Today I turned off the news and set aside the lists for a bit. I read a poem as the sun rose. I made cookies with a dear friend. I viewed some footage of magnificent sea creatures. I saw a tiny rosebud blooming beyond the frost. Dear friends, our world is full of heartaches, yes. And […]
I’ve been mulling over the differences between awe and wonder lately, in part thanks to this recent terrific conversation between Krista Tippett and Dacher Keltner. Their discussion stayed with me because Keltner’s work highlights that the most common form of awe is not the Grand Canyon or the Redwoods, but humans awed by one another. […]
This week I am taking a trip Far Away, for the first time in quite a while. I remember now how much I love that moment when the plane lifts above the clouds, up where it is always sunny. I remember what a delight it is to splash my face with water after a […]
LESSONS IN POLLINATION In honor of National Honeybee Day (August 17), here are a few observations I’ve gathered from beekeeping. On Intentionality. Bees don’t need a lot of care – in fact, you can mess things up by bothering them too much, or by rushing around. Each encounter needs to have a simple plan, light enough […]
The universe has already written the poem you are trying to write. – Sarah Kay Poet Sarah Kay, she of the brilliant If I Should Have a Daughter, recently opened the TED conference by reminding us of how much time we spend trying to invent wonder, while looking right past the […]
I have a big birthday coming up, which naturally leads to all kinds of reflection. It’s great to think of the long arc of endeavor in life, of all that’s been tried and some that’s been accomplished. But it’s even more wonderful to consider the long arc of luck. This passage by John O’Donohue steered […]
The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough. – Rabindranath Tagore Summer in New England is precious, precisely because it is fleeting. Sometimes this translates into a crazy-busy approach to the days – we have to go to the beach! the mountains! the concert! the picnic! Yesterday my […]
You are here. This week, the Cassini spacecraft beamed back its final images from Saturn, before intentionally diving into the planet’s atmosphere to burn up. Cassini had an extraordinary mission, and an extended one – the launch was way back in 1997, and it had been in orbit around Saturn for 13 years. Do you […]
This Sunday’s meditation comes courtesy of the terrific Anne Lamott, author of the above-noted Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers , as well as Small Victories, Bird by Bird, and the upcoming and widely anticipated Hallelujah Anyway. The backdrop above is a photo of a wall that our team built in Malawi this summer with […]