A palette of bright yellow and coral; riotous reds, oranges, and purples. Vibrant prints and tropical colors form one word in my mind: Spring! And Knowing spring stands just around the corner helps to ease some of our stress…
Read MoreI sat in my car on the side of the road. Cars, vans, motorcycles, and trucks whizzed past me as I sat stuck in place. In my fog, I finally picked up my cell phone and called the friend who knows me best. “I’m sitting on the side of the Crosstown unable to move,” I managed to say through choked tears. “I’ll be right there,” she said.
Read MoreWhat is your favorite part of fall? Marcia takes you on a crisp fall walk with her beloved pup...
Read MoreThe best gift you can give yourself when traveling with a group is time on your own. It is when you take yourself on a stroll – wandering, chatting, daring to get lost – that insight and momentary friendships sometimes appear. Zing goes your heart when you do.
Read MoreI loved Anna DeBoer with all my heart. She taught me amazing things, and when she died, she left me her cherished cuckoo clock. Now I wonder if Anna DeBoer would have been vilified for some of her ways. When we start to see “the other”, sit in fear, hide in darkness, and forget that we all bleed red, we all lose.
Read MoreJoy is often effervescent - like champagne or soap bubbles. Contentment is grounded, solid, steady. It is beyond loneliness and fear, beyond even old age…
Read MoreThe minute I walked through the glass double doors, I felt a current of connection flow through my body.
Read MoreWhat happens if the ones you love don’t connect with self and with another as deeply as you do or as you hoped they would? How do you love the one(s) you’re with then?
Read MoreWe all know what it feels like to be a hot mess. I’ve been there, you’ve been there. Sometimes we know how we got there and many times we end up there and wonder what the @#&$ happened?? How do we get from a hot mess to a triad of mindful focus?
Read MoreAt this time of the year, we often feel tender: tender toward other people, tender toward the natural world and all its creatures, tender toward life itself, tender perhaps even toward ourselves. Images both sweet, like a dog and cat sleeping together, and horrifying, like the pain and suffering borne by innocent civilians on both sides of a war, elicit tender thoughts.
Read MoreI want to be as truthful with you as I am able. Acknowledging my anger, exploring its roots, and deciding where and when to act feels good…
Read MoreI’m happy. Right now, I can’t believe how often I am happy. The best news? I no longer wonder how long this joy will last or how to extend it. I’ve come to see that when I’m happy, I can just be in that happy place for however long it lasts.
Read MoreOf all the paired human emotions, love and loss cause the most challenge for me. As an only child raised and nurtured in the embrace of two warm and closely knit families, I dreaded the passage of time with its inevitable march toward separation caused by death….
Read MoreAs I really began to look around me, I became acutely aware that this moment was a gift. Its value would not be determined by the number of Facebook ‘Likes’ or the fact that I shared a photo with a friend across the country. This moment needed no outside validation. Nor did I, despite my habitual need to somehow capture it all and offer it up for public consumption.
Read MoreWhen I am in a mindful place, I feel free to witness my thoughts by labeling them as simply a type of thought (i.e., future, past, fear-based), and release them, connecting back to my breath and body. This practice of being in the moment allows me to distinguish between what’s true in that moment and the stories that sweep me away for minutes on end.
Read MoreI started to examine how the repetitive, mundane tasks of life – whether working on the farm with all it entailed or, later, attending to my own home with its demands for care and payments – felt in my body. The more I focused on the chore, the more aware I became of the emotions and sensations emerging.
Read MoreFloating when depleted proves to be a strong Rx, a natural one, too. You don’t need to be on an ocean- or river-bound ship to do it, either. Floating, I’ve come to realize, comes in many versions and leads to a more- restive state of mind…
Read MoreOur world is constantly evolving, and part of that evolution is that now, more humans are expressing their true nature. New words are coming into use to describe the beautiful varieties of humans and human relationships like cis, cisgender, trans, gender binary, poly, genderfluid, ENM (ethical non-monogamy), to name a few. For some, these new words are a source of discomfort, confusion, or even prejudice. All of these words, however, simply describe our fellow humans. And every human is worthy of ahimsa - acknowledgment, respect, compassion, and love.
Read MoreSomatics uses gentle movement patterns to shift the central nervous system and create new muscular habits. These movements are performed with conscious awareness and focus on the internal experience of the movement. Somatics can help reset natural movement patterns.
Read MoreWhat are beginnings and endings? Are there beginnings and endings? What is consciousness? What is its relationship to time? Is time real?
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