A Mindful Life

I have posted this quote before, but it’s useful to have a reminder: On Writing Poetry Considering the ways in which so many of us waste our time, what would be wrong with a world in which everybody were writing poems? After all, there’s a significant service to humanity in spending time doing no harm. [...]

For much of my life I’ve wandered on a spiritual journey without knowing quite where to go. One of the paths I began to explore in the late 1990s was meditation. I took a Vipassana meditation class, read books, and occasionally pretended to be serious about it. In 2003 I began this blog in part [...]

Dear Self, Please adjust your pace. Love, Me

My husband’s gift to me today, a “Fjellheim” Japanese Maple! I’ve named it Gaia — mother. We bought it locally, and I’m so happy with it! From this: To this: We’ve got much more planting to do, but first we needed to position the tree. This is the north side of the house, and most [...]

Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children. – William Makepeace Thackeray And the card I sent to my mother: Hundreds of dewdrops to greet the dawn, Hundreds of bees in the purple clover, Hundreds of butterflies on the lawn, But only one mother the wide world over. – [...]

As my husband says, nothing is ever halfway with me. After reading Michael Pollan’s book, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, I’ve wondered exactly how to follow his advice: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” I recently purchased a small pile of books, several of which feel intuitively revolutionary to me. The titles: [...]

Hi dear readers (all 5 of you who are left). I know I hardly post here anymore. But today I have good news to share. The saga of the breast cancer question has been answered. I had the genetic test done for BRCA 1 and 2 (thanks to insurance paying), and the result is I [...]