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,…
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…
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…
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…
In meditative practices, "The Watcher" refers to the part of the mind or spirit that isn't caught up in worry, that can scan the body, that can calmly, silently, even with a half-smile, observe the whole being. It could be called pure consciousness, spirit, the God within us. It's the place of seeing that I…
Simple and Forgotten Things 