In this brief motivational video recorded on January 14 near Phoenix, Arizona, the speaker recounts a recent team scrimmage that began with a traditional indigenous land blessing performed by a tribal elder. He describes the ceremony’s communal half‑moon formation, individual blessings for each player and staff member, and a subsequent song and dance, emphasizing its powerful, grounding effect. Drawing on his recent reading of The Gentle Art of Blessing, he reflects on the deeper significance of the ritual: the stillness, pause, and presence required to both receive and give blessings. He encourages listeners to incorporate similar moments of stillness into daily life—pausing at stoplights, while walking, or during routine activities—to consciously offer blessings to themselves and others, fostering gratitude and compassion as they head into the weekend.
Chapters
Good morning, everyone. Here is your Moment of Yes for Friday, January 14th. Good morning from Phoenix. We're out right outside of Phoenix, Arizona. We're out here in the desert. And yesterday the team had a scrimmage against a club team. And before the match, we had a blessing, a team blessing. And so the part of the land that we're on is shared by 2 indigenous cultures, in fact. And so this one woman from the group came and kind of shared historically about this land and how these 2 indigenous cultures now sort of cohabitate and have come together. And then after that, one of the tribe elders did a blessing for the team. And the cool thing was, you know, so there was like, I don't know, probably 30 to 35 players and staff kind of creating like a half moon. And he went around and he did an individual blessing for every single player and staff member and then did a traditional song and dance after that. And it was really, really cool. It was really special. It was really powerful. Awesome. All the players commented after the fact how awesome it was. It was just this really, really kind of special moment, a way to sort of commemorate this gathering. So I just got thinking about that. I got thinking about it while it was happening because there was a sense of purpose and power to it while it was happening. And again, some of you may know that last month I was reading the book The Gentle Art of Blessing. That's just what I felt during that whole process. The thing that got me thinking about was there's the actual blessing that's taking place, but what's really going on is that there is this stillness. There's a stillness and there's a pause and there is a groundedness where you're literally stopping what you're doing to get still, to be present, and then to be open and to receive. And in this case, it was to receive A blessing and the appreciation and the gratitude and the compassion that goes with that. And the other part of that was sort of seeing it for everyone else. You can receive it and at the same time you can give it. So again, it just gets me thinking about for each of us as we go through our day, can we find those moments? To stop, to pause, to receive blessing for ourselves when we need to give ourselves blessing, and more importantly, to stop and give blessings to others. To be at a stoplight and to look around at the other cars and to give them a blessing. To be walking through a city or a place with a lot of people and to give them blessings as you pass them, and to stop and to pause and to give yourself blessing. Blessings as well. So as you move into the weekend, let's carry that with us. I am blessing each of you right now. Thank you for being here. Gratitude to each of you for being here and sending you into the weekend to be blessed, to feel blessed, and to bless others. Have a great weekend, everybody. Bye.
