Hello friends, While out running errands the other day, I paused to snap a photo of a sticker on a concrete barrier. The sticker read, in bold print, Realize You’re Alive. It seems like a simple injunction, doesn’t it? Too obvious to say out loud. Of course we realize we’re alive! We’re breathing, aren’t we? We’re thinking. Moving through the world… But do we actually pause long enough to feel this? This thing called us, on this planet, rotating in space, living. How often are we sleepwalking...
13 days ago • 1 min read
Hello friends, Since the solstice, I've been starting every morning by lighting candles and stating my intentions. Then I meditate and make a cup of tea. I'm really enjoying this pattern, and am using it to carry me through to the next calendar year. As a matter of fact, I just ordered a Moleskin daily diary as a gift to myself. I plan to write three daily intentions down each morning, plus my writing plans and business tasks for the day as a way to focus both my attention and my intention. I...
20 days ago • 1 min read
Hello friends, Last night, I lit candles in the darkness. This morning, long before sunrise, I did the same. Out loud, I spoke these words, “May we forever be light for each other.” I repeated that phrase three times. A prayer. An incantation. A spell. A call for hope. Today is the Solstice. For me, it is winter. For those in the southern hemisphere, summer. The ancients thought that on solstice, the sun stood still in the sky before changing direction. That is literally what solstice means....
27 days ago • 1 min read
Hello friends, I’m thinking about poetry this week, mostly because the great writer, teacher, and activist Nikki Giovanni died at the age of 81. Poetry was the constant companion of my childhood, teens, and twenties. I read poetry voraciously, and wrote. I always wrote. I stood up in cafés and bars and read my words out loud, testing my voice and shaping my world. I still read and write poetry occasionally, but even when I don’t, poetry has formed me. My breaths are marked in meters and my...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Hello friends, Every day, we get to choose what is important to us. What we spend time and attention on. Is that creativity? Research? Helping others? Family? Work? Friends? Social media? Television? The past? The future? Our health? The health of our communities? Reading books? Going for walks? Whatever we spend the most time and attention on is, by default, the thing we are making most important. Sometimes it isn’t one thing itself, it is a thread running through several things. For myself,...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Hello friends, Change can feel hard. Sometimes change is accompanied by a deep sense of loss. Or we have foreboding, and fear what may come. That’s okay. Natural. Wise, even. Other times, the thought of change feels like a breath of fresh air. A necessary break from what has been. But the reality is? Like it or not, fear it or welcome it, change will always come. As Heraclitus said, millennia ago: “You can’t step in the same river twice.” The river flows. It is always, ever, changing. The...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Hello Friends, This cold November morning, I’m staring through the bare winter branches outside my window. The branches are festooned with rows of raindrops, hanging on like bright pale jewels. But what catches my attention is a hummingbird on a wire. It is so tiny, it is barely a dark spot on the slender line. Occasionally, it flies up, then quickly returns to its perch. As I paused in my watching to type these words, the hummingbird departed, a squirrel climbed a fence across the street,...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Hello Friends, Years ago, I used to boast that the only times I’d been to Las Vegas were while passing through en route to protest at the Nevada Nuclear Test Site. I can’t say that anymore. These days, I go to Vegas far more often than I ever wanted to, which was never. I don’t go to shows while there. I don’t gamble. And since my brain injury, I don’t even drink alcohol. Also, I’m an introvert who dislikes crowds and noise, cigarette smoke, and desert air. I know some people love it, but for...
2 months ago • 1 min read
Hello Friends, The day before the big US election, I went for a walk as usual. A flash caught my eye. It was a quartz crystal, resting on the sidewalk, autumn sun shining through it. The crystal cast a shadow that looked like a stretched out crescent moon. It was beautiful. After snapping a photo, I thanked the crystal—yes, I’m more than a bit of an animist—and settled it against a bit of moss, figuring it would be safer there. I keep thinking about that crystal. I keep thinking about how it...
2 months ago • 1 min read