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Gateless gate; Tassajara Zen Mountain Center entrance bridge.

Contacting the deeper constant.

“In the recesses
between the words
in the margins
of favorable fact
under the performed surface
contact the deeper constant
derived from
the alluvial grounds
of being”

—Maria Popova, Divinations for Uncertain Days

Last couple of weeks have been a proper pilgrimage. Taught with at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, saw Abbot Jiryu Rutschman-Byler’s Sunday dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm, visited two dear teachers in their homes. So many ceremonies absorbed, still metabolizing, preparing for this moment as I write to you.

On the ground at the Tea House at Green Gulch Farm, above; Dear teacher’s home altar, below.

Post-Op Jimmy.

James had a long-anticipated spinal surgery a couple days ago; recovery proceeding well. Just prior to retrieving him at the hospital, I pause, stand at my home altar, stare into my mom’s eyes, ask her aloud what i need to know for this next period of caretaking, and draw a card from the Daily Ceremony deck as I do every day. Pulled the “Ceremony” card. Ceremonies everywhere. The card from Maria Popova’s Divinations deck, quoted above, holds it all. "Contact the deeper constant" no matter what I’m doing these days.

Reset the bed, prepare the food, get him walking.
Ask more questions.
Lots of skin on skin time (thank you Sara Szal MD).
Administer meds. Note dosage, timing.
Call the MD when pain grows acute. Learn it’s just the nerve waking up.
Note, he can feel his toes now. HE CAN FEEL HIS TOES!
Homeopathy. Music. Lay still next to him. Discuss lyrics.
Call friends, more laughter. Tears.
Feel frustration. Offer self empathy. Own it. Do it over.
Repeat.

The temples have come home with me, this feeling I’m sharing is one of being resourced and even, at times, relaxed. Everything is included in this experience, no part need be left out. Even when he’s wincing, even when I’m feeling overwhelm.

Where are your unexpected ceremonies?

Leave a comment

Last highlights from last week’s pilgrimage.

Sat with (above) for a talk about Undimmed and Hold Nothing—engaging with the good people of Mill Valley in an unforgettable ceremony of truth, inquiry, love and support. Saw my Dad… what a blessing.

And lastly, sitting around the table with these legends (below) was one of the simpler and more life-affirming ceremonies of our travels. Here, our post-dinner walkabout selfie with , her man Brad, my Jimmy, and our dear friend and teacher Frank Ostaseski, author of The Five Invitations, with closing conclusions for today:

Hang with your people.
Love deeply.
Take the time to be present.

See you at Telluride Yoga Festival June 25th-28th, the MDs at Upaya in mid-July for the Inner Practice of Medicine, and finally I’ll be at Esalen in September with , and (almost full).

See you in North Carolina at Firecreek Retreat in October (also almost full), and cannot wait for my hometown MEA weekend in Santa Fe for a few days in early November. Couple rooms remain in Costa Rica Innermost Wisdom December as well.

It’s my babysitter from when I was little. Ellen Abrams. Twin of Eve Abrams, both legends in my mind. Just two years older, but I’ve known them my entire life, or at least since I’m five; I’m moved inside to another time.

I’ll go looking for my childhood eyeglasses later that night, and find them. So tiny.

My mom saved them. The bottom octagonals are at least five decades old. Wearing the aviators below, maybe forty-eight years ago, I’m about six or so. I’ve never not been hugging trees. Here I’m on my Gramma Belle’s favorite beach with the hot dog stand we frequented for years just behind me.

Back to Ellen, who comes for tea a few days later and offers wisdom James and I didn’t realize we’d needed. Turns out she’s worked years ago with our friend Frank Ostaseski when he’d started the Zen Hospice on a shoestring in San Francisco; she’s sat with Roshi Joan Halifax, Abbot of Upaya, and has a decades-long practice, now living in Ithaca, home of my alma mater, Cornell University.

We lock eyes several times and can’t look away; tears fall at least twice over the tea.

We reminisce about our kindergarten teacher (Mrs. Mistretta, epic human, “G” is for gum—for EVERYONE—may you rest in peace) and our first grade teacher (Mrs. Klugman, we forgive you fully).

But it’s Ellen’s work in grief that has me feeling a longing to come closer to the magnificent tenderness, to find words for it, to sink into it. I realize I’ve been grieving; losses mostly ambiguous. Transmitting a rare example of emotional intelligence, she hold both her own fragility and her decades of experience in the same heart. When she’s sitting with grieving families in her work, especially after someone they loved has taken their own life, there are instances, sadnesses, she shares, that are simply inconsolable. As in, There is no consolation here.

No words to offer, just space, time, emptiness, a trustworthy presence. And this, for some reason, is comforting. I cannot fix it.

In her book Nothing Special, Charlotte Joko Beck invites us to rest in our pain, to come to know it, to turn toward it, rather than running from it. She invites us to see each thought we have about our the matters in our lives, and allow each thought to settle as we sit, and to stay with the sensation of our life “at this very moment” (p. 125), beneath that story. The whole day I’m thinking about this. Letting things settle. Turning toward, allowing the silt to fall to the bottom.

So here we are, in our mid-late fifties, having known one another since we were littles. Such a privilege to know this heart for so long, and to reconnect so intentionally.

If you have any stories of recent reconnection, or of inconsolability, or of letting your thoughts come to a certain settledness, I’d love to hear; tell me as long a story as you wish.

Reading and responding to you here is one of my favorite practices.

Leave a comment

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At the end of the class, the teacher, , tells me that she’s starting a new studio, and taking applications for a teacher training. Within a few days I craft a collection of tiny art pieces—drawn, painted, collaged and sewn—to answer the application questions; she accepts me as student. I’ve no idea what’s to happen. My mom isn’t super encouraging, but I’m paying for it and it feels true to my heart.

During that era, 14th Street in New York City is dicey after sundown, but I become a student in Cyndi’s teacher training, her first in her new studio, Om Yoga, so I learn to navigate the neighborhood with alertness. My first time teaching, I’m staring out the window of the studio, too nervous to look at my fellow students, just calling out instructions. Cyndi is kind but firm in her feedback, and I’ll learn to look, to listen, to attune to myself and those in the room, under her tutelage.

Soon I’ll meet some of my most treasured friends there, Christy, Athena, Pati, countless future colleagues. I’ll never be the same once I start teaching in earnest, bringing in poetry and whatever my early-thirties heart needed to keep healing.

Cyndi’s new book, published by Chronicle Books, Long Life Yoga, is now a key resource in my own practice; honored to share her work with you here.

Cyndi writes here on Substack.

Find more from Cyndi at https://www.cyndilee.com/
Cyndi’s teaching schedule: https://www.cyndilee.com/classes-trainings
Books: https://www.cyndilee.com/books-by-cyndi
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cyndisphere/

And thank you , , , and many others for tuning into our live. Join me for my next live video in the app.

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The Power In Your Hands is out June 2nd, 2026. Pre-order your copies now. Please do consider gifting to the younger ones if you’re inspired.

And thank you , , , and many others for tuning into our live. It’s wonderful to learn this science, and these practices, and be together.

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For women, no prescription covers a settled nervous system, intentional rest, and ways to attend to what matters most, in the quiet corners of our lives. Attention and care are radical, biological acts. Our bodies need integration, stillness, and stability for these transitions, and we aim to offer pockets of safety and refuge for your system and being.

If you’re a supporting subscriber here on Substack, check our Subscribers Chat for your code to receive $200 off The Portal for our year together. Doors will remain open til end of day today.

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And thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning into our live.

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Join us live Tuesday, May 26th.

We’ll be live, here on Substack, at 2.15pm ET / 11.15am PT for a brief overview of our new yearlong program, WOMEN: The Portal. Join us live to learn more, before we begin. Click this link, or the button just below.

https://open.substack.com/live-stream/214568

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Learn your body, receive guidance and protocols for your practices and your heart-mind, and co-regulate with other women. Explore WOMEN: The Portal here.

Your body is your first prophet, telling you what’s happening interiorly before we can register it with the mind; distracted by so many inputs, we’re unable to listen. Because we haven’t yet created circles such as these, we don’t have support.

Now we do.

When we study these facets of our experience with curiosity and care, we learn to: trust and respect the intelligence of the body, become more intimate with ourselves and follow the energy in every realm of our existence. With practices and protocols to bring us into a new state of support, this year will transform the way you see yourself and your process.

Final notes.
If you’re a paid subscriber to this column, you’ll receive $200 off this yearlong program. Your code is below these notes.

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All Live Sessions will be recorded, so if you’re unable to make any of the monthly gatherings, the replays will be available on our course pages. Your inquiries will help us plan our sessions, so we’ll invite you to submit them in the course.

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Savoring The Frozen River during baths while traveling to teach retreat, marveling at the magnificence and resilience of women.

The title of today’s piece is care of our protagonist, Martha Ballard, who, due to her daily journal entries, now lives on in my heart. “I have been at home,” she writes on the days she’s home, which is to say, “I’m doing it all, trying to find pause with my people, make our candles for the evenings, cook meals, care for my patients, tend to my children as they struggle, acknowledge my own pain, while doing my best to feel joy, to heal.”

The phrase keeps stopping me in my tracks.

I have been at home.

Finding myself at Manchester, England’s Broughton Sanctuary this week, teaching: think Bridgerton-style manor home, re-wilding three thousand acres of land with an intentional, globally respected team, a modern spa within a ten-minute walk of the Hall (palatial accommodations); it’s gorgeous.

Here’s my walk to and from classes, a contrast to my high desert ochres and pinks.

The shadows of the trees, the birds and bunnies, the scent of petrichor in the air, the light that brightens in the eyes of the fifteen humans sharing of themselves and their experiences; more candor and clarity emerge each day.

Having lost my guiding notebook on the flight over (it was a 2” miracle wrapped in Japanese shibori fabric, with several notes for each day, and i don’t lose anything), I realize I’d apparently created it for someone who really needs it. Self-empathy for the win.

The recalibration: Pulling six teachings from each of the books I’d brought, randomly scrambling them up to let Providence tell us which teachings will serve our focus each day, trusting in decades of study to bring it together.

Each day, the teachings land in us, handing us what’s needed; practices for life, death and everything in between. Choosing one Lojong slogan (studying three interpretations, from Judy Lief, Norman Fischer and Pema Chödrön), one verse from Machig Labdrön in Skymind, and one dharma talk from Katherine Thanas, we find ways to weave it all together through practice. Our days are full.

Our resources:

• The Truth of This Life by Katherine Thanas

• Skymind by Charlotte Rotterdam and Pieter Oosthuizen

• Training in Compassion by Norman Fischer

• The Compassion Book by Pema Chödrön

• The Slogans of Atisha by Judy Lief

Morning sits in the Nest. Silence stretches between us and becomes more comfortable as days elapse. Silent mornings mean soak time, gym time, and a sublime two-hour asana practice. Lunch, then free time for tours and wild swims in the lake for some, then a second practice with writing and Q+A in the afternoons. Delicious vegetarian meals. Poems whispering through our days as we go, co-founder Paris Tempest regales us with a midweek evening sound bath.

The unexpected closing labyrinth ceremony, during which each of us walks anew with Sevanti’s fiercely gentle guidance. Each person brings profound teachings, and we spend the week walking in a fine mist of deep feminine wisdom.

As we part, committed to getting up every day and taking care of this life, we carry new songs, new eyes, pockets of safety and refuge, with ethereal ancestral twine forever winding around this once-in-a-lifetime assemblage of hearts.

Eager to see these faces again soonest. An utter blessing to serve each of you.

WOMEN: The Portal opens this week.

Years in the making, highly anticipated, medicine and practice are converging.

Join Dr. Sara and me for one free opening session to explore the material, cadence, dates and exchange details for our year to come in WOMEN: The Portal.

Investigate the subtlest invitations to your intuition, steadiness and softness with us.

Registration opens May 21st - June 1st.

Paid subscription revenue is donated to causes benefiting women and girls. As a subscriber here, you’ll be invited to comment on all posts, access all archives and attend monthly Live Gatherings.

If you have financial need, scholarship subscriptions are available; message me here.

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Our next writing gathering happens on
SUNDAY, May 31st, 5pm EASTERN.
(I’ll be traveling and offline June 1st-10th.)

Our Zoom link is here. See you on May 31st.

Today, an homage to a vital aspect of my formation.

At least twenty years ago.

Supporting subscribers, a peek into one of my most medicinal friendshi…

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I. Readings.
Lisa Olivera: When the Ache Remains
Clare Carlisle: Transcendence for Beginners
Norman Fischer: Training in Compassion
Afīf Al-Dīn Al-Tilimsānī: The Divine Names
Joan Didion: Let Me Tell You What I Mean

Not pictured:
Tara Brach: The Courageous Heart Workbook (pre-order now)
Gregory Boyle: Cherished Belonging
Ashvaghosa: The Awakening of Faith

Which book intrigues you most for today?

Anything in particular striking a chord for you in the meditation or talk?

Leave a comment

II. This week, on the GoodLife Project Podcast with longtime friend Jonathan Fields: What I’m giving up in order to focus on giving, a few notes on parenting and partnership, and the joy of being with a friend whom I’ve known for decades.

III. Haiku class with dear teacher Natalie Goldberg.
May 23rd, ONLINE. Natalie has been a teacher to me for years, both through her books and in person, and this 3 hour foray into the practice of haiku will light up your writing for years to come.

IV. Function Health.
Staying on top of hormones, metabolic health and more has never been easier. Function Health comes to about $1/day for your year of vital information for overall health. Yesterday I had vials taken for my chosen add-ons (food sensitivities, heavy metals, hormones and cardiac health); next week will be my Annual Lab visit (see below for screenshot). The portal is super user-friendly, helping me to make better choices to support my health every day.

Learn about Function Health here.

And paid subscribers, our monthly gathering is next week!
See you Wednesday, May 6th, 11am Eastern Time.

Link to meet is in our private chat thread here. Expect a supportive crew with whom to write, listen, and feel the care of this family of readers and writers.

This month’s prompt is from Lisa Olivera’s new book, When the Ache Remains. You choose from these four options on page 9:

Can I hold myself with dignity as I take a closer look at what’s here?
Can I remember what grounds me, roots me, steadies me?
Can I allow something new to unfold, to take shape?
Can I let go of a destination and reorient back toward this moment?

Paid subscription revenue from this column is donated to causes benefiting women and girls. As a subscriber here, you’ll be invited to comment on all posts, access all archives and attend monthly Live Gatherings on (mostly) first Fridays.

If you have financial need, scholarship subscriptions are available; message me here.

And thank you , , , , , and 100+ others for tuning into my live video. Join me for my next live video in the app.

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She expresses delight at the prospect of going live to celebrate her, so here we are.

As referenced in our chat, I shave my head in solidarity when Christy’s treatment commences burning through her hair follicles in August 2021. Our talk that day, including the last look at our hair, is here.

Readings today: Norman Fischer’s Mountains and Rivers Sutra: Teachings and his gloriously helpful Taking Our Places.

Dear Christy Kissty Meefing von Meefersons,

Our first meeting, circa 2003, consists of you seated at the end of your dining room table, surrounded by books on homeopathy, beaming a smile that means instant friendship for me. Your smile is actually the most enchanting, magnetic symbol of freedom I’ve seen in real life to date.

This is a happy human, I remember thinking. Precious little must be on your mind outside of doing what you love.

Your smile that day has saved me from choosing what doesn’t belong with me, countless times over the last twenty years, reminding me.

Only do what has meaning.

Our shared studentship, dance floors, steam rooms, car rides, adventures, all of it a potent cocktail of oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin even during the worst of the ensuing heartaches. On the best of days, we pair up to offer a series of glorious retreats, as well as one of the first classes at the first-ever yoga and music festival. Years later you’ll come with your truck to pack me up from a breakup like a total professional.

When you tell me you’d met the father of your children, I remember listening to you while walking on the Bowery in front of the shops that were all full of lights back then. These are all good reasons to call you my wife even when we’re both partnered up with our wonderful husband-humans; today’s piece is my homage to your courage, your willingness, your softening. Also I don’t think i’m ever growing my hair again.

May 2023, above; circa 2018 below.

softening time

Sky full of clouds, pensive piano notes in my ears, about fifteen minutes from home with all the groceries. You call me with gravity in your voice, which is rare. I pull over instantly.

Yes, cancer. Yes, surgery, yes, chemo, yes, radiation.

Yes. My best friend.

Yes, healing.

We’re holding one another from two thousand miles away, hugging over FaceTime, struggling to find the words. When I finally find mine, I tell you I’ll shave my head when you do. Together we’ve lived in the same house, studied, played, traveled, had our hearts broken, gotten married, had babies. You’re clearly ready to take on the true healing, though, and that’s what this conversation reveals.

The softening.

Strangely, your softening becomes my own; I can still see how I allow agitation to seep into my day, hurling me quietly into anxious reactivity. Over months, I watch from a distance as you become more vulnerable, less afraid. I feel you shift and am moved to ease up on myself, to drive more slowly, to listen for the holiness in the voices of those closest to me. It’s still happening.

When we finally shave our heads, I worry the new look might change me, harden my heart somehow; instead I find myself with more time and space to think and feel, to rest and be, as though I can take myself less seriously. Somehow more intentionality is accessible without all that hair, that whole personality. And I can hear the forest outside differently.

Witnessing the most fearsome possibility has raised us up, brought us closer to ourselves and to our own trust. This surprising, stunning chapter is still open for both of us.

May 2023.

Thank you for reading the title poem from my first collection, Softening Time. Wifey Christy is clear for five years now, teaching and thriving with her family in North Carolina. I’ll be offering Retreat at her refuge this October!

Share a few words about favorite human(s) who save you if you wish; honored to keep reading and responding to your heartfelt comments.

Leave a comment

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“What happens,” one of the women inquires, tears forming in her earnest eyes, “when the children keep changing and we struggle to relate to them, to determine appropriate bounda…

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Wise, caring, real, hilarious, clarifies crucial aspects of practice here. Welcome into an engaging conversation with a wise teacher whom I’ve known for twenty-plus years.

Context first. Studying our conditioning is the activity of practice; we sit, open, attune, examine gently (and with kindness) today’s delusions and opinions. Allow them to move through. Illuminate and shed them.

And we practice because we LOVE, as my teacher reminds, because when delusions disappear, the natural mind reveals itself (1). The book at the heart of our conversation strikes this same chord; seeing our habit energies with compassion, growing that compassion until it suffuses how we see everything, both within and around us.

This conversation grew from that same ground.

II. The Book.

The Buddhist Enneagram brings together two fields of deep wisdom, inviting us to shake off complacency and loosen the grip of our opinions, delusions, misperceptions. Studying this book, I find myself locating my dearest humans and my own confusion with a heart-mind of compassion, care.

Learning the points on the circle is helping me to embrace past errors, missteps, choices. I’m just a human with tendencies, and with this body of work from Susan, I’m invited to relax into the truth of things, to see each one of those moments and choices as doorways, and walk right through.

Loved this conversation, honored to share it with you.

III. From , on putting our ear to the moment. With thanks to my teacher for her words and sharing of this poem in a recent dharma talk (note, talks begin with sitting for fifteen minutes. Talk begins at 28:00), worth watching, free on YouTube through Upaya’s channel.

Soundbath

Even now, imagine, we could step through
one of the infinite doors of the moment
and find ourselves in another life—
repairing a net on the banks of a vast river
or herding cattle down a two-lane highway.
Standing in line a block from a soup kitchen
or guarding the entrance to the Forbidden City.
Instead, we are here in the lives we inhabit
But press your ear to the other doors. Hear
the traffic. The sobbing. A swelling of symphony.
Gunshot. Thunder of feet. The whimper of an infant.
The world enters us in waves, waves that seep
through the doors and we wade in them.
Wading, we come to know there is no way
to not be touched by every other life,
no matter how distant. If you put your ear
to the moment, sometimes you can hear
every other ear listening for what you will do next. (2)

Susan’s Course.

A live course with Susan, supplemented by the material in the book, incorporate eight nurturing, supportive LIVE hours with her on each of the facets of the enneagram, at this link.

Code ELENAENNEAGRAM means 20% off the course.

Paid subscription revenue is donated to causes benefiting women and girls. As a subscriber here, you’ll be invited to comment on all posts, access all archives and attend monthly Live Gatherings on (mostly) first Fridays.

If you have financial need, scholarship subscriptions are available; message me here.

Thank you , , , , , and others for tuning into our live video. Thank you for your trust and skillfulness.

Join me for my next live video in the app.

References

(1) Song of the Jewel Mirror Awareness.

(2) Soundbath, by

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Reading her words about relationships, friendships, and honesty over these last two weeks, completing it last night in the tub, I found myself weeping with recognition, texting three friends, and cleaning up one mess i’ve made recently (happening soon). Yeesh.

The book is an invitation to inquire within, make clear distinctions as to whom we bring close to our hearts, and treat our inner lives with more care than we’ve ever considered offering inwardly. Alex spends the time she needs tending to herself as a practice, and her findings, prompts and stories are changing how I see my relationships overall. Discernment, compassion, self-respect. Acknowledgement, acceptance, adjustments. These are the ingredients to one of the most important books I’ve read for my own mental health in a long time.

Gratitudes.

Thank you , , , , (yup, my Dad!), and all who tuned into our live. Talking with is forever a joy and privilege for me.

Resources Mentioned.

Independent booksellers make the world go round… Alex has signed 1000 copies for Mahogany Books and you’re able to order yours now! These will sell out swiftly…

Order your SIGNED COPY here.

Also mentioned: The wonderful independent-bookselling online platform Bookshop.org, where I’ve spent the last few years curating my virtual bookshelves… You’ll find Alex’s new book on top of my 2026 Favorites and several other lists.

But order your signed copy above… that’s definitely the way to go. And while you’re at it, order one or two or three for your friends. The finest gift is a signed book, wrapped with care, offered with love.

Next live tomorrow, Wednesday April 8th, with , at 5pm Eastern Time. Hope to see you there!

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The origin of our prompt, Begin Again and Again and Again by Alessandra Olanow, page 149, is pictured below. Along with James, we met here live recently; n…

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Started reading cereal boxes and anything with words here, at my Gramma Belle’s kitchen table.

I. Sorry I’m late; I was READING.

With about twenty minutes until one of my lifelong dreams comes true, I’m still in the tub, nose in a book, a six-minute walk away. I know you want to know what book I’m reading; I won’t forget. Last time this happened was Dani Shapiro’s Inheritance when I ended up three hours later in a cold tub in a hotel in Denver. But I digress.

The fact that I cannot pull myself away from inhabiting the world in these pages, a world I know isn’t going anywhere, in a book published some years back, is weird, wonderful, what’s happening. I’m presenting my new book to a sold-out Boulder Bookstore second floor in TWENTY MINUTES. I speed through the chapter and run, luckily i haven’t hair to tend to. I’m ready in 10 and out the door, up the stairs at the bookstore, right on time.

II. Where it began.

Since childhood, my face has been in a book. Back then, it was cereal boxes, then Amelia Bedelia and Highlights magazines, usually over four Thomas’ english muffin halves with butter and heaps of Temptee cream cheese (yes, both). Then came Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Judy Blume, poetry of e.e. cummings and Emily Dickinson, the backs of every vinyl LP to learn and memorize lyrics, from Clapton to Floyd to Howard Jones, deciphering what it might mean to grow older. Elle Magazine, Vogue, Bazaar, Vanity Fair for years. Savored Paul Bowles in college, Paul Auster, classics like Wuthering Heights, Jane Austen, then Joan Didion, Anne Truitt, Mary Oliver. Then I find Anne Lamott. Of course philosophy, religious studies, art history.

Once I have a kid of my own, at bedtime we lap up the details of Italo Calvino’s fantastical short stories.

To escape into these worlds saves me, through the lens of others’ lives I’m offered new perspectives, ways of seeing. The stories continue to change me long after the books end. Now, with dear friends—when recommends one, I always just read it. And it’s always the same, “Holy fuck that book was good” as we quote pages and send names of the characters in all caps over text. PETER.

Laura and i are edging closer to writing a novel together with this fodder and inspiration, but I digress (again). Still I pine for salted butter in the nooks and crannies when I sit at any table to read anything.

Thank you, my friend of thirty years, Amy Ippoliti, for your insightful inquiries on this evening for Hold Nothing.

III. My dream publisher.

On the day after the reading, walking into the Shambhala Publications offices, I become like an uber-fan in a sports bar, incapable of steadying my attention given the tempting shelves that line each office, like so many multiple games on screens. My distracted eyes alight everywhere; Hinayana, Mahayana, Vajrayana, old and new titles, every treasure of Zen. To be included amongst these luminaries is unthinkable. It dawns on me that I’ve waited my entire life for this, landing in my body. I forget to snap even one pic.

I do, however, manage to sit and scribble rather hasty but meaningful notes on a lojong book that catches my eye, for my study group.

Just over here studying in the Shambhala conference room with my book on view in the front hall. Geez.

IV. My bookshelves at home.

Since i forgot to take that pic, here’s my home bookshelf. Color coding makes my heart sing. Claimed one ledge in the living room for current Zen studies, plus one small bedtime pile. Can you relate?

And (almost) every time a new book arrives, I donate or gift one to make space.

V. My virtual bookshelves.

Since 2021, I’ve been maintaining virtual bookshelves to support small booksellers over at Bookshop.org. I add books there all the time, and you’ll find my 2026 favorites replete with delicious escape hatches and secret tunnels. Have at it.

Still wondering about the book in the tub?

Ask Again, Yes, by , as mentioned previously in this week’s sit and Q+A. Regular sits here are going to be a thing. I like the live vibe so much better than having to manage instagram meanies.

Paid Subscribers: You’re invited to write and sit with me.

Our monthly gathering is this Friday, April 3rd, 11am ET. About 45-50 minutes, always enriching and surprising what emerges, I’ve been recording as there are a few who cannot make it, so I’ll post recording to our subscriber chat.

Our link is just below. Thankful you’re here.

Paid subscription revenue is donated to causes benefiting women and girls. As a subscriber here, you’ll be invited to comment on all posts, access all archives and attend monthly Live Gatherings on (mostly) first Fridays.

If you have financial need, scholarship subscriptions are available; message me here.

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This is where I’ll be showing up for shared practice. With the Substack app on your phone, you’ll practice readily from wherever you are.

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Each time we sit, I’ll share a book or two, or five.

This week:

The Fire Inside traces the slow burn of grief, loyalty, and buried truth, revealing how what we carry unspoken shapes every choice we make. It suggests that survival is not the absence of damage, but the willingness to face what lives within it and remain.

Ask Again, Yes invites you to a quiet, devastating study of how love persists through damage, misunderstanding, and time. Reframing forgiveness not as a single act but as a long, imperfect practice, you’ll be inspired to return again and again to what matters. Missed my bedtime three times for this masterpiece.

More from me soon.

Paid subscription revenue is donated to causes benefiting women and girls. As a subscriber here, you’ll be invited to comment on all posts, access all archives and attend monthly Live Gatherings on first Fridays (next at April 3rd, 11am Eastern, link in our private chat).

If you have financial need, scholarship subscriptions are available; message me.

Upcoming Retreats and Studies

May 10th-17th
Broughton Sanctuary, Yorkshire, UK
Hold Nothing Retreat: Strength, Subtlety and Inner Peace
Enter into a fresh connection with your wisdom, quiet, fortitude and trust in yourself. Set in one of the most idyllic countrysides on earth…

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Tuesday, June 9th
Marin, California
At The Portal, in conversation with Cecily Mak
Guest list only; if you wish to attend, message me and I’ll put you on my list!

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Weekend, June 25th-28th
Telluride, Colorado
Telluride Yoga Festival

Experience a weekend of connection and inspiration at the 18th annual Telluride Yoga Festival nestled in the rugged mountains of Telluride. Teachers, classes, activities, music, breathtaking mountain gondola rides… this festival holds a place in my heart.

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July 25th + 26th
Roma, Italy
Classes at Zem Yoga Rome; details to come.

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+ Future fall and winter retreats on the Calendar here.

Pardon and not, beginning with a note of a more personal, intimate nature.

This week I had a second-scan-scare; if you know, you know. Dense breasts necessitating another look after a routine scan, first time in years. Which was then scheduled for a few days later, not the typical months later. The speed of scheduling was downright concerning.

Spent those few days devising what I’d do if it were cancer—whom i’d tell first, what I’d prioritize. How I’d be.

Small moments begin taking on vivid meaning. Moving more slowly, tending to cooking and cleaning and folding and drying as if each are the holiest of holy acts. Living my life in all possible directions, as Pessoa writes (1).

Smitten, really, grateful for my entire existence, including the whirr of the fridge, my hospice patient’s crumb-strewn cabinets, James’ every move, the way the garage door wavers and squeaks but doesn’t quite close (which usually annoys me) now sounds like home. Every detail, a gift.

This next paragraph is not for the squeamish; read at your own risk.

The appointment morning comes, ultrasound first. Breasts haven’t felt this sensitive in years, that sort of toe-curling, why-does-she-keep-running-that-thing-over-that-spot-again feeling. Damn. Once that mercifully ends, back to the waiting room again, to read the last few letters in The Correspondent (I’d literally stopped reading it after the second scan was scheduled so I’d have the last few letters for this precise moment, a gift from my prior self).

Tears falling onto the pages upon the conclusion of the tale; medicine for every woman in this waiting room. I imagine myself shouting, “We all need to read this book! Everyone here! Tell your women!”

“Elena?”

A short walk through the hallway maze to the excruciatingly targeted mammogram, the vice grip of which causes (I warned you) clearish liquid to be expressed. From my breast! Seventeen years since breastfeeding! (More exclamations in this piece than in the last decade.) Oh, the sour face I must’ve made, like biting into a Sweet Tart watching the first Star Wars film in the theatre in the seventies. The tech (a fine, composed soul) gently wipes the errant liquid away with a Kleenex, turns the light up to investigate the the tissue, then turns to me.

“Clear-ish. Not blood, not of concern.”

Bodies. I have a body. She smiles at me. Maybe I muster a half-smile in return.

I follow her to see the radiologist, who reports that there’s nothing to do just now, six months get another check, “very dense tissue.” Gah. I’m making an appointment to get a targeted QTI scan in three months anyway, wise for women with such breasts, thanks to , my teaching partner in Women: The Portal (coming soon, we promise), who asks me the only questions.

“Do you have a sense of what this latest process is asking of you?”

Having swiftly inhaled Amanda Peet’s piece in The New Yorker just this morning (thank you ), I know I’m being invited, no, implored to rest. To be where I am, relaxed, quiet. Some hours later she texts me again, she’s such a good friend.

“I wonder about the archetype of mother. How that archetype might be shifting and re-emerging in your identity, currently in liminal space. Where your power may be over-invested or under-owned. If there are any places where you care for others at the expense of yourself.”

Her timing.

Number one i’m spending a couple nights with my kid on a sort of holiday and i’m watching myself needing to unhook—again—from his energy, by necessity, even though I DON’T WANT TO. I don’t wanna. And.

Number two (this piece was meant to begin HERE), initially born as Softening Time, in 2023 this column began just after I’d received the Zen Buddhist precepts from my first teacher. Crumbling interiorly at that time, unsure if i was being a good enough parent, writing regularly became a kind of pathless practice, no real plan, for once.

One year later, I began the chaplaincy training at Upaya Zen Center, similarly no idea where it would lead, and after two years, forty papers, dozens of hours of volunteer time yielding an inconceivable intimacy with my own mind, by some grace, last week I graduated.

Sitting, settling for about two hours in the original temple near the stupa on the grounds of Upaya prior to the ceremony, I was asked to keep time for our small cohort. Watching the clock grants intervals of real silence, it turns out, different from having no sense of time while sitting. The ensuing ceremony (pictured above) held both rich, earthy gravity and an appropriate dose of light-heartedness and love. I needed it all.

Emboldened to share my capstone with you, after a dear writer friend whom I admire (one of our finest writing heroes, truth be told) wrote upon reading it, “Oh, Elena. It’s lucid, beautiful, powerful, full of clarity of heart and mind. Thank you for sharing it with me.” The Monastery of Daily Life (the title of the project) presents Dogen Zenji’s three Heart-Minds of Zen as structure and ballast for my three volunteer placements and the field of chaplaincy overall—Magnanimous Mind in hospice settings, Nurturing Mind in carceral settings, and Joyful Mind in grief settings.

May it serve you and your unfolding in some way.

Thankful to be alive and learning. Thank you for being here with me.

Photographs (above and below) credited to dear dharma brother Todd Macintire; images link directly to program details, should you wish to learn more.

BOOK TOUR and RETREATS - hope to see you.

This week, Tuesday March 24th
Boulder Bookstore, Colorado
An evening conversation with Amy Ippoliti to share Hold Nothing. Dream come true to talk at one of my favorite bookstores.

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Sunday to Sunday, May 10th-17th
Broughton Sanctuary, Yorkshire, UK
Hold Nothing Retreat: Strength, Subtlety and Inner Peace

Embarking upon this weeklong retreat, you’re entering into a fresh connection with your wisdom, your quiet, your fortitude and your trust in yourself. Teaching for over twenty-five years, Elena Brower is a forever student, preparing to offer your body and mind a full reset, and a direct experience of your subtlest intuitive awareness.

—

Tuesday, June 9th
Marin, California
At The Portal, in conversation with

Guest list only; if you wish to attend, message me and I’ll put you on my list!

—

Weekend, June 25th-28th
Telluride, Colorado
Telluride Yoga Festival

Experience a weekend of connection and inspiration at the 18th annual Telluride Yoga Festival nestled in the rugged mountains of Telluride. From the teachers to the classes, the activities to one of my favorite towns on earth, the breathtaking mountain gondola ride to the expansive vistas, this festival holds a special place in my heart.

—

July 25th + 26th
Roma, Italy
Classes at Zem Yoga Rome; details to come.

—

+ Future fall and winter retreats on the Calendar here.

Paid subscription revenue is donated to causes benefiting women and girls. As a subscriber here, you’ll be invited to comment on all posts, access all archives and attend monthly Live Gatherings on first Fridays (next at April 3rd, 11am Eastern, link in our private chat).

If you have financial need, scholarship subscriptions are available; message me.

1. Pessoa, F. (2023). The complete works of Álvaro de Campos (J. Pizarro & A. Cardiello, Eds.; M. J. Costa & P. Ferrari, Trans.). New Directions.

Begin Again and Again and Again is a nurturing book that serves us all in our process, giving us permission and care when things fall apart—again—necessitating the energy, compassion and grace to start over. To treat ourselves with deep kindness. To listen to what’s happening, and what’s needed. Alessandra’s humility is an example and her art is a salve for our times.

With space, time, grace, simplicity, and skill, she shows us feelings visually; my experience is that each image helps me reorganize my relationship to reality.

This treasured time spent in her presence, with a cameo from James who loves this book and plans to gift it to some dear humans in our lives, features peeks inside both this book and her heart.

As you see her drawings, hear passages and receive permission to feel, what emerges for you today? For me, I’m reminded to sit still, to take rest, to read my book and not be worried that I’m “wasting time.” Gah. You?

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With a paid subscription, you’ll be invited to attend monthly Live Gatherings on first Fridays, comment on all posts, and access all archives. Paid subscription revenue is donated to causes benefiting women and girls. If you have financial need, a handful of scholarship subscriptions are available each month; message me and I’ll arrange.

Follow Alessandra’s art here; her site is here.

REVIEWS

"Olanow brings readers into her internal world with Begin Again, delicately and beautifully depicting the subtle murmurs of awakening present within us all."
—Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness and Finding Your Way

"Olanow transforms the pain of unraveling into the art of becoming with words and illustrations that make you feel deeply seen. This book holds space for all the versions of yourself you've been and all the ones you're becoming."
—Yung Pueblo, #1 NYT Bestselling Author

With reminders to relinquish our grasp, choose our focus, and select which thoughts we believe, Alessandra's words and illustrations are an invitation to rewrite the narrative and remember that the ache is a good place to Begin Again, and Again, and Again. —Elena Brower, bestselling author and artist of Practice You and Hold Nothing

Learn the rules to building good sentences, verb by verb; to trust your reader, write what’s hard, ask for assistance, drop the crutches and stay in your seat to keep going.

Thank you , , , , , and almost 1000 others for tuning in.

Order your copy (with bonuses!) here.

From , the rhythmic cadence of her stability as her service, becoming what is needed rather than our construct of what we think is needed.

From , a haiku:

cloud hands at my heart
sweeping, clearing, silent beat
emptiness remains

From Vanda, the full moon dripping over her bedr…

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