A day of silence, for the purpose of relief from noise and technological pollution, can be like a cleanse. That’s why I took on the challenge from my qigong teacher even though he didn’t offer it as a challenge but as a time of inward honing. Twenty-four hours of no talking, tv, computer, texts, phone… Read more »
I was looking at old family pictures and took pause when I saw myself as a young mother. So polished and busy, so needing to get it right, so affected by what anyone thought of me. I wondered what I would tell myself as a young woman if she were standing in front of me… Read more »
I was invited to a cooking demonstration using vegan recipes. Why not learn how to prepare food using different ingredients? Vegan cooking is a plant-based diet which eliminates animal and dairy products. Many people follow that style of eating because of their distaste for consuming animals and they feel that our bodies function at peak… Read more »
How do your beliefs affect your health? How can you contribute to healing with renewed and conscious behavior? A recent lecture by a Taoist shed light on sometimes overlooked attitudes that either promote healing or keep us identified with illness or dis-ease. Zhenzan Dao says that it is important to address the illness and all… Read more »
Last week I fulfilled a long-time dream – my daughter and I went to the Galapagos Islands. It was a spectacular trip spending 5 days on a boat with 15 other people. We hiked on lava fields with huge crevices and snorkeled with white tipped sharks (who were not hungry, we were assured), marine iguanas,… Read more »
We try so hard to maintain the status quo, but where would we be without contrast and opposites? If we never felt sad, how would we know what it felt like to be happy? If we were never hungry we wouldn’t feel the satisfaction of being satiated. Would we appreciate the immense variety of tastes… Read more »
Chinese medicine is inextricably connected with mind and body, nature and soul. Our emotions are not separate from seasons, experiences and thought, and it is believed that states of dis-ease can occur from dampness, dryness, wind and cold. Far Eastern philosophy, as explained by my qigong teacher, has some things to say about anger… Read more »
Let’s talk about embarrassment. I don’t know why, but it popped into my head a few days ago and I began to explore it. There seems to be an element of “other people” involved in being embarrassed. If you were on a deserted island with no other human being around and you were delightfully swinging… Read more »
My friend and I had some differences. They got exasperated in a phone call wrought with hurt feelings and misunderstood intentions. The more we talked the worse it got. It felt like pulling teeth from a gnarly ogre. Just plain ugly. We decided not to talk for a few days and let things settle. But… Read more »
I parked my car and went around to the trunk to get some canvas bags out. That’s when I heard someone call from across the lot, “Do you have an extra pair of gloves?” I turned and saw a homeless man sitting on the cement propped up against the wall of CVS. I rummaged through… Read more »