After months of anticipation and goodbyes to my friends, school, and neighborhood the five of us got on the plane, me, my brother, my sister, Mom and Dad. I felt more like a family unit than ever as we entered the unknown together. When we arrived at the Brussels airport after connections, a sleepless night, and a massive time change to a foreign country where we would now  live, my siblings and I were excited to see the signs we couldn’t read, the food we didn’t usually eat

Mo, our pet turtle, ambles along the edge of my bedroom while I write this. His shell, which is actually a part of his body, not separate from him, hits the sideboards, the potted plant, almost knocks over a glass of water, until I hear him underneath my chair. When I peak over the edge of my notebook he stretches his purpley-blue neck far out of his shell and looks up at me with a sideways facing eyeball. He blinks once.  I reach for him and place him into the blanket on my

Last week I visited my ninety-eight-year-old Grandmother. Born in 1915, raised on a farm, and then working as a teacher, Grandma Guinther spent her whole life being schooled, or schooling others in what was “right.” Correct behavior, table manners, pronunciation, spelling. Now she has dementia and lives in a memory care facility with others who no longer have the capacity to care for themselves. When I visit her I often struggle with what to  do  while I am there. She’s wheel

The work of letting go has been to discover what life is like when I’m not spending it in offense or defense (protection or grasping). These offensive and defensive moments often happen during interactions with others, of course, but the most profound offensive and defensive behavior was what I discovered inside of myself. I woke up every morning and noticed that there was a part of me, that was already chattering away about the day ahead—what will I do, where will I go, what

The journey is not to find Truth but to discover what is not truth. Truth cannot be found, it is always and always here. I read these kinds of koans for years thinking of them as puzzles to chew on, until an answer arrived, like working a Rubik's Cube until all the colors aligned. But really there is nothing to think about, thinking muddles the truth further rather than clarifying anything. And so it sometimes feels futile to attempt to write about all of this, and yet I feel

I set out to write what arises, to follow this flow of words from the heart, wherever they lead. Somedays I’ve thought to write something different, or to try to control what comes. “Maybe,” I think, “I can tell that funny story about that time when I lived in Australia and went to the beach to watch the kite surfers…” But then I catch myself planning and recall that I’ve vowed not to plan this. I’ve promised myself not to  think out any of these entries, but rather to write

It’s a dream, yet there’s worse happening in reality. Along with empathy, guilt moves through for my privileged life, for my lack of suffering. It’s moments like these when the power of believing thoughts is transparent. I find myself in a state of sad loneliness because of a dream my mind created. Yet, this alone is not a bad thing. The empathy and love I feel as a result connects me to the whole of the human experience. The part that is useless is the guilt, helplessness, d

One of the most difficult cultural messages to unravel in my own inner life has been the message of “the doer.” I, and most people I know, was taught  — you are what you do. This wasn’t overtly state of course, rather it was subtle programming that seeped in through watching the world around me: Be productive Cross things off your list Have a good time Don’t forget to smile. We’re taught from an early age to seek external recognition and praise for all these things that we

Someone did something I didn’t like. I asked him not to do it. He did it anyway. What now? Anger, frustration, accusation? What then? The emotions pass through. Though they can be accessed again and again if I dwell on the details of the argument, bringing them back over and over to life by reliving the past, the words, the perceived hurts. I can make myself into the victim anytime. When there is a disturbance in life the urge is to run away or to fix. I feel annoyed, so I wa

“Come into agreement with your life, so that you are not turning away from yourself in any way.” ~Adyashanti from his book The End of Your World We human beings are so often running away from ourselves, and yet what a ridiculous idea when we try to picture it, like a cartoon man trying to escape his shadow. There he is, relieved, standing for a brief moment at high noon at the height of summer on a blue sky day, wiping sweat from his brow. “Phew,” the thought bubble from his

“Do work for the work’s own sake.” ~Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj This weekend I and my husband Jeff (you can read about what we do here ) performed a kid’s concert to benefit our friends, Melanie and Dennis. They are farmers on Sunbeam Farm who suffered over $19,000 in damages during Colorado’s flooding this fall. Their entire 2013 fall harvest had to be sent to the landfill. The food was potentially contaminated by the flood waters and could not even be composted. To get ready

When you desire and fear and identify yourself with your feelings, you create sorrow and bondage. When you create with love and wisdom and remain unattached to your creations, the result is harmony.” ~Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj from I Am That Learning not to identify with my feelings was one of the strangest things I eve tried. At first it seemed all wrong. I’d grown up with the idea that my feelings were very important, that they told me the truth about what was happening in m

There is no need to resist being fully alive in this world. I have a distinct memory from childhood. There is an argument, between my parents, between me and my parents, our whole family gets involved, yelling, gesticulating. We three children are old enough to talk back, but not old enough to get in a car and drive away. My brother whines. My sister starts to cry. I yell. And then it passes. Our weekend day continues. We are home together in our house. Dad goes back to vacuu

“You are never going to get it all together.” ~Pema Chodron, American-Buddhist nun This is one of my favorite teachings from Pema Chodron, every few months I stumble back onto it. Each time I find my way back I realize, “Ah, I’ve started trying again.” I’ve started believing in the possibility of getting it all together, getting it all done, getting my life in order, tying up all the lose ends of the moment, being “on top” of my email, workload, household chores, even my emot

I began to experiment with this is in my life by paying attention to small details of my day. If I was making the bed, a task I enjoy immensely if I pay attention when I do it, a thought might come through that said “hurry up, you’ll be late.” If I listened to that thought, or followed that thought, then all of a sudden I wasn’t just making the bed and enjoying the feel of the fabrics on my hand, or the morning light shining through the window, I was anxiously making the bed,

The path of the warrior is to find that beam of guiding light that cuts through everything else rattling around in my mind– the voices of doubt, worry, fear and clinging that try to guide my body’s every move. “Sit still long enough to let that light shine through,” I tell myself this morning. “Follow your heart,” I told my roommate last night. She is making a life decision about job and income, I laughed out loud after the words exited my lips. “That sounds so cheesy,” I sai

I, like so many, have been seeking for peace, freedom, and purpose in life. In relationship, in personal growth, in career, in writing itself I have searched, returning again and again willingly or unwillingly to right here, to now. When I was younger I  searched frantically for meaning in my family relationships dissecting each one, in love relationships attempting perfection or idealized romance. I’ve searched in work for meaning in the world, to create a better life. Even

This article was originally published in 2009 in the April/May issue of Viz. I kept it here because it has so much truth today. Save a Child: Love Yourself “What a shock. More carcinogens marketed to humans.” I think, “and of course more problems for women.” It takes a lot of energy to muster outrage on a regular basis, frankly, it’s exhausting, more and more I pay less attention. I prefer instead to make change in the circles of life around me, to spread joy rather than cyn