The German airplane crash by a suicidal pilot, the Florida shootings, the Boston bombings. Every week, we read about innocent people getting hurt or killed. We try to avoid pain and suffering; we teach children to look both ways before crossing the street, wash their hands after using the bathroom, and not to get into […]
Standing Behind the Waterfall: Learning to Change Distorted Thinking with Mindfulness
Thoughts are not facts. When we’re upset, our thoughts seem valid—yet it’s exactly when our emotions get stirred up that our thinking can easily become distorted. Conclusions based on distorted thinking can’t be trusted. When my friend Sharon returned from a business trip, she was feeling disturbed and uncomfortable. As she described her experience, she […]
Meditations on Humpback Whales: Mindfulness of Sights and Sounds
On a recent trip to Africa, I climb the bluff from which, I’d been told, I could see whales breaching. I have the strand to myself; September in Tofo, Mozambique, is not the season for beach-goers. I stand like a sentry as I gaze out at the Indian Ocean. I’m familiar with the Pacific, but […]
The Church of the Backyard: Finding Comfort in Nature
For many years I have met with a group of women one Friday morning a month. Around our kitchen tables, we light a candle, have a moment of quiet, and then sip tea together as we read from a variety of spiritual works. In recent years, we often turn to poetry. Most of our meetings […]
The New Year: Rebirth and obstacles
By the third or fourth week of January, many of us are reevaluating our lives. We’ve either made resolutions (and perhaps already broken them) or we are resisting this ancient practice with awareness of the years of collapsed intentions when previous New Year’s hopes didn’t pan out. Yet we continue to be drawn to the symbolic cycle […]
