I have spent a lifetime in partnership with atheists, those who don’t believe and some who thought very little of those who do believe. Believe in what? Well, I could answer simply with the word – God – but that would not define the believers I know. Yes, some call their faith religious, and some call their creator God, but most of the people I surround myself with these days believe in spiritual connections, believe…
A monarch butterfly spread its wings as I opened the back door. The vitex is still blooming. The liriope’s purple flowers never cease to amaze me. I’m a good cook. I ate leftover parmigiana for lunch. My friends are fabulous. Artists are gifts to us. My body does what I tell it to do – grateful. There is never enough time to do all of the things, but there is time enough to do many…
I went last weekend to replace the flowers on my mom’s grave – from the red roses of winter to the sunflowers of summer – her flowers were definitely in need of a pick me up. While I was there I was able to get on an ATV with my uncle and head to a neighbor’s farm that was overflowing with tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, corn, and watermelon. “Take what you want,” the farmer said. It…
I have been waiting patiently for the events that were put in motion to find a resting place in justice served. I believed, because I was told, that justice would be swift. It has not been. It has been a slow wait inside and outside. Waiting to wake up one morning and not have this boulder sitting on my head. The problem, I told Ellen, is that I want justice when it will only bring…
Someone I love gave me a metal paperweight that says “Every wall is a door.” It sits front and center on my desk. I forgot to take my thyroid pill twice in the last few days and it upset my equilibrium. I almost feel as if I am having my period – emotionally speaking. I’ve ridden the wave up and I’ve ridden it down. I truthfully do not miss my menstrual cycle one iota. That…
A long time ago, someone gave me a quote and I have pulled it out and read it many times, and given it to those who I thought needed it, and preserved it for future reminders. I was feeling boxed in recently. I felt suffocated by events out of my control. And I realized how convenient it is to fall into a pattern of belief and then I watched Obama’s eulogy of Senator Clementa Pinckney…
I spent a year and a half in community with a group and in the end had to leave when someone in that group committed a crime against my family. The celebration of what that group accomplished just took place in public, on stage, this past Wednesday. I was not there. Nor was I even in the photographs listed. And my speaking part was dropped from the 10 minute video. I have spent the last…
A book arrived today from my friend in Boston, a mix of words and their meanings fully wrought. I was reading it mindlessly today, waiting on Tin to finish swimming, when I got to the third word – ANGER. ANGER is the deepest form of compassion, for another, for the world, for the self, for a life, for the body, for a family and for all our ideals, all vulnerable and all, possibly about to…
Yesterday morning, I got up early and went for a run with Stella and then hopped in my truck that has part of the suspension work done and headed to Ponchatoula to a full-day meditation retreat. As usual, I got lost on the way; then when I realized only ten miles later, I started to backtrack and was making a U-turn on a country road and ran right down into a ditch only a mile…