In 2009, the year after my husband Vic’s death, my sons and I created a solstice ritual. In Solstice Blessings: A Family Ritual of Remembrance and Love, I wrote about that first of many rituals of love and remembrance. We were on
Read more →Spirituality
I know you’re scared. I know you’re worried about the world. I know you’re uneasy about a future that feels out of control. I feel you grasping and holding tight, but that won’t help. You want to
Read more →“I don’t come to Vic’s cairn so often now,” I said to my friend. She and I had walked my favorite forest trails before taking a side trail to the stone memorial where my husband’s ashes are buried.
Read more →Gayatri Devi was close to sixty when I met her in the 1970s. She was small, dark-eyed, and bubbled with joy and laughter. She wore a white sari with a cloth draped loosely over wavy graying hair. I
Read more →1. Silence: Begin your day with silence, even if only five minutes. Focus on this one moment when you have all the time and possibility in the world. 2. Body: Throughout the day, return to the sacred
Read more →We walked through a maze of flowered paths in Montreux, Switzerland. My husband Vic rolled a ball with our young son David so I could talk with Paul Brunton, the elderly philosopher we’d come to visit. In 1973 during our
Read more →I don’t grasp the subtleties of Buddhist philosophic teachings or understand the mechanics of flight, but I know the beauty of a Korean monk opening his heart and a Fritillary opening her golden wings. I touch inner stillness as a Monarch sips nectar and the
Read more →When the Dalai Lama visited the United States for the first time in October 1979, he spent four days at Wisdom’s Goldenrod, a philosophy and meditation center near Seneca Lake in New York. Sidney Piburn, a friend and
Read more →1. Death makes us value life The death of someone I love reminds me of my own impermanence. The loss of their familiar presence makes me consider what matters most to me. In my twenties, I read The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos
Read more →After nearly three years of cancer therapy, my brother’s body was exhausted. There were no more options. Jim was dying. The previous week, I spent four days with him in his hospital room. We were often alone then. When
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