The silence of the sky remains when the plane is gone. The tranquility of the clouds will remain when the plane has fallen apart. It is the silence of the world that is real. Our noise, our business, our purposes, and all our fatuous statements about our purposes, our business, and our noise: these are…
In Solitude, Communion
What a time of solitude. In Jon Kabat-Zinn's online meditation yesterday, he mentioned how this now-common phrase social distance is such a blatant invitation to solitude. Many people also feel alone. Solitude doesn't necessarily seem like an invitation. Solitude. Loneliness. Self-Sufficiency. Isolation. Quarantine. The other day, I was sitting, thinking about all my projects, fears,…
Weekend Practice: 20 Creative Actions
Julia Cameron's task from The Artist's Way and Walking in This World has pulled me out of stuck-ness so many times. Many of us now might be feeling stuck, powerless, or (seemingly) bored. Here's what Julia says: Often we experience a sense of powerlessness because we do not see any direct action that we can…
At Square One
Isn't it amazing -- and shocking and scary and uncertain -- how much has changed in just a week? I've been thinking of Martha Beck's writing, especially of her idea of the cycle of change. I've been going through this cycle myself the past eight or nine months, and now, suddenly the whole world is…
Fear into Heart
I had to make a difficult decision: staying abroad without flights back to the US for an indefinite time. So many what-if questions -- fears -- ran through my mind. What if I can't get treated? What if someone in my family gets sick and I'm stuck here? As fear stirred the worst-case scenarios in…