Searching for Words in a Fog

There once was a woman of age Who struggled to honor a page With some nourishing words Ones that sang, flew like birds, But alas! She was never a sage. (And such hopes are so often a cage.)   Plus it’s winter, it’s cold and it’s dark, And her mind must be locked...

Images of Insecurity

Until a few days ago I was at a retreat center in upstate New York. Twenty women and the facilitator, Jalaja Bonheim, came together for a week, experiencing the powerful geometry of the circle, allowing sacred space and silence to fortify us and help us move from...

Fragile

I’ve been feeling small the last few days. Fragile. Young. Sensitive. I want to be held, snuggled, tended. And I’m tired. And weepy. I’m fighting off a skin infection and I’ve had a busy couple months—that must be it. Why must I always search for a reasonable...

Don’t Bore the Gods!

I had a humbling Aha! moment the other day. Humbling but also freeing. Tom and I have been reading a series of young adult novels, The Lost Years of Merlin. The five book series, which imagine Merlin from about age 9 to adulthood, are fun, full of enchanted forests,...

Freedom

I stumbled across a poem today while doing quite unrelated things. The title made me curious so I read it. Instantly my belly became fluttery, and at the same time I felt profoundly sad. I read it again. Here is the poem. It is by Naomi Shahib Nye and is called How to...

Endless Possibilities—Too Much?

The world is so full of a number of things, I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.                                                 Robert Louis Stevenson, from A Child’s Garden of Verses  My mother used to perkily quote this to us kids when I was growing up. I...