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 […]
Category: Community healing
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 […]
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 […]
Dreams and the Dark Times
About five months ago, I had a dream so clear and precise that even now I can close my eyes and see the scene unfold before me in intricate detail. It opened with me alone, clutching tightly a blue and white pottery shard I had found in my trip to Greece last year. It may […]
Healing Repetitive Patterns in Our Lives
We have all experienced it. We promise ourselves that we won’t repeat something our mother or father or aunt or uncle or other family member did that we don’t like. And then we end up doing the same thing, wondering how come we can’t break out of this pattern despite our best intentions. For me, […]
Living Stones, Loving Earth & Now
Life as we know it is changing, shifting. We can feel it in our bones and in our hearts. Many are the explanations offered for these new times we struggle to wrap our minds around. For those who truly follow the ancient Toltec/Mayan ways, this is because we are in a time of transition from […]
Peace, Darkness and the Tree
She was waiting for me patiently, like always, when I stopped by to say “hello” to her the other day. She was quite a bit taller than the last time I had seen her a few months ago. The summer sun must have been good to her, as had the autumn rains. Only one wrinkled […]
Living Stones, Loving Earth & Now
Life as we know it is changing, shifting. We can feel it in our bones and in our hearts. Many are the explanations offered for these new times we struggle to wrap our minds around. For those who truly follow the ancient Toltec/Mayan ways, this is because we are in a time of transition from […]
Honoring the Mountain, Honoring the Water
Imagine partying non-stop for a month, as a sacred act. That’s what goes on throughout much of the Ecuadorian Andes starting on the summer solstice. In a tradition that extends back to long before the Inca in this part of the globe, communities and villages celebrate Inti Raymi, or the sun festival long and hard. […]
