A Little Heart to Heart - Enuma's Newsletter

A little thought on the eve of a full moon

Enuma — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 20:46:57 GMT

Dear Hearts,

I do not know how the days slip by one by one until 30 are gone and then another. I have been away from my “regular life” lately, touching new life from a little room on the edge of a forest for the past little while. Sometimes it is as if I have stopped counting my life by days, spending more time tilting my head towards the slivered moon whispering aloud to her how much more she’s fleshed out recently. “One more week, four more days, tomorrow you will be full again.” When I lose track of days, naturally other things

Just maybe, you can always say it again

Enuma — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 21:46:31 GMT

Dear Hearts,

In the middle of this week, one of the things I foolishly never imagined would happen to me, happened to me. I had a computer glitch, and I lost a piece of writing. But not just any piece of writing, I lost a chapter that I have been working on since December of last year. In this singular word document that I had been repeatedly saving with every draft, were notes from months of translating documents from French to English, and notes from other sources that I was weaving into my work. And I lost the work just a few days after I had finally figured out the way to tell the story, to weave it all together. When I discovered this loss and after an hour of checking and rechecking and basically turning my computer files inside out I sat at my desk and I cried. I wept like a child. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that all my laid out and interwoven thoughts from the past three months were gone. I couldn’t imagine how to even begin again. After sobbing over piles of paper

A little thought after a long month...

Enuma — Sat, 31 Jan 2026 21:01:17 GMT

Dear Hearts,

Last Sunday I was speaking to an old girlfriend, a fellow writer, and I asked her how her creative muse was showing up since she was intentionally taking a break from structured writing p…

Gathering the Bones for New Life

Enuma — Fri, 09 Jan 2026 20:24:33 GMT

Isaac Levitan, “Winter in the Forest” 1885

(Please scroll down for the audio version)

Dear Hearts,

It is the first full week of January and I am still moving at a pace that’s like counting breaths. Slow. And steady. Snow has been falling on and off for the last two days and at times I catch myself staring mesmerized out my writing room window. I love winter as much as I love the other seasons. And January winter is so special because it feels to me like this liminal space in which all life in most of the Northern hemisphere is falling deeper into the heart of the season, into the coldness and the darkness of middle winter.

I do not mind this.

In fact I welcome it.

Tell the people, your people...

Enuma — Sun, 28 Dec 2025 08:48:34 GMT

Dear Hearts,

I think this might be my favorite week of the year, the days between December 26th and January 1st, when the world is a bit more quiet and no one is waiting for your call or email or subm…

When Our Dreams Lead the Way

Enuma — Wed, 24 Dec 2025 16:09:07 GMT

“Jospeh’s Dream,” Gaetano Gandolfi, 1790

Dear Hearts,

It’s the final Advent week and the Christmas season begins tomorrow. I am ending this weekly Advent series with dreaming Joseph, one of my favorite characters of the season. Joseph was the carpenter engaged to Mary and who raised Jesus as his son.

This 18th century work by Italian artist, Gaetano Gandolfi is held in a private collection, and shows an older Joseph asleep outside presumably in the midst of a journey. His sandals are still on his feet and his walking stick is still in the grip of his right hand. He rests his head with the support of his other arm and still we can sense some consternation in his face. Don’t we all know what that is like, to try to get some sleep while still mentally and emotionally consumed with things happening in our lives that we don’t yet know how to process or what to do about?

Keeping and Kept Silent

Enuma — Fri, 19 Dec 2025 12:44:53 GMT

“The Vision of Zechariah,” James Tissot 1886-1894 (Public Domain)

Dear Hearts,

We’re in the third week of Advent and I’m sharing a watercolor painting by 19^th century French painter Jacques Joseph (James) Tissot, “The Vision of Zechariah” held at the Brooklyn Museum. The scene of this incredible painting takes place in the Jerusalem temple when the priest Zechariah is alone to light the incense and just as the Angel Gabriel is literally taking all the words out of Zechariah’s mouth, leading him into utter silence for the next 9 - 10 months. He will not be able to speak for the majority of the next year! I have so many thoughts about this.

A Witness to Your Ever Unfolding Life

Enuma — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 14:16:53 GMT

The Visitation (1428-30) by Jacopo Pontormo at parish church of San Michele E San Francesco, Carmignano, Italy)

(Please scroll down for the audio option. 12 mins)

Dear Hearts,

I’ve been lost in the largeness of this 16^th century altarpiece oil painting, The Visitation, by Italian Mannerist painter Jacopo da Pontormo (1494-1557). Commissioned by the Pinadori family and painted between 1528 and 1530, the first time the painting’s existence was recorded was over 100 years later in 1677 in a guidebook to Florence written by the scholar Giovanni Cinelli Calvoli. The painting was restored in 2014 bringing out Pontormo’s radiant holy women in their gorgeous swirls of fabric. To see it now you would have to travel to

Is there a new name waiting for you this season?

Enuma — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 21:18:27 GMT

Botticelli, Annunciazione di Cestello - Uffizi, Florence

Dear Hearts,

Advent started this past Sunday. Most people look forward to the end of December and all the different ways they’ll celebrate the holidays, including Christmas. But I’ve always loved this time of year, the four weeks just before Christmas. Partly because I grew up Catholic but the figure of Mary has always had an active and evolving place in my imagination. I really consider her a part of my internal spiritual community. Alongside a small host of other people. It can get quite crowded in there! But basically, I have a thing for the Madonna and I’ve long been a bit obsessed by artistic depictions of the Annunciation, that moment when in chapter 1 of the book of Luke, the Angel Gabriel comes to Mary and announces such strange things, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” The drama of it all. And as we know, that is just the beginning of the story.

Each week for this brief season I’d love to look at an Advent painting with you and see what we can see.

I think I am so taken by Advent because I see the whole story as this beautiful brief season that invites any of us to consider in fresh, imaginative and powerful ways our own posture towards the unexpected, the unbelievable, the unknown and the uncontrollable.

Readers and Ripples and Fleeting Temples

Enuma — Sun, 09 Nov 2025 10:23:46 GMT

Dear Hearts,

I’ve been thinking about how the smallest thoughts we have towards one another can shift our days for the better, and how the seemingly small actions or reaching out and sharing can start…

I Want to Come with You

Enuma — Sat, 01 Nov 2025 22:19:30 GMT

(Please scroll down for the audio option)

Dear Hearts

So, a few mornings ago I woke up very early with the following words lingering in the forefront of my mind, and seemingly on my lips,

“I want to come with you.”

They were the last words I remember speaking in the dream I was having. The frustrating thing is that I don’t remember what or who I was dreaming about. I desperately wish I could remember what else was happening in the dream. The only other thing I recall is that in the dream I had been in the proximity of the person for a little while and I had become seized in some soulful sense by the way the person in my dream was living and the energy they emanated. I know this because upon waking I still felt remnants of that energy. And I also still felt a sense of the readiness and the quiet peace I had about journeying with him.

The earth and the skies are full of beginnings...

Enuma — Sun, 21 Sep 2025 20:15:09 GMT

Vincent van Gogh, The Garden of Saint Paul’s Hospital (The Fall of Leaves) 1889 (Public domain)

(Please scroll down for the audio option.)

Dear Hearts,

We had a solar eclipse last night and a new moon, which means the lunar cycle has begun again. And tomorrow, Sept 22, is the autumnal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere. The sun will be directly above the equator and we will have the same length of daytime and nighttime. When I stop to think about it, I’m reminded how amazing it is - all that’s happening in the celestial skies right now. Seasons are shifting, and the moon is beginning its awe-inspiring 29-30 day journey again around the earth and the sun. The warm days of summer are officially ending and autumn is on the horizon. We are tiptoeing right along its edge and will soon find ourselves falling right in the middle of it, just as though we frog leaped into a pile of bronze and orange leaves. I always feel like each new season has such a full bodied invitation for us to step

Breathing in the dark...

Enuma — Sun, 31 Aug 2025 20:29:56 GMT

Dear Hearts,

I had a vivid dream early this morning that woke me up with a pounding heart. It was 4:22am. And what I most wanted in those first moments of waking was the dawn. I wanted the light of day because I was so shaken by my dream. But the first hints of dawn were still at least 30 mins away. So, I lay in bed and placed my left hand on my chest and began to track my breath, to let the rhythmic rise and fall of my breathing body calm my pounding heart.

And then I began to slowly replay the events of the dream to see if I could make some sense of it. From my years of experience, my dreams are often a path towards some new tidbit or swathe of information I must need or some greater clarity or some invitation towards something in my waking life. It took about an hour of quiet reflection before I felt the pieces begin to fit together, before

A thing to hold, to carry into the weekend.

Enuma — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 09:38:43 GMT

Dear Hearts,

This little heart note is for everyone today. Just some art and a poem to send you off into the weekend with a small reminder that nature is generous and so many small movements from soil…

Imitating Spring...a consideration

Enuma — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 09:30:22 GMT

(Please scroll down for the option of audio)

Dear Hearts,

Spring is officially here. I see it in the lingering lightness of day and the way the sun pours its last dollop of light across the upper façade of the buttercream-colored building across the street outside my window. I can also feel the shift in season in body. Winter is ending and every day the rest of the natural world is offering us signs of new life and new light, as if to remind us of the spirit of renewal and the possibilities of seeing and thereby living differently. I’m sure you feel it too somehow. I like to imagine that creation is coaxing us from a sort of slumber and inviting us to wake up to ourselves again, and to one another. And I’ve been thinking about that, the idea of waking up to one another this season and the different ways we can

Have you considered the Headlines?

Enuma — Sun, 16 Mar 2025 06:23:47 GMT

Dear Hearts,

How are you? I know you can’t answer me directly, but I wonder if maybe by just reading the question you could stop for 5 mins and ask yourself.

How are you?

What would you share with me if you could, if we were sitting face to face?

I would tell you, if we were being honest with one another, that

A quick word on "Joy"

Enuma — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 10:57:12 GMT

Dear Hearts,

Popping into your busy weekday for just a moment. This little heart note is for everyone. In my latest column, The Art of Life, I wrote about the power of joy, and how essential it is esp…

A place to gather strength

Enuma — Sun, 26 Jan 2025 11:59:13 GMT

Dear Hearts,

Already the first month of the year is coming to an end. I wonder how everyone has been this January…you reading this now…I wonder what the first month of the year has revealed to you, what new need or hope you’ve unearthed that could make this journey you’re on feel even more meaningful or nourishing, or could make you more able to receive or to give with more compassion. I am finding that this is a season in which I am moving more slowly through life. It didn’t start like that on purpose. It was simply what was happening. I take a little bit more time getting started in the morning. I come to the computer to try to write an article or a much-needed email, and my thoughts are slower to form because I cannot catch my words as quickly as I may want. I can almost see myself in my mind’s eye, a little version of me with my arms stretched out into the air chasing after loose words that are blowing across a barren winter field. It’s a funny image.

But then I can also see myself stopping in the cold.

Letting my arms fall to my side.

Taking a deep exhale of breath

as I decide to just watch the words circle and whirl like dried leaves in the wind.

Eventually they will sail and settle softly back to the ground, where I can walk quietly towards them and pick them up.

Gently without any fuss.

But I think I am learning something quite vital in this. While my words take their time, I am learning…

Go See Art! Some holiday recommendations

Enuma — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 16:30:45 GMT

Dear Hearts,

Once a month for our community subscribers, I’ll share some current art exhibitions I’ve loved seeing or would love to see before they close! Basically a way to keep encouraging YOU to see art also, because art is for everyone and I actually think art can change our lives. This week between Christmas and New Year’s and that slower first week of January are perfect times to take a morning or an afternoon and go visit some beautiful and thought provoking shows. If you happen to be in Paris, London, Berlin, New York, Washington D.C. or Los Angeles below you will find some suggestions with helpful links!

And if you aren’t in any of those cities, I’ve still got some art for you. At the end of this post I’ve also shared a quick link to the art themed book I’ve just finished reading. (You know I am always reading…) Enjoy, and let me know what you see and what you think! And feel free to recommend your own “must sees” in the comments so our community gets even more possibilities to go and gaze. Here you go!

In the heart of winter, the darkness might be the gift.

Enuma — Sun, 22 Dec 2024 21:45:38 GMT

Please scroll down for audio content.

Dear Hearts,

Yesterday was the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year and the longest night of the year. It’s when the earth is tilted the farthest from the sun. So many of us mark this day because it means the days will now get longer and even though we still have 3 more months of winter, the harshness of it will slowly begin to recede as we increasingly get more light. The darkness of winter can be brutal. Any time of extended darkness can be a challenge. Our bodies crave the Vitamin D of the sun, and our energy shifts in brightness of light. It’s hard to live for long periods of time without light. I know this. Come late January I will be desperate for a trip to West Africa. And yet each year I find myself more and more willing to accept winter for all that it brings: a body that craves more sleep, an increased appetite, a more reclusive spirit, and yes, even more darkness. Maybe it’s because we’re animals too, even though we often forget this. But I think I am less and less convinced that darkness is something to shy away from. In fact I think the darkness might