Blog Archive

I recently took a six week mindfulness course with the wonderful Cayce Howe.  He started and ended the course with two pearls of wisdom that stay with me.  At the end of the first class, he assigned all of us a simple homework assignment:  take one mindful breath per day.  And at the end of the last class, a second, seemingly simple assignment.  Choose one thing you do every day and do it mindfully.  I chose brushing my teeth.  So, while brushing my teeth, I was supposed to f

Last week, I returned home from work to find my kids excitedly scurrying around the kitchen.  On the counter lay cupcakes in a flower pattern, with four candles lit in celebration of my birthday.  They had created an array of colorful handmade cards and paintings.  My daughter had used her hard earned money to buy me a heart shaped pendant necklace and a journal with a small engraved elephant on the cover because “I know how much you love to write in your journals, Mama.”  Af

With my birthday rapidly approaching, I set out to write a post about “What I Know For Sure” after forty revolutions around the sun.  And as I scribbled some notes in my journal, what I know for sure is that I don’t know much for sure at all.  In fact, as I get older, and look to my greatest teachers–my children, my patients, and my books, these days–I realize that the more time passes, the less I know. I have fewer answers and feel my way through the days living the question

Today was a day of living slow yet thinking fast, all of which is to say that life unfolded only in my head with little to no direct contact, noticing, or taking it in. I didn’t see the pink bougainvilleas with their glorious and bright petals, singing as they drifted to the ground, pulling me into their gravity. Until I realized all of a sudden that one day all of this, the fallen petals and me, us, these four walls, my neighbors up the road, these verdant hills

Sometimes when the loudness around us has settled into a quiet lull, let’s ask each other all the questions that pulse deep within. Like what stories visit you in your dreams, and what do you fear in the 4 am hour, when you are alone and still and the light of the moon falls across the sheets? Like who would you be if self doubt and worry didn’t freeze the edges of your heart, and if you could only let the judgment of the crowds fade into nothing? Like what songs wou