______________ This fall, Sounds True is publishing a box set of teaching conversations based on the poems in my book Reduced to Joy. The poems are the teachers and unfold the journey from our head to our heart. For the next two months, I’m happy to be previewing poems and reflections from the box set.   This poem speaks to the closeness I had with my first dog, many years ago. I can still feel the details of this scene.... Read more

______________ This fall, Sounds True is publishing a box set of teaching conversations based on the poems in my book Reduced to Joy. The poems are the teachers and unfold the journey from our head to our heart. For the next two months, I’m happy to be previewing poems and reflections from the box set.   Everyone who ever lived has had to negotiate the source of what they know and how to withstand the undue influence of others. This... Read more

______________ This fall, Sounds True is publishing a box set of teaching conversations based on the poems in my book Reduced to Joy. The poems are the teachers and unfold the journey from our head to our heart. For the next two months, I’m happy to be previewing poems and reflections from the box set.   With so many things blocking us from what matters, how do we develop a practice of return when we become confused? This poem explores... Read more

______________ This fall, Sounds True is publishing a box set of teaching conversations based on the poems in my book Reduced to Joy. The poems are the teachers and unfold the journey from our head to our heart. For the next two months, I’m happy to be previewing poems and reflections from the box set. We recently lost our beloved dog-child Mira, a yellow-lab whose eyes you could live in and whose breathing touch had become home. It’s been a... Read more

______________   This fall, Sounds True is publishing a box set of teaching conversations based on the poems in my book Reduced to Joy. The poems are the teachers and unfold the journey from our head to our heart. For the next two months, I’m happy to be previewing poems and reflections from the box set.   We each have these stories in our own journey that have shaped us—either positively or negatively, either as affirmations or cautions. But we... Read more

______________   This fall, Sounds True is publishing a box set of teaching conversations based on the poems in my book Reduced to Joy. The poems are the teachers and unfold the journey from our head to our heart. For the next two months, I’m happy to be previewing poems and reflections from the box set.   Both being and doing are necessary, the way two hands are necessary, or two legs, or two eyes. It’s our job to discover... Read more

______________   This fall, Sounds True is publishing a box set of teaching conversations based on the poems in my book Reduced to Joy. The poems are the teachers and unfold the journey from our head to our heart. For the next two months, I’m happy to be previewing poems and reflections from the box set. This poem speaks to the proper role of guides and what they open us to. You’ll notice that the voice of this poem is... Read more

______________ This fall, Sounds True is publishing a box set of teaching conversations based on the poems in my book Reduced to Joy. The poems are the teachers and unfold the journey from our head to our heart. For the next two months, I’m happy to be previewing poems and reflections from the box set. There’s no escaping the turmoil of experience, no avoiding the storms that toss us about or the light that follows. It’s a paradox we all... Read more

______________ During periods of constriction and insecurity, we can become so fearful of difference and so in need of preserving our fragile hold on things that we can fall under the spell of our own glare and retreat into a form of personal fundamentalism. This poem speaks to our need to break free.   An Open Hand   The mind is not a storeroom with mirrors where we retreat to convince ourselves that we exist.   The mind is a... Read more

______________ There are times when how we operate in the world just turns upside down. This poem speaks to such a time for me.     Bareback No question I’ve been knocked from my invisible horse and the one with tools in his hands keeps prodding: Get back in the saddle. What are you waiting for? But the timeless one affirms: You’re not listening. There is no more saddle. We’ve done away with all that. The driven one keeps looking... Read more