There’s a lot of God and sex in Missouri. The billboards tell me so. They advertise misspelled pleasures and repentance in equal measure at approximate 200 yard intervals. They lull you into the lazy pace that seems to inhabit the sleepful walkers who live here. Towns are named Peculiar and Tightwad and Bland as if to foreshadow who you might next meet. Overalls never went out of style; and bushy beards too cumbersome for the early May heat are back in.
Read MoreI am supposed to be writing the piece for my audition but my brain doesn’t want me to write it just yet. And so I meander.
If you are a writer, you will likely understand.
I write a little but find myself distracted by the Google Chrome icon in my task bar which, to me, looks a lot like a camera shutter.
This makes me think of my father. I start to research where to entrust the development of the ancient film in his 1970s cameras that Mom still has so I click Chrome to browse a few labs.
Read MoreThese two things are on my mind today and I spent a fair amount of time with them in meditation and during a walk in the woods.
When people talk about ‘showing up’ they usually envision the physical manifestation of this. Attending a wedding. Sitting at a bedside in hospice. Loaning money. But, this is not all of it. Some of us ‘show up’ in very different ways without attendance taken. These count just as much…sometimes more…and take many forms. We set something in motion and get out of the way. We listen for hours in a living room with no ‘credit’. Some people pray or send light and love. Other people heal with words or hands. And sometimes our absence is the best possible way to ‘show up’ because it is what is needed most.
Read MoreThis ‘balance thing’ is difficult.
• Live with intention – but let things flow.
• Focus – and breathe.
• Change – and accept.
• Feel whatever you feel – and then feel gratitude for it (including those things that hurt).
• Understand your wholeness – outside of your story.
For me, these things are more challenging than learning to write with my non-dominant hand. Or mastering a yoga balance pose on shifting sand. Or apologizing (particularly when I know I am the one who is wrong). Or listening patiently when I have something to say. Or being open to examining myself ~ truly examining myself ~ and then being willing to change.
Read More“I can’t make those two realities – what I’ve lost and what I’ve found – fit together in some tidy pattern of divine causality. I just have to hold them on the one hand and on the other, just like that”
Read MorePeople have often asked me what I do. But, I could not find a way to honor all of who I am with a short answer to that simple question. Until I realized that in absolutely everything I do I put color into the world.
Read MoreI understand that it is relatively easy to catch a monkey. You simply put something enticing into the hollowed end of a coconut (like peanuts) and they will reach in to grab them and make a fist. Then you reel the coconut in by a string. The monkey will refuse to let go of the peanuts to save his/her life because they perceive that they are something needed…even though they are not. In essence, they risk everything and trap themselves based upon false perceptions.
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