THE BURNING CHILD

HEALING THE BROKEN PLACES The child that is not embraced by the village will burn it down just to feel its warmth. – African proverb In a culture conditioned to a linear understanding of causes and conditions we assign blame to a problem, focusing our ire on the object of blame. In extreme cases, we […]


GIVING UP CONTROL

    … and Stepping Beyond Fear One of the ways we rob ourselves, and reduce our life is by demanding ownership of our experience. And ownership implies controlling the process and the outcome of what we own. But our life is not property. Life is a self-existing dynamic with our past and our world, unfolding […]


PROGRESS ON THE PATH

The OG yogis, in their old-school yoga days, referred to their path as leading to the perfection of human experience. Okay. But what is meant by perfection? And according to whom and what metric? A worldly path to perfection is quantifiable in comparison to our world.  As vicious as it may be, it is comforting […]


AWAKENING

AWAKENING TO EMOTIONS Every moment we become aware is a new beginning. Each time we come back to ourselves and the moment we are inhabiting, we have a fresh start. Although, most of the time the “stains” or attachments of our previous moments linger. So we enter our new moment with some baggage. Have you […]


THE UNRELIABLE WITNESS

We are not what we think. This is frequently heard in meditation circles. The path of meditation serves to uncover the fickleness of our thought process so that we can see beyond ourselves. Our thoughts don’t define us, as much as keep us entertained. If we give ourselves over to the path of meditation, we […]


IN LIVING SERVICE

IN LIVING SERVICE – Commemorating the Life of Dr. King I’m writing on the day set aside to commemorate the life and service of Dr. Martin Luther King, which this year falls on his actual birthdate, Jan 15. To many, it marks a time to reflect on our lives and the contribution to peace, equality […]


SPECTRUM OF ATTACHMENT

I wrote a wonderful post about the power of letting go.  And then somehow my laptop ate it, and I lost the post in the either. Just gone. Fitting, no?  Not only was I forced to let go of my oh so brilliant hard work, but I also had to stop my futile attempts to […]


EVERY WAKING STEP

EVERY WAKING STEP I am writing this on the first day of the solar calendar year. New Year’s Day is seen as a time of renewal and stepping forward. However, most of us are working through the fog of our hangovers, as we try to remember what it was we’re moving past as we tentatively […]


EYES THAT SEE THEMSELVES

Throughout history, meditation adepts, shamans, scientists, philosophers, poets, and artists have pointed to a realm of existence beyond our everyday experience. These realms exist as experiences beyond our norm, so we imbue them with fanciful mystery. Yet it may be that these experiences are very ordinary. Maybe we have glimpses of the truth beyond truth […]


UNCOVERING THE WOUND

A slow uncovering of the wounds that bind us, is an apt description of the path of compassion. Understanding and transforming our pain is a common motivator for the path. Many of us came to the path because we were in pain. There is nothing like a broken heart to introduce us to meditation. But […]