In February, on Valentine’s Day, we celebrate love and relationship. Humans Need Relationships We are biologically wired to love and bond. This is one of the reasons why the loss of a loved-one can be so challenging. A significant bond is broken and its replacement is not so easily achieved. Connecting and bonding begin from […]
What I would like for this New Year is more ease. January is the time to set our intentions, to think about how we would like our lives to be. We paint a picture of what we want and open our minds to this new possibility. Like so many of us in this Western Culture, […]
Darkness is part of the seasonal cycle and also the cycle of life. There are good times and hard times. The secret of happiness is to learn to flow with the rhythm of these cycles. Often this is a lot easier said than done. Everything is going great and then suddenly BAM— your car breaks […]
November is the month of Thanksgiving. This special holiday combines two elements that are essential to human wellbeing — celebration and gratitude. Celebration, from the Latin celebrātiō, means big assembly. In gathering with others for Thanksgiving we affirm the good that we have accomplished, and express gratitude for the results. Gratitude, from the Latin word […]
We are biologically programed to fear death. All animals are. By fear I mean that automatic response of fight, flee or freeze when faced with a threat to survival. A shadow passes over and the lizard freezes. It passes again and the lizard scurries under a rock. If caught, the lizard will struggle and even […]
September is the month we associate with going back to school. You can feel it in the air, see it in the crowded streets and hear it in shops. Vacation is over! Time to get back to work! Interestingly, the word school comes from the Greek word scholē, meaning leisure. Apparently, back in the days […]
August contains a powerful lesson in impermanence. Each year, school-aged children across the country foresee the ending of their summer vacation. It is a huge loss of freedom and play. This early conditioning of the school/summer cycle is so deeply etched in our psyches that as adults we still feel the loss, even if we […]
Almost every summer for the past 18 years, my husband and I have driven north to Oregon to spend time with his parents at their summer cabin. The cabin is remote, situated 4 miles down a dirt road, deep in a pine forest not far from the Deschutes River. It is so quiet you can […]
June is for fathers. When I was a child, my father took my sisters and me model airplane flying. Youngest and smallest, I was terrified of crashing them, their whining motors tugging at my grip. My father guided me, holding my hand around the control handle until I had the feel of it and then […]
May is for Mother’s Day. Mother, mommy, mom. She is our first relationship in life. She carried us for 9 months inside her body. She birthed us, fed us, kept us warm and safe — to the extent that she was able. She also taught us about love, forgiveness and how to be. We have […]
