Articles

Select pieces written over the past few years. Click here to see the Newsletter Archive.

Recognizing Impermanence 

By and

Childhood photos, the fleeting impression of a dream, flowers wilting on the kitchen table – reminders of impermanence are everywhere. Nevermind the grave reminders of the cemetery I walk through a few times each week. Changes, transitions and endings are the rules, not the exceptions. Though Western culture is hellbent on selling us eternal youth and everlasting love, our lived experiences reveal a different reality.

And yet, in the rhythm of my everyday life, as a relatively young and healthy person, I’m all too quick to lose sight of how changes, transitions and endings are personally relevant to my life. Somehow, it can be hard for me to connect the dots. I have a feeling I’m not alone in that. I wonder sometimes if asking ourselves to build a life, to commit to the things and people we love in this world requires us to forget, in some sense, the tenuous nature of existence?

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Taking out the trash

By and

Kindness is an unfolding, spacious opening, not a destination we strive for. The deeper we go with ourselves the more we can access this place of deep connection with others, creating a compassionate foundation from which kindness can flow in all directions.

These acts of kindness don’t need to be grand gestures. Simple, micro moments – an acknowledgement, a smile, looking in someone’s eyes during a conversation, really, truly listening…acts of kindness are the language of love. The Dalai Lama says, “My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.”

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The Cultivation of Interdependence  

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No surprise that interdependence can feel like sweet balm in an otherwise-imbalanced world. But what we seem to forget is that interdependence isn’t something we have to try for, orchestrate or strive for. It’s something we simply can’t fall out of.

In other words, you do not have to try to be interdependent. You simply can’t not be.

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Hint: the cage is not locked.  

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As we let go of a search for freedom. Or liberation or immortality or whatever word is as far away as the perfect wedding or train ride and begin to understand what we actually hold as incredibly more perfect because the million happenings have been smithing it from the beginning. 

It is why we practice mindfulness. Not to get anywhere, but to be.

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