Returning to Helena Montana, my home town, and now Missoula, my college/adult home, I am feeling ever so deeply the incredible power of community. In my recent travels, community was hard to come by. In London I was fortunate enough to be housed with some really fantastic people from around the world – Sjors from Holland, Lenard from Slovenia, Soyoung from S. Korea, Sana from Pakistan, Shahnaz from India, and Gianfranco from Italy (amongst others). We all joined together, orphans... Read more

I came across this photo today, with the caption: “The devil China knows,” at the economist.com. It is wonderfully heartening to see that even in the face of such amazing atrocities on the part of the Chinese leadership in Tibet, H.H. the Dalai Lama still finds humor where humor is due. The Chinese have called him “a ‘devil’ with a human face and the heart of a beast” and no doubt in many of their minds he is just that.... Read more

After moving four times in the last year, once just across town, once across the country, and twice across the Atlantic ocean, I have somehow begun to feel a bit uprooted. (note: that’s sarcasm) In fact, I have felt very uprooted, or – as I prefer to put it, unanchored, caught up too much in the stormy seas of life. However, I see with great gratitude that every time I seemed perilously near rocky shores, some dear friend (too many... Read more

Yesterday around 3pm I arrived ‘home’ to Montana, greeted by big skies, fluffy clouds and snowcapped peaks. I have already recieved many warm welcomes from friends and colleagues by email and phone and feel ever so grateful to have them all in my life again. The drive, snaking from DC to Helena, with stops in Ohio, Missouri, Kansas, and Colorado brought much time for meditation and reflection. Hearing about the cyclone in Burma brought sadness, but also perspective: while I... Read more

If you have to choose between doing the right thing and doing what is going to please people, do the right thing. – my dad. Another bit of great news today, this from West coast port workers who have taken a day off in protest of the Iraq War: “We’re loyal to America, and we won’t stand by while our country, our troops and our economy are being destroyed by a war that’s bankrupting us to the tune of $3... Read more

I’m back in Ohio now with my buddy Brady at Kel’s mom’s place, en route to Montana. It’s been a crazy week (to say the least), filled with travels, emotional ups and downs, and plenty of wisdom from good friends and family. I’ll spare you most of that for now. Last night I stayed in the aptly named town of Omps, Pennsylvania, at a hotel that cost $25. I took some pictures, but I think it’s best to leave it... Read more

This week tens of thousands of human lives may have been saved by the courageous action of a few dockworkers in South Africa. A ship from China was loaded with “millions of rounds of AK-47 ammunition, rocket-propelled grenades and mortar rounds, all intended for the Zimbabwe Defence Force” (source). If you haven’t been following the news, Zimbabwe recently held an election in which the opposition party appears to have won (exact results are being held by the ruling party under... Read more

Puppy (Brady) laying a surprise wet one on yours truly. I am in lovely Medina, Ohio this week with Kelly’s mother and awaiting Kel’s arrival on Friday for her wedding shower. In my time here I have worked on recuperating from London exhaustion and even the restlessness and ‘astral smog’ as our friend Raven describes it, of the DC area. One thing both Kelly and I have jumped into recently has been Oprah’s web classes with Eckhart Tolle based on... Read more

Years ago a friend of mine told me of her refusal to vaccinate her two young children, then aged around 5 and 8. She told me about links to autism and other mental and physical abnormalities associated with childhood vaccines. It sounded to me then like one of those goofy conspiracy theories that people come up with, but ever since then I’ve kept an eye out for evidence one way or another about vaccines and health. Also along the way... Read more

Zen at its best is something like a talk between two would be lovers: “If you love me, get over the words and distance, but give space.” – Piya Tan – from a Buddhist discussion list. The issue of distance or space is perhaps a constant in relationships between unenlightened beings. Sometimes we want others very near, other times we want ‘our space’. Too lonely one day, smothered the next. This phrase of Tan’s was particularly poignant as I contemplate... Read more