Disbelieving Appearances: A Path to Aliveness

It’s a conundrum. I have no idea what is of the greatest value. I find it important to share what is happening in our world, and yet I can’t help but think that the sharing is redundant, that you already know about the world’s depravity, its deep dive into cruelty, its lack of a heart-based …

Demolishing the Illusion of Safety

The greatest gift these times are giving us is the demolition of the illusion of safety. On the surface it sounds like a good idea, to feel safe. Everyone says safety is critical to our ability to be honest with ourselves and others, but when we are cushioned within the illusion of safety, what are …

If this was my last day on earth

What would I choose to do if this was my last day on earth? It’s a fetching question to play with. It’s been floating around in awareness for a couple of days now. Would I go for a walk in the woods and thrill my senses with nature? Would I take in the scents and …

We Aren’t Fighting a Political Battle

Life is fascinating when you can see through the horrors, when you are willing to stand without running, and let it rip your heart out. It will. It will take every single person you love, everything you thought important, the innocents: the children, the soft and cuddly 4-leggeds, the mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, …

The Enchanting Alternative World

What a wonder each day is! Today turned the key of pure delight. It started with a walk in the woods, a visit to the gnome trail, and Sophia joyfully splashing in the little creek both coming and going and segued into planting a field of flowers where lawn once grew. The gnome trail is …

Today I Grieve

Today I am grieving. Deeply. Painfully. Messily. Preciously. Not for the beloveds I’ve lost but for this world imploding about me. Maybe it’s nothing to grieve. Perhaps it was never worth the love I gave it. Maybe this country has always been the monster in the closet that everyone cowered from while smiling and pretending …

It Doesn’t Bode Well for Love

I’m not sure why sleepless nights are so rich with insights. Regardless of reasons, and mind can come up with a million possibilities, mine are. Maybe the breakthroughs require the freshly broken sense of control. I mean really, if we can’t control whether we fall asleep, what can we control?    Last night I couldn’t …

Life Doesn’t Have to Hurt So Bad

There is only one insight worth the trouble, but that is the one that finds you, not one you can find. Anything short of that realization will ultimately be unsatisfying regardless of how awesome it feels in the moment of recognition. All but one insight dims. Most make room for the next, opening up the …

Little Girl Lost: Finding Your Way Home

I am captivated by the term ‘childhood’ traumas. It’s as if we think they are locked into a place in time and don’t infect impact encamp and inbreed with this moment, affecting the beliefs we hold, acting on the ways we respond, impeding our ability to love, increasing our willingness to hate. They are always …

The Mind Trap

Today has been an interesting day. While mowing an acre of grass, taking a hoe to the vegetable garden, and enjoying a three-mile walk with Sophia, I’ve been pondering life, this appearance of duality that is physically dubious and yet remarkably, manifests shamelessly as the material world. It is the veritable impossible dream. I’ve been …

The Truth Lies in the Fire

There are times, even now, when the fact that I did my best wasn’t good enough. I know, deep down, that my life, and those it touched, couldn’t have been otherwise and yet, I ache with the recognition honed from years of new experiences fired in the kiln of inner work, that I hurt others, …

Ease and Grace

It is only natural to want ease and grace, to desire the indisputable revelation of right purpose and true meaning in life. Most of us feel like something is missing, and if we can just find it all will be well. That’s a pretty big draw, a reason to stay in the saddle, to tilt …

Life Itself

It was a glorious walk this morning, earlier than normal. The sun was just peeking over the horizon, lighting the maple trees, the firs and cedars in a most spectacular display, mystically splashing their infinite shades of green against the backdrop of shadow and light. As I walked I found myself dipped in awe, in …

It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way

Life’s basic building block is consciousness, or at the least, that is as much as this appearance in consciousness at present is able to grok. Consciousness, a word, not unlike every word, can only point to that which is inconceivable since it is as deep or shallow as its perceiver. What we perceive is a …

Nothing But Mud in the Middle

It’s a puzzle and all puzzles have edges, the outliers of the mass of contradiction within. Within the puzzle of aliveness lies every possible imagining, and those quite unimaginable to the opposing edges. It’s cool that puzzles, like life, have edges all around, edges of the polarities, left and right, up and down, all across, …