Grateful that even with all of the COVID restrictions, I was able to travel from Boston to Chicago to play a round of golf with my 94-year old Dad this Fall (photo attached) - Tony Ursillo
Read MoreWhen I sat down to write, I kept thinking about how visceral this season has felt. How urgent, how moving.. There was arresting beauty, and deep foreboding, and it struck me that those combined experiences ARE autumn itself, so maybe the idea is to seep into it and experience what nature is showing me.
In addition, this wasn’t a usual autumn, as I observed it. The wild animals surrounding our house were acting 100% wacky. When the neighbors sign went up I thought, hmmm, we are all experiencing this season together, and it feels different, together. I took my lead from these oddly behaving animals and started to observe more. This is what came out.
Read MoreI’ve been wearing some form of movement tracker, and then smart watch, for the past five years. I’ll admit, at first it was fun to “get my steps in.” Now I think I probably use the timer more often than anything else. (My morning French Press — Hey Siri, 4 minute timer...) I still aim to close my rings every day, but it’s more the fear of failure rather than fun to finish. But if these metrics don’t spark joy, and make me WANT to achieve them, which ones would? What are my own methods for knowing I’m content, happy, and fulfilled? If I could change what 3 things my watch was measuring, I think I might use: movement, sleep, and laughter.
Read MoreI shared this note below this morning with a dear dear friend and then with Irwin. Amazing thinking I received back from Irwin…. Not a surprise. I hope it makes a difference. It is a bit longer than normal Writer’s Circle notes.
Read MorePeople had told me the lines in Manhattan to vote early were long, but I never expected to see a line this long. It wound around a city block two times, but the tail end stretched across two more. As I got in the line, a poll volunteer told me it could be a four hour wait.
I considered leaving and trying another time - really early one morning right when they opened. But I had a hunch this line was going to be long no matter what. Also to my surprise, no one else was getting out of line, or walking away once they heard how long the wait would be. People just kinda said, “oh gosh, okay” and accepted the future for their next few hours.
Read MoreThe stiller I become the more I can see.
Red dragon flies, ruby meadowhawks... hundreds,
hovering like helicopters above a surface of green
Before they join the dance with one another
In circular patterns around the pond.
Read MoreIt’s finally been happening lately. Something I haven’t felt for a long time. Maybe not since I was a kid. I know other people have been experiencing it, so this feeling does still exist, somewhere, just not in my experience recently. But there I was, raking the tenth pile of leaves as my kids blew bubbles in the yard when it hit me. This week I felt bored. A couple times, even! And it was wonderful.
Read MoreRunning is a big part of my life and I Iove to race. I was especially looking forward to it this year since I had just joined a team in New York city, but COVID caused my plans to change - suddenly the five races I had scheduled and was training for this year were cancelled.
Then Steve called - what do you think about running across the Grand Canyon with a small group of people instead?
Read MoreBack in college, whenever I was most overloaded with coursework, it was no question where I’d go to tackle it. Most of my friends would head straight to the library. Instead, when I was swamped, I went to the swamp.
On many stress-induced occasions, I loaded up my backpack, picked up an iced-coffee, and headed to this very spot on campus. There was a table beside a small pond surrounded by cabbage palms, live oaks, and the sounds of lively warblers and murmuring toads.
My fellow students used to turn to me and ask, “How do you not get totally distracted there?”
Read MoreSome years ago a friend of mine from Denmark (then a recent arrival in the US) asked me, "Why do people ask, how are you, when they don't really want to know?" Ah ha! There was something I had been clearly missing in my day to day transaction. "Hello, how are you?" has become for many people, part of the standard greeting and is usually met with, "Good, fine, ok". Try answering the question with, "Exceptional, outstanding, excellent" and see what type of response you get? Back to my Danish friend. She went on to explain that most people in Denmark would never ask, "How are you?" because they don't want to know how you are doing, and if they did ask, they would wait and listen to the whole story behind why you felt a certain way. Insightful.
Read More“For the sake of others you renounce your privacy…” - Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
I reread this idea above recently. It stopped me in my tracks.
“Why in the world, again, would I renounce my privacy? To help others? Huh?”
When I think of privacy, I don’t think about medical records or my “data.” I think of my mind and all that runs through it.
Way back when, I was terrified of sharing many of my thoughts.
All the doubts and fears and reactions and anxieties and sadness and hurt and processes and insecurities and mistakes...oh.
My failures. When I was wrong. When I was responsible for hurting someone. When I was mean…or envious…
Or when I knew it was right to say, “I’m sorry” and deeply mean it but…I couldn’t.
I think I was trained to hide all of this stuff because, surely, it would make me far less attractive to other humans…
I wanted the “privacy” to all THAT stuff in my mind.
If people thought I was…perfect…and didn’t see my shortcomings…all would be great, right?
Read MoreA few months ago, I lost my best friend. It has been hard. I had so much to do in my practical life these past weeks that I kept postponing a much-needed mourning period, as I knew it would stop me. I simply could not inconvenience myself in that way. So, I kept going, as if I was free diving, holding my breath to the deepest possible depth. A controlled dive. And then, one day, I started making my way back to the surface, to breath. And I allowed myself to grieve.
Read MoreIn what seems like another life, I used to be a pastor.
Even though I have a very different perspective on life and spirituality than I did in those days, from my early twenties until my mid-thirties I had the privilege of walking alongside people through some of the best and worst days of their lives.
On one particular Saturday in the summer of 1998, I officiated a wedding and a funeral on the same day.
In the late morning, I joined with the family members and friends of a young couple who gathered to witness their public profession of love and commitment to each other as they beamed with joy and dreamed about their new life together.
Waking up and realizing your spouse let you sleep in and has the kids
Going through the mail and seeing one from a friend
Work emails that go into gif mode
Trying out a new flavor of ice cream
- Suzi Chun-Turley
Read More There is no justice in this world; only our collective struggles towards it.
All we have are our collective desires and practices.
Through bellies on fire, heavy hearts, cloudy visions, longings to ground in new prayers and practices for the future,
We gather in community.
We circle up to receive the resource and restoration required.
We circle up to grieve, to heal, to learn.
Every year during performance reviews or interviews, we get asked and ask others questions like this “what are the areas of improvement?”, “what are the strengths and weaknesses?” As if it is a predictive exercise that may foretell what I am good or suck at.
As a human, I recognize that I am not complete, and the areas of improvement are far more numerous than there are strengths. However, I think I should be able to dynamically assess the strengths and weaknesses as the situation arises - identify it and work on it or seek help to fill the void.
Read MoreI know some people that determine a word of the year as a sort of new year's resolution – they pick a word they want to focus on for that year, a word they want to strive towards. Can I pick a word of the year almost ten months into it?
I want my word of the year to be grace.
To me, grace means seeing others for where they are at. No questions. Respecting needs or desires with no judgement. It is both internal and external.
Read MoreHunter S Thompson observed that writers are either peckers, laboring over every word, or swoopers, getting lots of words down and doubling-back later on for edits. I see that people tend to be this way in their interactions with other people, too: one may concentrate solely on a few very strong connections, or more widely distribute their attention with a greater number of weak connections. Between these two ways of being, I’m certainly the latter.
Read MoreOne of my favorite parts of the morning is opening the curtains to my favorite room in the house, which happens to be my baby’s nursery/my yoga room. Although this may sound sweet at first, it’s not because that’s how I wake up with baby. That sounds beautiful. But, in fact, I typically wake up in the pitch blackness to my baby crying and/or screaming at 5am…which is not, in fact, my favorite part of the morning. But, a couple hours later, her Dad takes her out for a morning walk and I come back into her nursery and transform it back into my yoga room…..
Read More