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How to Reboot When You’ve Fallen Off the Wagon: Step 5 – Seek Out Stillness
When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself. When you lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in the world. ~ Eckhart Tolle I’ve spent the past few weeks writing about my post-holiday reboot process, so far covering food, shelter, mind, and body. Today is the last installment of the series–the…
How to Listen When Your Land is Crying — A Ghost Story
The events I’m about to recount happened several months ago. Though I had expected to write about them much sooner, I realize now that Halloween week is the perfect time to share my ghost story with you. I’ve already gone public with my garden’s chatterbox ways, whether it’s life lessons whispered from the compost pile…
Taking Words Out of the Way to Protest the NRA
I hadn’t set out to write a rhyming title. It just happened. And when I asked if anybody would come with me to my first gun control rally in front of NRA headquarters on December 14th, the third anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, I hadn’t set out to start…
50 Uplifting Life Lessons Learned from Breast Cancer (pun intended)
Five years ago today, on June 10, 2009, I lay on an operating table with my arms immobilized in Velcro crucifix constraints forming perfect 90 degree angles from my torso. Salty tears slid down my temples into my hair, with no way for me to wipe them away. Realizing for the first time that a…
My Dream Come True Story
Today is finally the day to share my “dream come true” story, which I hinted at on Facebook and in last week’s newsletter. I wanted to be absolutely sure it was really happening before telling you about it, since I just couldn’t believe it at first. Here’s the scoop… A few weeks ago a lovely…
Giving Thanks for Endings and Beginnings
My son comes home from college this week, his first visit since we moved him to Atlanta in August. It was an exciting beginning for him after a bittersweet end to his high school years. He will drop his suitcase in his new, smaller bedroom. We have done our best to create a welcoming space…
15 Life Lessons Gleaned From a Forsythia Bud
First, I wanted to apologize to my email subscribers for my last post’s (A Few of My Favorite Things) crazy formatting. The piece was fine on the website, but I didn’t size the photos correctly for the emailed version, which mucked the whole thing up. Another lesson learned along the way, which is an appropriate segue…
More Snake Lessons Shouted (Not Whispered) From My Garden
As my Facebook friends know, it’s been a wild week. Wild highs, wild lows, the best and worst of wild. It really started a few weeks ago, when the wrens started nesting in the birdhouse right outside my kitchen window. That would be the same birdhouse I attribute with inspiring the start of this blog,…
Getting Back My Gardening Groove (Plus a Bad Mom Confession)
Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace. ~ May Sarton Spring barreled into town this past weekend like a sailor on shore leave. It was a shock to the system. Two weeks ago–the first…
The Cleansing Power of Clothes-Clearing
Welcome to Installment 1 of Feng Shui February! For the next four weeks, I’ll be writing about Feng Shui fixes I’m implementing to set the stage for new growth and positive energy boosts in my home and (home) office environments. Let me say at the outset that I am not a trained Feng Shui master….
Newsflash from the Dalai Lama — It’s Not About Religion
I was so relieved to hear straight from the mouth of the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism that it’s not about religion. I had already heard this message from Eckhart Tolle in his written work and when I saw him in person the previous week, but the credibility of the notion seems even stronger coming…
A Sweaty Path to Enlightenment — What My Cardio Dance Teacher and the Dalai Lama Have in Common
Is it blasphemous to compare His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Stan, my cardio dance instructor? When I was making the two-hour trek home after seeing the Dalai Lama speak several weeks ago, I was filled to the brim with happiness. I couldn’t wipe the goofy smile off my face. Every so often I’d find…
25 Life Lessons From My 365Project.Org Photo-A-Day Challenge
You know that feeling when something is tugging at your heart but you try to ignore it? An idea pops up that you’ve never had before–maybe you know what triggered it, maybe not–and you think, “Hmmm…that would be cool to do some day. Maybe I’ll try it when I have more time.” You push the…
How to Organize Your Day in A Mindful Way
“Seldom do we stop doing what we’re doing and think about (and rework) how we’re doing it.” Scott Belsky, Founder of Behance and author of Making Ideas Happen Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been pouring over a hodgepodge of journals stuffed onto a lower shelf of the bookcase, unopened for years. I was…
On Aging Dogs, Acceptance, and Making Time for Gratitude
Today Spirit stumbled coming up the three steps from the back patio. His hindquarters just collapsed. I helped him up and he was wagging his tail as soon as he made it into the house, thanking me and trying to reassure me that he was OK. He will be 13 this summer. I am preparing…
Decomposing Buddha: 10 Lessons For a Happy, Healthy Life Whispered By My Compost Pile
My whole life has been spent waiting for an epiphany, a manifestation of God’s presence, the kind of transcendent, magical experience that lets you see your place in the big picture. And that is what I had with my first compost heap. ~ Bette Midler I hope the new next-door neighbors didn’t hear me talking…
The Power of Puppies as Mindfulness Teachers: Part 1
I have a new mindfulness teacher and his name is Apollo. So far, I’ve been a pretty bad student. In fact, I’ve regressed these first few days. I can’t focus or stay on task. My thinking process has become muddled. All I want to do is play with my teacher. Right now he’s konked out…
Mindful Activism: How the Women’s March on Washington Transformed Me
Something shifted in me at the Women’s March on Washington. I used to think that I wasn’t wired for political action, that other people did that better than I could. The negative emotional drama that accompanies a lot of activism doesn’t feel good to me. I always vote, but haven’t followed up with much else….
How Meditation Nurtures Creativity
Listen to this awesome meditation story. “How awesome can a meditation story possibly be?” you might ask. Well, listen up. So last Friday, as we were trying to finalize the design and content of the back cover of Blooming into Mindfulness, one of my marketing advisors suggested that I add a stylized “DP” to the…
The Groundhog Day Guide to Presence Power
How often do you wish you had a second chance at something? The great thing about life, if you’re paying attention, is that very often you do get to try again. In the classic comedy film Groundhog Day, Bill Murray’s character is forced to relive a particular day over and over again until he gets…