How will you ever find peace unless you yield to love? —Rabia   If you put down what you carry in case of emergency, you will make space for what can really help. For clutching onto failure or success will only make you sink.   And feeding your fear will only turn it into a dark house that no one can leave.   So unlatch the cage you have double-locked and watch the dark things fly.   There is a... Read more

What you have to attempt [is] to be yourself. What you have to pray for [is] to become a mirror in which, according to the degree of purity of heart you have attained, the greatness of life will be reflected. —Dag Hammarskjold There is so much to say and so little that can be conveyed. I know from my own path that Eternity is measured in the Infinity of a single breath, not the accumulation of years. And of all... Read more

The notion of “our better angels” was offered by Abraham Lincoln in 1861 in his first inaugural address: We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. Suffering the weight of depression, Lincoln himself seemed anchored in his own better angel, which helped him withstand the chaotic wrath of those... Read more

Like someone who falls from a height into the water, I’m past the fall and living in the depth I fell into. Now I must plant two seeds, for I accept that one will be washed away in the storm. Must give more than take, so the seed of love can root while we’re alive. Must accept death, so life can assert its vital shimmer each time we wake. Must hold the tsunami and the butterfly in my mind—every day.... Read more

from Notes from the Pandemic  The apple blossoms behind Susan’s studio are opening and the weeping cherry is turning pink. And today, we have coffee on the deck, our faces in the sun. Everything is so peaceful and full of quiet that we can, for the moment, forget that the Earth is draped in a pandemic. Still, all things are true and all things are happening at once. As I breathe in the early light, someone is taking their last... Read more

The slightest nudge in the fabric of existence alters everything. The shift of an atom when no one is looking can turn a molecule into a disease that covers the Earth, as in the pandemic we are suffering. Similarly, one small act of care can birth a food source that can feed the world. As happened 10,000—14,000 years ago, when an anonymous Chinese farmer first domesticated seed from wild grass to cultivate the first known rice field near the middle... Read more

I began as all young artists do—working toward some imagined greatness that might reveal itself in time, if I could stay devoted enough to my craft. But along the way, I was humbled to be more uplifted by what was true rather than what was great, by what was heartfelt rather than what was intricate. It kept me close to my own experience, which when entered honestly began to reveal the common ground of all experience and all time.  From... Read more

Every day, we are challenged to love what we’re given as much as what we want. We don’t have to like the things we’re given, but we need to find a way to accept them. And love is the surest way to deepen our acceptance. And so, we must stay devoted to getting up one more time than we fall down. To waking up one more time than we fall asleep. To being sensitive one more time than we are... Read more

When finding my way as a young man, I came home from college to have a classic argument with my father. Over dinner the first night, I declared to him with excitement that I was a poet. I hadn’t yet written anything but knew it was true. He was incredulous and frustrated and loudly asked, “How are you going to make a living?” I’m not sure where it came from in me, but I looked at him and said, “I’m... Read more

Germs are microscopic cells that breakdown the structure of the life they enter. In the biology we inhabit, germs are the cause of disease. The spiritual equivalent, however, reaches us as unseeable agents of revelation that break down our structures so we can restore our direct sense of living. These spiritual germs cause us to feel and think in new ways. More simply put, these enzymes of pure life-force cause us to have the rug pulled out from under us.... Read more