This past weekend I was at a wedding in Vermont. The groom has been a friend for over two decades. And like all the rest of his friends, I was so happy that he had found love, especially after the pain and loss of his first wife’s illness and passing. It was bittersweet; the ache and grief were still there,…
On Being, Becoming Like the rings on a tree, once again, Holy Week came upon us, marking another cycle of remembrance and entering into the Life that culminated in the mysterious events that shook the world 2000 years ago in a small, out-of-way province of the Roman empire. The reverberations continue to be felt down to and, doubtless, way beyond…
Being an immigrant to the US, a person of color, and genderqueer, much of my life I never felt I belonged fully to any particular group or community. A coping strategy I learned early on was to conform to the dominant culture so that I didn’t stand out with the hope of being accepted and loved. That stopped working for…
I live north of the Golden Gate Bridge in the hills of the wine country, and as I write, the year is turning. I feel my heart turning too, and opening with the apricot blossoms as they begin to come out. Last week there were floods, an atmospheric river passed over us, and also a sudden cold with rare, wondered…
A knot sat in my throat for days. As I rode down the winding and rugged road to Tassajara Zen Mountain Center in the Los Padres Forest, I was aware that a Queen called Aretha Franklin was dying. I felt this deep sense that I was dying with her. The next morning along with the wake up bell at the…
Like the rings on a tree, once again, Holy Week is upon us, marking another cycle of celebrating and entering into the life that culminated in the mysterious events that shook the world 2000 years ago in a small, out-of-way province of the Roman empire. The reverberations continue to be felt down to the present time and will doubtlessly be…
In November 2016, America and the rest of the world were stunned when a candidate whose platform included harming immigrants and discriminating against certain citizens won the presidency. When I learned he’d been voted in, my heart sank, realizing that America had become even less of a place I can call home. Many of us had been living under a…
Leading up to his retreat “Lucid Dreaming and Dream Yoga” at the Garrison Institute on September 18-25, 2018, Alan Wallace discusses how dream yoga can help one wake up from delusion. In the first moment when our consciousness shifts from dreamless sleep to an ordinary, nonlucid dream, we are unaware that we are dreaming and fail to recognize the nature of…