Advent Update

I was doing one of my several my daily check on Ravelry, and found a couple of interesting things I thought I would share.
First off, here was a really cool link for an online Advent Calender. Each day's symbol has interesting meditations, family activities, music and such things linked to it.
JenniPMcD at Ravelry's "Into the Labryknit" forum has posted several things about Advent that I found to be very well said and reflected how I feel about this season of waiting and preparing. For the First day (Sunday) of Advent she posted this meditation

In my life, Advent is the perfect example of being mindful and meditating. We are expected to wait and prepare. We reflect and open our hearts. What can you hear if you listen with your heart?

I personally will be doing my best to listen all season with my heart.

Jenni also posted this suggestion for a "mindful" meditation:

For any knit stitches, the word you use, either mentally or verbally, if you like, is "wait". If you crochet, I think a single crochet should work for this.
For any purl stitches, the word is "listen". If you crochet, perhaps double crochet may work for this.
For spinners. If you single treadle, use "wait". If you double treadle, use "listen".
Do this for some time. When you feel so led, come back here and let us know how this worked for you. Tell us how you used it, how you learned, what you learned, how it guided you, etc. Also, good and/or not-so-good responses are acceptable. The whole point of this is to see what works and what doesn't.

If one were so inclined, I am sure they could find similar actions in their everyday life that they could substitute for the fiber related actions. Feel free to discuss here what you think and if you try it, how it works for you. You can substitute some other word for an action that is more appropriate to your life situation.

The last thing I will quote her on is what she posted as an explanation of what "mindful" can mean, or be described as (she found it on beliefnet).

To understand mindfulness, imagine yourself doing something very simple, something that doesn't arouse a compelling interest--like, say, eating an apple. You probably eat your apple not paying attention to how it smells, how it tastes, or how it feels in your hand. Because of the ways we're conditioned, we don't usually notice the quality of our attention. Done this way, eating the apple is not a fulfilling experience.
So you blame the apple. You might think, if only I had a banana, I'd be happy. So you get a banana, but eat it the same way, and still there's not a lot of fulfillment. And then you think, if only I had a mango--and go to great expense and some difficulty getting a mango. But it's the same thing all over again. We don't pay attention to what we have or what we're doing. As a result, we seek more and more intensity of stimulation to try to rectify what seems unfulfilling.
So, are you being mindful of YOUR apple?

That's it for now, but maybe this is a bit of insight into why I love Advent so much.