“Say Yes! Simply meet each experience of life, inside and out, body, feelings and mind, with all the love and acceptance you can muster.”

Deep thoughts from Cheri Huber in her book “The Key, and the Name of the Key is Willingness.”

Huber’s book, “That Which You are Seeking is Causing You to Seek” was purchased by me in a San Francisco bookstore when I was 19 years old. It was a waft of cool air in the hot pavement of Fresno, where I was going to school, breaking up with my boyfriend, and feeling generally displaced in the world.

I’m forty-two now, and Huber’s “The Key” was a birthday gift just granted to me by a dear friend. The friend I secretly envy because she seems to have somehow found ‘the key’ to a daily meditation practice, a discipline I know would behoove me but I restlessly rebel.

I soften the fact that I can’t seem to make it to the meditation cushion, by thinking that I try to bring meditation into daily life. There are plenty of opportunities in walking reality to implement some mindfulness. A humorous example being the tramway ride to Jested in the Czech Republic this summer.

Jested, the highest mountain peak in the Liberec region of Czech, hosts a hotel and television transmitter.You can hike to the top in a few hours, or take a kind of gondola to the hotel in a few minutes. We opted to be lifted.

There is a stereotype that the more natural European approach to hygiene often results in body odor. In my personal experience in Czech, I found most to be quite well-groomed and sweet-smelling. It seemed every woman wore eye make-up, and even the most rural of them had manicured nails. The men were clean and often cologned.

However, on that hot July day, as we crammed in to the airtight gondola to Jested, along with twenty-five other perspiring sightseers, the stench was high. It didn’t help that numerous passengers were holding on to the straps dangling from the ceiling, giving air to scent-rich pits. Poor Jeb. At his height, he was surrounded by axillae perfectly positioned to his nose level.

There was no escape.

At least not for our five-minute ascent to Jested’s peak.

We weren’t in the hell realms by any means, but it was unpleasant to the olfactory glands.

“Say yes!”

I just laughed. And couldn’t help snapping a few shots of our living meditation practice.