Category: newsletter intro

The Covid vaccination has granted me some freedom, so I’m in Texas this week. On Easter Sunday morning, I found myself in one of my favorite “churches”–the woods of Hamilton Green Belt, near Austin. With her usual abundant grace, Nature preached the perfect sermon for me. The green leaves just beginning to peek out of trees that endured a paralyzing February storm showed me what rebirth looks like. So much died in that storm—plants, animals and people. The forest shows us how to be resilient, how even though separation can be painful, the gift of letting go is growth. I […]

Last Saturday night, the City of Boulder asked people to pause for 10 slow breaths, followed by 10 minutes of silence for the victims of the March 22 mass shooting in a grocery store. It was a moment of collective grief. I also believe it was a moment of collective healing. Don’t misunderstand me. I am not suggesting that this practice alone comes anywhere close to healing anyone. Healing of any kind is a process–a cycle–and it takes time. Usually more time than we expect it will. We know that healing isn’t necessarily straightforward, and it can often include as […]

I had just finished a book club discussion of Valarie Kaur’s See No Stranger, A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love, when I learned the news of last week’s spa shooting rampage that killed eight people, six of them Asian women. And now, just before I publish this, I’m hearing news of another shooting spree in a grocery store in Boulder, Colo. By the time you read this, we will know all of the horrible details. Once again, I feel a huge empty space in my heart that wants to fill itself with hatred for the shooters, and my head […]

As I gaze at the piles of snow remaining from last weekend’s storm, I remember a winter day in Houston, Texas, when I was about four years old. My mother took me over to the living room window, and as I watched a few flimsy flakes floating to the ground, she said, “Look, it is snowing! You will probably never see this again in your lifetime.” Little did she know where I would end up. (Little did she know that even if I had stayed in Houston, I would have seen it snow there more than once more). As a […]

I received a letter in the mail from a friend last week. Yes, an honest-to-god, handwritten, snail-mail letter. What a delightful novelty! My friend was asking for insight on an oracle card I pulled for him some months back at full moon time. The card message: Dare to Be Different. After meditating on my friend and the card, then hand writing the messages I received in a letter and putting it in the mail, something occurred to me. The oracle card was not only for my friend, it was also for me! And maybe for all of us. There is a […]

Last Saturday’s full moon created an energy for nourishment and healing. I’m still sitting in that vibration like a little seed soaking up sustenance so that I may soon spring forth toward the light.  The last year has been rough for most of us. We’ve done a lot of letting go. We’ve seen a lot of shadows. Faced a lot of fear. Now is a good time for healing. Sometimes others have the better words to express how I am feeling, and that is the case this week. Enjoy this powerful poem. I think I’m starting to see a glimmer. […]

Every year about this time I get a feeling I can only describe as a jittery pause. It’s that place between winter and spring, where I feel spacious and bright one moment, caged in the next. Like a seed getting ready to sprout, but it’s not quite time. I must wait, but my eagerness to burst into the light has me feeling edgy. Living in the time of Covid certainly hasn’t helped. Mirroring my feelings have been the animals who have crossed my path this week. First, two does feasting under my bird feeder who jerked their heads up when […]

Today is Imbolc (pronounced I-MOLK), the ancient Celtic celebration that marks the midway point between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox. The festival centered around the goddess, Brigid, who was the goddess of healers, poets, childbirth, fire and hearth. Celebrations included all households burning a fire in the hearth overnight, as well as other customs and rituals to welcome the spring and say farewell to winter. With the advent of Christianity, Brigid became St. Brigid, and for Christians, Imbolc became St. Brigid’s Day. I have an Irish friend who tells me some Irish folk still set out a dish of milk overnight […]

Over the weekend, I started a novel called Midwives which has caused me to reminisce about my own pregnancy 20 years ago. I so clearly recall the fullness of being at the precipice of an irreversible change and the effort it took to hold the opposite emotions of hope and fear.  I feel pregnant with hope and fear today because of the impending birth of a new world. And still, I struggle to hold both feelings. On the one hand I am brimming with excitement that we are moving toward a time where we honor the sacredness of all beings and lead […]

Last night, my daughter and I were watching the movie Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them when I heard this line: “When the No-Maj (people without magical powers) are afraid, they fight.” So incredibly true. They also flee, and sometimes they become paralyzed. We may have had any or all of these reactions last week when we witnessed the unimaginable, despicable, criminal actions at our nation’s capital. We most certainly should never, ever tolerate such behavior. But whatever response we had at the moment doesn’t have to be the place we live.  After my initial shock and horror, I started thinking […]