A Mindful Life

Today Claire asked to make Simba, from the Lion King. She hasn’t seen the movies but is obsessed with the songs, especially The Lion Sleeps Tonight, Hakuna Matata, and He Lives In You. She wanted to also make his father and an elephant friend. Thank goodness for paper plates, construction paper, glue and paint! Claire [...]

We’ve been busy climbing and splashing and creating! Claire had a total of three weeks of swimming lessons. She is still shy about getting her face in the water and going under water, but she had a blast with her teachers. She very specifically insisted on lady teachers “because they are more gentle.” (She had [...]

The lull of summer has me reading a lot but writing little. This blog has become a pictorial daybook with a few quotes tossed in for spice. Well, I blame the summer, but evidence shows that this is the trend my life has taken for the past year. Somewhere along the way I feel I’ve [...]

While the spirit of neighborliness was important on the frontier because neighbors were so few, it is even more important now because our neighbors are so many. -Lady Bird Johnson One generation plants the trees; another gets the shade. –Chinese proverb

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky [...]

Lift your arm. Let it fall onto your leg. Simple? Is existence simple? Consider that there are two massive objects: the earth — the whole big round rock of it — and your relaxed arm. The reality of the earth’s gravitational pull can be experienced in the heavy fall of your arm. Drop your arm [...]

Mine, all mine! At preschool, Claire had a tendency to hurtle into tears if a small thing didn’t go her way, or if she perceived some other child’s behavior as a slight. My response typically had been to croon, hug, and comfort. For instance, one day she brought a stuffed animal with her. In circle [...]

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 [...]

Hope you’ve had a wonderful day!

As is friendship. I’m so grateful. I assembled these soup and cookie mixes to donate to our preschool raffle, and to give to friends in gratitude for their practical care during my recent events.