What is your relationship to play? How has it changed since childhood? This tide pool incident happened as a teenager on a Sunday beach trip with friends when we stayed out on the rocks too long. The tide seemed to rush in and we had to fight the pull of the ocean on our way back to the shore. Something in my relationship to play changed that day...
Read MoreI was not raised in any religion. I never received instructions for prayer. I have developed my own prayer practice and sometimes convert them into poems as I did with this one. Do you pray? If so, how do you pray? What makes prayer different than other forms of self-talk?
Read MoreThe same words can have a vastly different feel and impact depending on the label attached and the way they are spoken or the mood within which they are expressed. How does it affect you to hear the same poem titled and read with a different emotional tone: one with Sorrow and the other with Joy?
Read More"I went walking and found hearts everywhere." Cordiform is the name given to heart-shaped leaves. There are a lot of them along the walking path near the canal outside of my condo. We have the great privilege of awareness. We are witnesses to the world, to each other, and to life. What in the world takes your attention? How do you carry the slice of the world to which you attend?
Read MoreKeeping balance in a world of distractions requires ongoing practice. In what do you place your faith when taking risks or moving forward in life? In what do you have a faith that never wavers?
Read MoreI took a side trip on my way to Salem, Oregon recently and drove the rim of Crater Lake on September 16, 2016. I caught it on a beautiful day, the lake surface reflecting the blue sky like a mirror. I wrote this piece while on thedrive feeling blessed by the beauty I witnessed and happy to have taken the detour!
Read MorePlans are useful and necessary to help us to achieve goals and better our lives. Every once in a while, I feel the tug of whimsy wanting me to abandon my plans and run off on a little adventure. Whether or not I follow its lead, I am always tickled by the feeling. And when I do embrace whimsy, I am almost always rewarded with some little treasure in the moment.
Read MoreWe are married to life. Our relationship to life may be the most intimate of all our relationships, more intimate even than with our parents, our family, our life partner, or our children. We are always in a context, always contained by life, always held in its arms. LIfe made its vow to you and will be with you until death do you part. The question is: What vow(s) would you make to life if you enter into this marriage consciously?
Read MoreHere at the fall equinox: all is even, the sun hugs the equator squaring with the tilt of the earth. It is a day of equanimity between light and dark, a day for harmony between North and South, a day to balance outer and inner. Here is my poetic tribute to the fall equinox for 2016 and to the beauty of aging.
Read MoreMy writing often starts with sensory attention to the immediate world. I sometimes look around my house and see things in and out of place, reminders of projects in process, of a duty that needs doing, of an item needing care, repair, or one best discarded. And it is easy to fall prey to the demand of things and wait on the world. But it doesn't have to be that way! What if you dropped the struggle to shape your life and let the world wait for you?
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