A Mindful Life

I have always felt a tenderness in this poem. When I’ve lost my way, or when I’ve been humbled by the vastness of existence — made aware of my great insignificance — this poem helps me to feel connected again. Less lonely.

People Like Us
There are more like us. All over the world
There [...]

In addition to the opposable thumb, another trait that makes us human is that our anatomy separates the trachea and esophagus, which is what enables speech. Other animals have only one passage for food and air.
All of this is by way of coming around to the somewhat paradoxical observation that we speak with remarkable [...]

Silver, lonely days.Demeter is now sleeping;long months until spring.

This post is a piece I wrote in my journal several months ago, and I thought it would be useful for reflection here.
Here’s an excerpt of an email from my brother. With his permission I post it here, because I’m thinking along the same lines.
Me: I swear, I get so exasperated with my [...]

From Helen Redman’s introduction to her series of paintings called Birthing the Crone:
This presentation is about bringing to life my Wise Woman Crone, birthing it, so to speak, through my art. Today, those of us who choose to name ourselves CRONES do so to raise consciousness around issues of aging. Paradoxically, as we enter a [...]

False beliefs are among the familiar and awkward facts of life. You fail to show up on a Friday night because you thought the party was on Saturday. A friend overdraws her checking account because she thought there was more money in it. Sometimes the intrigue caused by false beliefs becomes limitlessly complex, as when [...]

Not surprisingly, but unfortunately, a hearing on Capitol Hill yesterday revealed that, in the last 18 months, there have been 112 rapes reported by servicewomen in the Persian Gulf, and more reported elsewhere. Lack of medical care, incomplete investigations, and retaliation by peers for reporting were some of the complaints. Officials suggest that [...]

A friend sent this link, which is a funny little cartoon about what we do to please our cats. See it all in Lap Dance.
Also, here is a revival of one of my favorite stories: Hank’s Cat Audit.

The year she graduated, her yearbook entry, like many others, said, “Future: Homemaker.” Not an ambitious choice by today’s standards, she knows. Not an impossible one, she thought at the time. Life was like a trip to the Piggly Wiggly, she assumed in those days. You went in with a [...]

The chill sidles up to me, slips me into its embrace.
I lean into it stiffly, my flesh dotted, all attention;
sensation becomes acute, my body aware of
its discomfort, generating shivers of response
to ward off numbness.
This is how I want to live — at the apex of awareness,
not overly comfortable, thus complacent,
not anesthetized, thus unconscious,
but focused and [...]