Ben Okri is a Nigerian poet and author who was one of the youngest writers to win the Booker Prize in 1991 for his novel The Famished Road. I recently finished reading this book and it now numbers among my all-time favorites and so I poked around YouTube searching for an interview with him. And […]
The Rich Diversity of You and Us
You are unique – there has been nobody like you ever before and there will be no one quite like you ever again. So take a minute (or a few) to rejoice in you. Love yourself completely just as you are with all your (apparent) imperfections and maladies and quirks. This is part of your […]
TRIPLE NEW TIMES
I know our official New Year already happened on January first, but there are several other kinds of New Years’ or, better put it, New Times of varying types and magnitudes that will soon be impacting us individually, collectively and cosmically. I am thinking of three in particular that are at hand, or soon to […]
Clearing and Cleaning for the Year to Come
One of my fondest memories of the year I spent teaching English in rural Japan back in the 1980s was New Years. I was a recent College graduate with minimal preparation for being dropped into a part of Japan that was still quite traditional in mores and cultural patterns. My first New Year’s surprise happened […]
THESE TIMES
Fourteen years ago, in mid-December, I met the man who I am now married to at a Shopper Christmas party. One week later, my mother passed away peacefully on the night of the winter solstice. I nestled close to her now cool body until the ambulance arrived. This year, there will be no Shopper party […]
PATIENCE
When my daughter was in nursery school, her favorite song starred a snail and had the following refrain: “Be patient, be patient, don’t be in such a hurry/when you get impatient, you only start to worry.” These words have popped back into my mind in the last few weeks, as we have been dealing with […]
Allowing ourselves to mourn
Loss is an inevitable aspect of being a human, and the older we advance in age, the more losses we have sustained personally and observed in the world. While we would all prefer to live in a fairy tale land where loss doesn’t happen, we can’t. In fact, learning how to navigate through loss is […]
OFFERINGS
For as long as I can recall, I have been fascinated by the concept of offering and offerings. One of my first writing pieces from third or fourth grade was titled “Death Wish”. It was about an indigenous man singled out to be the blood offering for a ceremony who is rescued at the last […]
It’s about Love
I hope that you are doing well in these challenging times for all of us. Each of us is being forced to confront some of our fears and trepidations, some of our concerns and areas of insecurities, and come to terms with not knowing what will unfold or happen in the upcoming period of time […]
Expansion and Contraction
There are natural cycles and patterns on planet Earth that impact us all, sooner or later. One of these is expansion and contraction. This cycle can be noted in so many aspects of our life and lives. In our breath, we inhale to a certain point as our lungs expand, and when they have reached […]
