Both Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo left a trail of unfinished art greater than anyone else in modern history. Still, they are regarded as two of the most talented artists who ever lived. They are extraordinary examples of how the journey of expression is more important than the final product. William Blake is another inspiring example. Toward the end of his life, Blake endeavored to illustrate Dante’s Divine Comedy, the medieval epic poem that follows Dante’s transformative journey through Hell... Read more

Thirty-four years ago, in my mid-thirties, I was working hard at becoming a good poet, when I was thrust into my journey with cancer. The torque of that experience pulled me from all my goals and routines and aspirations. I was left in the raw, uncertain simplicity of being alive and trying, by any means possible, to stay alive. I had few native gifts to help me through. The one closest to my heart was the aliveness of expression that... Read more

As skin will stretch and mend a cut, kindness will heal all our divisions in time. Just as something cellular and internal causes trees to grow and fish to develop fins, something equally cellular and internal causes the heart to open. This openness is what releases the enzyme we know as kindness. And while being vulnerable opens the heart, that earned tenderness yields a wholeheartedness that reveals all forms of kinship. It’s how Grandma Minnie made her way from Russia... Read more

(for Joel Elkes)   Already someone is asking who you were. And I well up. I reach for your long life and all you did. But it’s all you touched that can’t be put into words. Twenty years ago, when I was troubled and confused, you took my hand firmly and said, “You steward a force of nature within you. Honor it and trust it.” Later, you led me to the plateau between all that is good in us and... Read more

We keep looking for a home though each of us is a home. And no matter where we run, we land before each other, thoroughly exposed. This is the purpose of gravity—to wear us down till we realize we are each other. Though we think we’re alone, we all meet here. Though we start out trying to climb over each other, we wind up asking to be held. It just takes some of us longer to land here than others.... Read more

One of the great masters of the long walk through time is the Earth itself, as it turns ever so slowly on its axis, turning in place forever. This unconscious devotion to being sustains all life and keeps the mountains and oceans from spinning into space. This great and silent teacher holds the secret of being. For we are each born with an unconscious devotion to turn in place around the unseeable center. And in doing so, we sustain all... Read more

I pause under that summer tree, the one that feels like a friend, as my dog wonders why we’ve stopped. She was trotting in such rhythm. But when this still, I wonder what part of me, way down, remains untouched by dream or memory? What drop of being remains out of reach of the opinions of others? When up close, each thing reveals its shimmer. And it’s the unexpected closeness that holds everything together. The light spreads across my dog’s... Read more

Dogs can hear well beyond the range of human hearing. In California, it’s been reported that dogs have heard the beginnings of earthquakes before seismographs could register their initial tremor. In just this way, there are those of us whose ability to feel, see, and hear others is beyond our normal range of compassion. We call them empaths or psychics. And we often discredit them because what they know because is beyond what we can sense. A central physic of... Read more

Now that I am here, I am somewhat ashamed at my long insistence on there. Now that I am loved, I am sorry for the hurts I caused in my want to be loved. Now that I can see, I am humbled by my desperate attempts to be seen.   Such a long, unforeseen road to simply be without defining myself by others, for others, in compliance with or resistance to.   Such an arduous path to breathe in the... Read more

After ten years of swimming, I stopped when Eleanor died. She was one of several dear ones who had left the Earth. There was too much to tend, and part of my heart had stopped, unsure how to continue. Everyone called it grief, but below the name, I felt that the fire in my center was beginning to smoke. I kept my appointments and did the endless tasks, but some part of me felt hollow. Slowly, over many months, I... Read more