By practicing awareness and non-judgment, you create space. You provide some breathing room between an action and a reaction and in this space, in this pause, something new can emerge—an insight, or a bit of compassion. This is the beginning of transformation.

I live in Southern Oregon, in the valley where, a few days ago, two towns burned to the ground in one of three wildfires that surround our beautiful valley. It's worse, even, than the fires we had in 2018. Or 2002. And those were dreadful.

“There is a mantra I love that can help enormously with this process we call Life. I saw it written on a whiteboard in a yoga class one day and I have adopted it as one of my Core Principles for Living. Here it is:

One of the more obvious and trying aspects of this pandemic we’re floundering in is all the things we can’t do. This horrid little virus has spurred limitations the likes of which most of us have never seen.

We’ve crossed the Winter Solstice. (The best day of winter, in my opinion. The light’s coming back. Gives one hope.) Christmas has come and gone and the ceaseless conveyor belt of time carries us on into a brave new year, a year that one can only pray will include an impeachment hearing.

The night sea passage can be the space between an ill self and a healthy self, a nest gone empty, retirement, the loss of a loved one, or a failed business venture. Whatever the particulars, one is left feeling as though everything has crumbled and vanished. The night sea passage is not a booze cruise, my friends

Adrenal fatigue — the main symptom of which is unremitting and total exhaustion—is rampant in the U.S., especially among middle-aged women. I might have found this fact interesting in and of itself, but a recent and recurring bout with adrenal fatigue has caused me to pause, quite literally, to consider the nature of disease, its meanings, and our role in creating it.

Imagine yourself on a beach on a lovely summer’s day. You have spent the past few hours lovingly and painstakingly constructing a fantastic sandcastle, complete with moat and protective walls. You stand back admiring your work when you notice that the tide is coming in.

I hate snakes. Hate is a strong word, but there it is. So imagine my excitement this time last year when we entered the year of the Black Water Snake. I knew it was going to be a wild ride, and not just because I hate snakes: I knew it because a year whose symbolic energy is turmoil and transformation ain’t going to be easy.

Four years ago, I began writing a book.* I had something close to a first draft when I took it to a writer’s group. That first day, one of the members arrived late; she looked as if she had just been spit out of a terrible tornado and plopped, disheveled and wide-eyed, into a corn field. The cause of her distress? She had just published her first book.

One of the more interesting phenomena of middle age is the recognition of just how very stupid and arrogant you have been up to wherever you find yourself near the halfway point.

I was very excited, at the beginning of this year, to welcome 2012. February would usher in the Year of the Dragon, an auspicious year, a year of power and dynamism. Having been born in a dragon year, I gleefully anticipated doubly good fortune with health, wealth, and a book deal raining down from the heavens.

Standing in line at the market I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her. I watched intently as she negotiated the checkout, toddler at her side, young baby in her arms.  What was it like, I wondered, having two? I was filled with curiosity, much as I once had been about pregnancy itself.