart. As Morgan was dying, she …
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5 minute grounding meditation

Guided grounding meditation from River Buffum on Vimeo. I hope you enjoy this simple guided meditation. It was created to help grow people’s awareness of their breath. Breath is Life! It also introduces the concept (and magic) of grounding. It is such a beautiful gift and practice. Revisit the video as often as you’d like. My hope is to create more videos that invite people to grow and deepen their practice. When we carve out time to meditate, even if it’s for the littlest while every day, we strengthen our ability to return to our grounded breath in the moments …
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Happy Spring!

Art by Erika Pochybova-Johnson If you’re a Vermonter (or a New Englander for that matter), outside looks anything but spring!  The air is frigid, the snow is deep.  But there is an unmistakable feel of spring in the air.  A lot is happening just under the Earth’s surface, and it’s changing the vibration all around us. Today is the Spring Equinox, a sacred day in many cultures.  It is a day in which the amount of light and dark are equal.  Tomorrow, there will be more light than dark, and the light will continue to grow everyday until the Fall …
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The Gift of Breath: part 2

Welcome back!  Let’s cover a few basics before continuing on with the practice of meditation. All meditation practices have four common principles: Focus.  It doesn’t matter what you choose to focus on.  It can be anything…a word, an image, a sound, music, a mantra, etc. Breath.  Joining your physiology, you receive and nurture your body with your in-breath, and release and cleanse with your out-breath. Joining.  In meditation you choose to join your breath, your focus, your mind, body and spirit. Returning.  When you get distracted by your thoughts, sounds, sensations, etc., return to your breath and focus. This is …
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The Gift of Breath: part 1

Welcome and thanks for joining me for a few seeds for the soul!  In this blog, I hope to share some of the tools and experiences that serve me and help me to grow my consciousness in this lifetime.  It will be through stories, reflections, exercises, and some guided meditations as well.  The meditations will be grounding meditations, which originates from the Native American culture, and Native Cultures of all kinds: Chinese, Japanese, Eastern Indian, South East Asia, African, Dryads, Celtics, and most Indigenous Cultures.  Grounding is the foundation of all yoga practices, martial arts, and chakra meditations. The Earth …
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