It is natural to want to improve, to work toward excellence and mastery of what we love. But at some dark edge, we can slip into the reaches of what-is-not over the improvement of what-is. Then the inner critic begins to measure all we do against an impossible standard, and we in turn begin to live in the breach. I’m thinking of an early Zen parable about a master calligrapher who is asked to design the signage to the entrance... Read more

What if we misheard our original instruction? What if, rather than turning everything we touch into riches, we are called to enrich everything we touch? What if the sole purpose of leaving Eden was so we could find it within? A Question to Walk With: Describe the rhythm of your heart as you interact with those around you. What does authentic relationship do to you? This is from my book in progress, The Long Seasons of Being Human. You can... Read more

As I stepped into the shuttle to the airport hotel, I noticed two women who were blind sitting with their canes upright like staffs or scepters from another time, as if they were shepherds or queens in another life. They were gentle with each other and I thought of all the blind soothsayers in all the mythologies, stumbling through the outer world in order to see farther than any of us in the inner realm. As I entered the lobby,... Read more

Before we buy tickets, before we drive and park and fill the theatre, the dancer all alone closes her eyes and spins about the Axis of the Universe with no one watch- ing until the Dance of Time fills her arms and her legs. Spinning slowly like a flower opening, she starts to glow. And all the practice from that point on is just to bring that glow of opening to others. Though it is called a performance, when the... Read more

In my twenties, I lived under a veil of neediness that came from feeling unworthy.  I could never be certain that I was loved, and so I worked very hard to be  indispensable to others, hoping to make myself needed. Then, I thought, those I  cared about would have to love me. It was almost dying of cancer in my thirties  that ripped the veil of neediness from me.    Breathing in the hospital at night after surgery, I saw... Read more

When walking, I thought  of all the legendary walkers:  of Plato wandering with his  students in his olive grove, of  Basho circling the island of Japan,  of Ben Johnson hiking to Scotland  in his grief to see his friend, William  Drummond, of Emerson and Whitman  strolling for hours across what would  be Boston Commons, and of those in  history who walked their way to a new  land. When Berlin fell, there were  women and children who walked  out of the... Read more

In our seventies, we walk  the streets of New York  one more time, stopping  to watch a pigeon in the  turret of an old church.    A quiet miracle that we  have made it this far. We  have hoisted each other  out of many ditches and  climbed the cliff of each  other’s knowing.    The pigeon nods and  then flies off. A small  group of street musicians  strut through the arch of  Washington Park, belting  out “When the saints  come... Read more

  Pluck a string on a harp  and let the note ring.     Already, you have a  memory of that note  and an imagination  of the next.    But you were only one  with the song in the  moment of pluck.    It is the same with love  and pain, with what might  have been and what  might be.     A Question to Walk With: In conversation with a friend or loved one, discuss your own struggle to stay in... Read more

  On this ordinary day, he woke with a terrible sense that something was missing. He dressed and sipped his coffee, but couldn’t shake the stir in his stomach. How could he find it if he didn’t even know what was missing? As he drove to work, he looked for it everywhere: in the birds on the wires, in the steady blink of every red light, in the steps of others in the parking lot. Just what was missing? At... Read more

   Since we first saw a bison on the prehistoric plain and it seemed to stare back at us, we have turned everything into us. With the curiosity of a child, we humanize everything—making the dog pout when we’re sad, making the bird sing when we’re happy, making the cloud lazy when we feel lost—all as a way in, as a way to feel a small ion of life’s force in everything we meet, as a way to experience the... Read more