In Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, the spirit Ariel, living on a remote island, has been confined in a cloven pine tree by a spell. When the wise and learned Prospero, sent into exile, lands on the island, he agrees to free the spirit if Ariel does his bidding—to create a storm, a tempest so […]
The fullest experience of the adventure of life: Eleanor Roosevelt, writing, and mindfulness
I just returned from Rhinebeck, NY, where I took an intensive professional training course in Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) for the Prevention of Depression Relapse. The five-day course was developed for health-care professionals who already have experience with mindfulness-based approaches. Many years ago, I studied Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction with its developer, Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn. Since […]
Appreciating the Absence of Pain
You don’t appreciate not having a toothache until you have a toothache. Sitting in the endodontist’s chair last week, I was asked if my tooth ached. I paused for a long moment, and then replied, “ache is a very vague term”. We both laughed. Pain is difficult to measure. Equally difficult to measure is joy– […]
