{"id":662,"date":"2009-08-11T05:00:47","date_gmt":"2009-08-11T05:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/2009\/08\/fresh-morning-sacred-lotus.html"},"modified":"2009-08-11T05:00:47","modified_gmt":"2009-08-11T05:00:47","slug":"fresh-morning-sacred-lotus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/08\/fresh-morning-sacred-lotus.html","title":{"rendered":"Fresh Morning: Sacred Lotus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"sun1.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sun1.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-left\" style=\"margin: 0pt 20px 20px 0pt;float: left\" height=\"50\" width=\"50\" \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<div>I was at the National Zoo in Washington, DC this weekend with my nephews, and the best time to take such an outing is in the morning, before the staggering heat of a mid-Atlantic summer day sets in.&nbsp; In addition to the pandas, elephants, and meercats (aw&#8230;) that we saw, one of my favorite sightings was from the plant, not animal world.<\/p>\n<p>It was a lotus pond, brightly robed in pink, white, green, and morning sunshine.&nbsp; Revered as a symbol of purity in both Hindu and Buddhist traditions, the lotus is rich with symbolism of tranquility, simplicity, beauty, and&#8211;because it rises above the water&#8211;safety.<\/p>\n<p>Can you find your inner lotus this morning?<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/Lotus.JPG\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Lotus.JPG\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/84\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/08\/Lotus-thumb-215x322-7073.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-none\" height=\"322\" width=\"215\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/fresh-morning\/\"><b>Need more morning inspiration? Read our whole Fresh Morning collection!<\/b><\/a><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was at the National Zoo in Washington, DC this weekend with my nephews, and the best time to take such an outing is in the morning, before the staggering heat of a mid-Atlantic summer day sets in.&nbsp; In addition to the pandas, elephants, and meercats (aw&#8230;) that we saw, one of my favorite sightings&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12,2],"tags":[244,990,690,687,688,689],"class_list":["post-662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-holly-lebowitz-rossi","category-fresh-morning","category-holistic-living","tag-buddhism","tag-fresh-morning","tag-hinduism","tag-lotus","tag-lotus-flower","tag-sacred-lotus"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Fresh Morning: Sacred Lotus - Fresh Living<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/08\/fresh-morning-sacred-lotus.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fresh Morning: Sacred Lotus - Fresh Living\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I was at the National Zoo in Washington, DC this weekend with my nephews, and the best time to take such an outing is in the morning, before the staggering heat of a mid-Atlantic summer day sets in.&nbsp; In addition to the pandas, elephants, and meercats (aw&#8230;) that we saw, one of my favorite sightings&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/08\/fresh-morning-sacred-lotus.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Fresh Living\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-08-11T05:00:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/sun1.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"hrossi\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Fresh Morning: Sacred Lotus - Fresh Living","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/08\/fresh-morning-sacred-lotus.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Fresh Morning: Sacred Lotus - Fresh Living","og_description":"I was at the National Zoo in Washington, DC this weekend with my nephews, and the best time to take such an outing is in the morning, before the staggering heat of a mid-Atlantic summer day sets in.&nbsp; In addition to the pandas, elephants, and meercats (aw&#8230;) that we saw, one of my favorite sightings&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/08\/fresh-morning-sacred-lotus.html","og_site_name":"Fresh Living","article_published_time":"2009-08-11T05:00:47+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/sun1.jpg"}],"author":"hrossi","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/08\/fresh-morning-sacred-lotus.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/08\/fresh-morning-sacred-lotus.html","name":"Fresh Morning: Sacred Lotus - Fresh Living","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/08\/fresh-morning-sacred-lotus.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/08\/fresh-morning-sacred-lotus.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/sun1.jpg","datePublished":"2009-08-11T05:00:47+00:00","dateModified":"2009-08-11T05:00:47+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/#\/schema\/person\/168fb6fdfd4f4d1a2e41e628b308b687"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/08\/fresh-morning-sacred-lotus.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/08\/fresh-morning-sacred-lotus.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/08\/fresh-morning-sacred-lotus.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/sun1.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/sun1.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/08\/fresh-morning-sacred-lotus.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Fresh Morning: Sacred Lotus"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/","name":"Fresh Living","description":"Holistic, Health and Wellness","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/#\/schema\/person\/168fb6fdfd4f4d1a2e41e628b308b687","name":"hrossi","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b92\/b928efbbb02076837659d614a160f471x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b92\/b928efbbb02076837659d614a160f471x96.jpg","caption":"hrossi"},"description":"Holly Lebowitz Rossi is Beliefnet's Health and Relationships Editor. A graduate of Cornell University and Harvard Divinity School, she has more than a decade of experience writing about religion and spirituality for Newsweek, The Washington Post, Spa Finder, Sojourners, Search, and many other publications. Her commentaries have also been heard on NPR\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153All Things Considered.\" When not at her desk, you can find her baking, in her garden, or rockin' out in water aerobics class. She lives in Arlington, Mass. Visit http:\/\/www.hollyrossi.com for more.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/author\/hrossi"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}