New Moon /June 14, 2026

If you’ve followed me for a while, you may know I have apocalyptic leanings. This isn’t always the handiest trait—I mean, who really wants to think about the end of the world? It’s not all that different than death, the [apparent] end of our individual existence. For many folks, contemplating the impermanence of our reality isn’t tops on their list. (Thank goodness for who bucks that trend with her Death & Birds!)

For others of us, though, we sense these endings—big and small—and it goes against our grain to gloss over them.

Here’s where things can veer off in a couple of directions.

If fear is the dominant driver of our apocalyptic concerns, we may turn into scary preppers who arm ourselves to the teeth and barricade ourselves in a bunker, amidst piles of packaged rations.

But if you want to prepare for ending (aka transformative) times without getting caught up in that machismo, fearful energy, you do have other options. This new moon letter is here to give you hope as well as solid resources to prepare for falling-apart scenarios.

1. EMERGENCY PLAYBOOK

Fortunately, an excellent new book is just about to come out that speaks exactly to our concerns and needs. The Emergency Playbook (Ten Speed Press) by Amy Edelman and Chris Begly is a comprehensive guide to preparing for and surviving emergency situations, from wildfires, flash floods, and extreme heat to power outages, social unrest, and the next pandemic—without the fear mentality.

The book will be published June 23 but you can pre-order it now on Bookshop. (That’s an affiliate link; I receive a small percentage when you buy the book with that link.)

Kelly Hayes recently interviewed Amy and Chris about the book on her podcast, Movement Memos. I listened to the fascinating 70+ minute recording and here are some of my favorite quotes and takeaways:

Kelly introduced Emergency Playbook by saying:

One thing I appreciate about the framing of this book is that preparedness isn’t approached as a consumer identity, or baked into fantasies about leaving other people behind. It’s a process that begins with some very ordinary questions that we should ask ourselves now, instead of grappling with them later, after a crisis has begun. Like, when the power goes out, who needs to be checked on first? If our phones stop working, where do people gather? If someone’s medication has to stay cold, who has a generator or access to refrigeration? If people have to leave quickly, do they know where they’re going, or what they’re bringing with them?

Chris, an archaeologist, wilderness survival instructor, and anthropology professor, sums up the situation really well:

“One of the problems with the sort of doomsday prepper presentation of these things is that it really does turn a lot of people off because the sorts of things that are being advocated are really just not part of a lot of people’s lives. And when we look historically, we see that the focus needs to be on community and that what really gets you through these problems include things like empathy and understanding and a sense of justice and generosity.”

Something interesting I learned on the podcast was “the rule of three,” a core tenet of survival strategies. It goes like this: we can survive about three minutes without air, three hours without shelter in extreme conditions, three days without water. We can actually go few weeks without food. Knowing this timeline helps us to avoid panic, prioritize certain supplies and actions, and organize ourselves and communities to make good decisions in dire situations.

2. Margaret Killjoy’s Go-Bag List

Substack author shares the contents of her 72-hour Go-Bag in this article. As she notes, this is “the bag you grab if your house is on fire or the forest is on fire or the fascists are en route.”

Margaret’s article is less a packing list and more a guide to help you think through and build your own Go Bag. Again the emphasis here isn’t coming from a “you must do this or you’ll die” attitude, but simply a practical stance of being ready for whatever might happen.

Margaret goes into lots of helpful detail, but it all starts with this:

Start with the basics: a backpack, some water, some food, some warm clothes, some underwear. Start adding some things: basic survival, hygiene, first aid, digital copies of documents. A flashlight. A knife. Pepper spray. A powerbank and phone charging cable. And just go from there.

3. A Supply Chain Shortage Could Be a Revolution!

My Substack friend and ecstatic wanderer posted such an insightful Note earlier in June. I really appreciate how April reframes the practice of “prepping” as an opportunity to simplify our lives in a way which benefits the planet (and our own mental health). Here it is:

I’m seeing a lot of prepper articles urging people to stock up now in anticipation of the upcoming supply chain shortages. I get the beans, oils, rice and lentils. But the paper products, hair & skin care products, plastic bags? This is a great time to give up decadence and toxins & find natural alternatives to the things we think we can’t live without and are meanwhile killing us and the planet.

For example, why not stock up on: bidets, antimicrobial cloths, handkerchiefs, oils, baking soda, vinegar. People used to live this way without paper products and plastic. We have just gotten so used to the lie that we need it & it’s not healthy unless we scrub our bodies, homes, and clothes with chemicals.

If you camp regularly in the wilderness or live off-grid, you already know how little you actually need. A supply chain shortage could be a revolution.

*** 3 Things You Can Do Now ***

What I took away from sifting through these helpful articles and notes is that first and foremost, we can enter into preparation from a mind of remembering our interdependence with all beings. The most effective survival strategies integrate cooperation and compassion. If you’ve mindfully prepared yourself, it’s more likely that you’ll be a calm presence to support others. The lone wolf scenario is a recipe for even more disaster.

Along with that, I picked up these three very practical steps that are pretty easy to implement right away:

• Get to know your neighbors
When things fall apart—through climate crisis, energy meltdowns, pandemics, economic fall-outs—it’s likely that the people you’ll be in the thick of it with will be your neighbors. Now is the time to start nurturing those relationships, even if you don’t think you’ve got much in common. Can you start hosting a monthly coffee-and-pastry get-together at your house for the folks on your street? Can you check in on an elderly neighbor to make sure she’s okay and see if she needs anything from the store? Can you start a contact list for people on your street, gathering phone numbers and email addresses, and share this with everyone? Make sure you print this list, don’t just rely on a digital version which you may not be able to access if the power and cellular connections go out. Small steps now make a big difference later.

• Stock up your mask supply
Keeping in mind that the first of the rule of three is that we can only survive three minutes without air, it makes sense to have supplies in place to protect you in various scenarios that involve air: smoke from wildfires that could impact your breathing, airborne viruses, toxic fumes. This is a good time to make sure you’ve got an adequate supply of N95 and P100 masks. Cloth masks and bandanas won’t cut it. Here’s a highly rated KN95 you might consider ordering.

• Fill up jugs with drinkable water
Again, the rule of three comes in handy. We can survive far longer without food than clean water, so focus on your water supply first. The rule of thumb is to store at least 1 gallon of water per person, per day, with a minimum 3-day supply.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on preparation, both the mental/spiritual aspect as well as the practical aspect. Have you been taking any of these steps or other steps you think are important?

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May 31, 2026 / Full Moon • Strawberry Moon

The First Amendment was designed to allow for disruption of business as usual.
It is not a quiet and subdued amendment or right.

– Naomi Wolf

______________________________

Some years ago, a very dear friend came to visit me. We hadn’t seen each other in almost three years and I had forgotten an essential element of our friendship chemistry: when she is around, I often feel like the rug is pulled out from under me. She questions assumptions I didn’t realize I was carrying, she calls me out when I’m headed down a self-defeating path.

All of this has a disruptive impact on my life, and I have to admit a few times during that visit I felt like it would have been easier if she hadn’t come! But I dearly love this friend and know enough about her and me and our dynamic to trust that we find our way through it. And I know that what’s waiting for both of us on the other side of those glitches is a beautifully expanded sense of who we are, and a deeper appreciation of each other. It’s the gift of a deeply honest and loving friendship.

As I shared this experience with another friend, the phrase “positive disruption” came to me as a way to describe it. I thought that was so incredibly original until I googled and found the term has been around for quite a while. In 2013 there was even a whole TEDx event themed around positive disruption (check it out here). Here’s how they describe it:

Disruption is usually unwelcome. It represents conflict, chaos, and potential danger. We discourage disruptive behavior in our homes and our societies, often favoring passivity and compliance instead.

But disruption can be a positive — sometimes vital — catalyst for change. It can challenge old assumptions, ignite conversations, activate authorities and expose new possibilities. Disruption can shed a unique light on difficult issues, giving a fresh urgency and perspective to the challenges of our global community.

Ani DiFranco and are two powerful exemplars of this; I’d go so far as to call them the Patron Saints of Positive Disruption. Both of these artists went against the stream in their respective mediums (music and filmmaking) to blaze independent paths that enabled them to create with more freedom.

Frustrated by the traditional music business machine, Ani launched her own label, Righteous Babe, in 1990. The move enabled her to retain complete creative and financial control over her work, and to be a fierce advocate for gender and racial justice. Rolling Stone gave her this prop: “The world needs more radicals like Ani DiFranco: wry, sexy, as committed to beauty and joy as revolution.”

Ava founded ARRAY, a multiplatform arts and social impact collective, in 2011. One aspect of its mission is to amplify storytelling by Black artists, people of color and women directors of all kinds. Ava has been telling these stories on the screen in her own brilliant way, stories ranging from When They See Us (about the Central Park 5) to Selma to Origin. And if you don’t already know about it, you totally need to go check out her Substack: Onward.

Both women refused to settle for systems that routinely marginalize voices like theirs (and ours), and became catalysts for big change.

Let’s be honest — even though this is called positive disruption, it can still be pretty damn uncomfortable when it shows up in our life. Sometimes to the point of painful. That’s the defining characteristic of disruption, right?

So developing a capacity to hang out in those uncomfortable zones for longer than we are used to can be incredibly helpful in harvesting the rewards that await us there. (Hint: contemplative practice is a great way to do this!)

We can carve some pretty deep grooves in the ways we think and act, and some of those grooves carry a lot of pain and dysfunction. Positive disruption, whatever form it comes in, helps shake us out of those grooves so we can make healthier and more wholesome choices about how we live our life. I would venture to guess that positive disruption might even be what sets in motion the benefits that come from neuroplasticity.

You become an accomplice in their liberation, if they are willing to lean into that disruption. The same thing can happen to you when a positively disrupting force shows up in your life – if you’re willing to lean into it instead of shutting it down.

We do this with each other as individuals, and it also happens collectively. Black Lives Matter is a great example of a group, a movement, that has disrupted our usual narratives around race and privilege. In the wake of the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, activists started using the phrase #BlackLivesMatter on social media every time a police killing of an unarmed Black man or woman took place. In doing so they made abundantly clear that the mainstream narrative that’s been in operation for so very long is exactly the opposite.

We can see how uncomfortable this has made so many white people. Tone-deaf responses like “All Lives Matter” are evidence of this discomfort and the unwillingness to sit with it and learn something.

We live in a time when we absolutely need positive disruption in order to complete whatever lower vibration we’ve been operating in and move into a place where love, justice, and courage are the norm.

So the next time someone pops up in your life and your discomfort radar is wildly going off, stop and ask yourself…

• Might this be a case of positive disruption?

• What is it in me that is getting so deeply questioned?

• Is it time to evolve from those beliefs and behaviors?

• Can I stay open to something new, marvelous, and as-yet-unknown being born in me and my culture?

I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences with positive disruption…

Leave a comment

Going through a career transition and want to do it in a mindful way? Check out my book Work That Matters: Create a Livelihood that Reflects Your Core Intention

New Moon /May 16, 2026

One of the themes that sometimes pops up in my writing is Transformative Travel. Maybe it comes from my Sagittarian sun sign, maybe I got some of it from my dad who loved to travel and worked for the Automobile Club of America for many years (I learned how to fold maps at a young age!).

I’ve always felt most “myself” when on a journey, and I believe that travel has the potential to open our hearts and minds in all kinds of ways.

Some of the adventures I’ve shared here on Substack…

Just a couple of weeks ago I returned from another great trip to Slovenia, a small country in central Europe, to get to know the land that my grandparents on my mom’s side immigrated from. I’m still digesting the experience and not quite ready to write about it.

But I did want to share a few online tools that I find super helpful. If you’re someone who also comes alive when you travel, you might appreciate these three apps/websites. I’m not a big app fan and try to simplify my digital life as much as possible, but in the case of these three apps I make an exception because they so greatly enhance my travel experiences.

1 Atlas Obscura

Let’s start with this one because it’s just so much fun! Atlas Obscura calls itself “The definitive guide to the world’s hidden wonders… From ancient relics to roadside oddities, we connect you to the best of what’s out there.”

That’s a big claim to make, but I think they actually pull it off.

AO is a company with employees and web developers who work on this vast project, but it’s also a global community of more than 32,000 explorers who contribute to an open-sourced database of listings. When you dive into the website or app, you’ll find oddities like a Japanese island ruled by cats, a secret apartment atop the Eiffel Tower, and a Peephole Cinema theater in San Francisco, a literal hole in the wall where you can watch silent movies.

Before I head to a destination, I’ve started to check AO to locate unique spots I not might otherwise know about. I’ve even contributed a couple of photos to the listing for Los Luceros Historic Site near my Northern New Mexico home.

Whether you search the website or go another step further to download the app and contribute your own magical destinations, you can easily get lost for hours on Atlas Obscura.

2 Tripit

Tripit is a very practical addition to this list. I’ve been using this app for more than a decade and love how it simplifies the process of creating an itinerary, especially for trips that have multiple destinations and a variety of travel modalities.

Once you set up your Tripit account, you forward confirmation emails from plane or other transport tickets, hotel or Airbnb reservations, and shuttle services, and the app will magically create your itinerary to help you stay organized as you travel. It’s like having your own personal assistant!

You can easily go into the itinerary to make edits or add new plans, such as lunch with a friend in a city you’re visiting or a work meeting. You can also add documents like PDFs or QR codes to your plans.

While on the go, Tripit provides some cool features to help you find your way around, like links to maps of airports and terminals, and directions to your hotel. You can also share your itinerary with anyone you’d like, and they’ll see changes you make synched on their copy.

There is a “Pro” version of Tripit with more bells and whistles that costs $49 a year, but I’ve always used the free version and it works fine for me.

3 Polarsteps

I have my friend Yael to thank for introducing me to Polarsteps. She used it as kind of a travel journal when she set off on a year-long Shmitah adventure to Costa Rica and other destinations.

The app creatively combines geotracking with blogging so that your followers can literally see where you are on the planet, and then read about your adventures and enjoy the photos you share. They can also leave comments or ask you questions, so you feel like they’re along for the ride with you!

I love using Polarsteps when I want to share my journeys in a more intimate way with a small circle of friends rather than posting things on social media. It’s also a great way to remind myself of the highlights of my travels, places I’d like to return to, people I’ve met along the way.

Polarsteps also has some features I haven’t used, like the option to create a book based on your entries after you return from your travels.

I realize not everyone is a fan of having your every step tracked by an app, but in this case I trust the Amsterdam-based group of explorers who set up Polarsteps and feel okay with this info being shared with a small group of friends who I invite to follow me. There are no ads in the app (at least not yet), and that goes a long way to help me feel like my experiences aren’t being data-harvested and commodified.

BONUS!

If you’ve read this far, you deserve a great poem : ) Here’s my absolute favorite transformative travel poem:

For the Traveler

by John O’Donohue


Every time you leave home,

Another road takes you

Into a world you were never in.



New strangers on other paths await.

New places that have never seen you

Will startle a little at your entry.

Old places that know you well

Will pretend nothing

Changed since your last visit.



When you travel, you find yourself

Alone in a different way,

More attentive now

To the self you bring along,

Your more subtle eye watching

You abroad; and how what meets you

Touches that part of the heart

That lies low at home:



How you unexpectedly attune

To the timbre in some voice,

Opening in conversation

You want to take in

To where your longing

Has pressed hard enough

Inward, on some unsaid dark,

To create a crystal of insight

You could not have known

You needed

To illuminate

Your way.



When you travel,

A new silence

Goes with you,

And if you listen,

You will hear

What your heart would

Love to say.



A journey can become a sacred thing:

Make sure, before you go,

To take the time

To bless your going forth,

To free your heart of ballast

So that the compass of your soul

Might direct you toward

The territories of spirit

Where you will discover

More of your hidden life,

And the urgencies

That deserve to claim you.



May you travel in an awakened way,

Gathered wisely into your inner ground;

That you may not waste the invitations

Which wait along the way to transform you.



May you travel safely, arrive refreshed,

And live your time away to its fullest;

Return home more enriched, and free

To balance the gift of days which call you.

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May 1, 2026 / Full Moon • Full Flower Moon

An auspicious day for a full moon – May Day!

I just returned Wednesday night from a week-long journey to Slovenia, the land of my mom’s ancestors, and I’m still swimming through the murky world of jet lag so a ‘real’ essay is out of my reach in this moment. Rather than a fully developed essay, today is more like sharing a doodle from a sketchbook with you.

Today -- May Day, Workers’ Day (as well as Beltane) is a big deal in Slovenia and many parts of Europe. If I had been thinking ahead I would have stayed for it. Here in the U.S., labor organizers and some communities are very aware of it, but overall we’re still catching up. If you’re participating in today’s General Strike, I salute you!

The main message of May Day is “workers over billionaires,” and it’s hard for me to understand how anyone couldn’t get on board with that (except for billionaires). There is no “trickle down” benefit for domestic workers, manual laborers, store clerks, oil field workers, farm workers, teachers, nurses, childcare workers, waiters and line cooks… Millions of us struggle with low wages, unaffordable housing, and inadequate access to healthcare, while the few who have the most resources hoard them.

* * *

My first day in Slovenia, I was at Lake Bled, a gorgeous place with a turquoise blue waters and an island in the middle of the lake with a church. It’s a scene from a fairy tale but it’s real. To get to the island, you can join a group on a traditional wooden pletna boat. Having just arrived in the country, I was on the initial side of jet lag so I chose the boat ride as an easy way to spend my first day.

The boat fit 15 passengers, and our group was a collection of people from around the world: Brazil, Spain, South Africa, France, the United States, Japan. As we took in the incredible scenery and enjoyed the relaxed rowing of our guide, we engaged in an interesting conversation during the half-hour voyage that somehow founds its way to current events.

The man from Spain noted that immigration is a ‘global problem,’ but for him it wasn’t the immigrants who were the problem—it was a mindset that is fearful of change. Other passengers unpacked what that meant and generally we were all in the same ‘boat’ on this one (hahaha), agreeing that it’s possible for two things to be true: one can maintain one’s culture and language while at the same time welcoming people from another culture. Migration has happened over millenia, and while people and cultures do change as they come into contact with one another, what is essential in our own traditions does not need to be lost.

I loved this conversation because I think it’s so much at the root of the time we’re now in – a dialectic between fearful defensiveness and open, welcoming trust. I’m sure I’ve oversimplified that a bit, but perhaps you get where I’m coming from. It was amazing to talk about these things while in a country that clearly reveres its natural beauty, its language, and culture.

And it reminded me how much more we have in common than we might think, and how much the billionaires and ruling classes benefit when we are divided. When we choose love over fear, when we choose solidarity over division, we are more powerful.

And that reminded me of Arundhati Roy’s epic quote1:

That gives me hope in these dark times.

Happy May Day! Tell me what you’re up to today, what’s inspiring your creativity, what does May Day mean to you?

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Going through a career transition and want to do it in a mindful way? Check out my book Work That Matters: Create a Livelihood that Reflects Your Core Intention

We’ve been living through an extremely harsh, stressful time. I intended to write a heavier version of this new moon letter with ideas on how to “resist,” but I’m realizing I need something softer. Perhaps you do as well.

I never imagined I’d be quoting a Rodgers and Hammerstein quote here, but “My Favorite Things” has been running through my mind lately.

I was tempted to dismiss it as some cute nostalgic thing—after all, I grew up with The Sound of Music as probably did many of you. Then I thought about it more and was impressed. The musical is based on the true story of the Von Trapp family, who actually did resist the Nazis and had to escape from their beloved Austria first to Italy, and then eventually to the United States to start a new life.

There had to have been some trauma there.

That’s when I realized this song is actually a great example of how to resource ourselves when we’re experiencing trauma, or recovering from it.

Years ago when I was the director of the Upaya Buddhist Chaplaincy Program, I sat in on an amazing class taught by Dr. Laurie Leitch about trauma resiliency. The concept of “resourcing ourselves” stayed with me—essentially that one of the most important things we can do for ourselves or another in trauma recovery is to learn how to access the strong, healthy, and calm parts of ourselves.

In that spirit, I’m offering a simple list and an invitation to you to build on this list and add your own “favorite things.”

So let’s go…. These have been my favorite things lately:

1. Turkish Eggs… and food!

Under the best circumstances, I’m a foodie. But lately I’ve been turning to food as comfort and even cooking things myself (not a usual occurrence, I did not inherit the cooking gene from my mom). A few weeks ago after receiving some especially sad news, the first thing I did was make something I’d never tried before: çilbir, Turkish eggs—poached eggs sitting on a bed of Greek yogurt with garlic, and drizzled with oil, Berbere or Aleppo peppers, and rosemary. Holy cow, good. Also, I always get a kick out of ’s Department of Salad. Her recent post on “Food for Pretending Everything is Fine” is gold.

The Department of Salad: Official Bulletin

Food for Pretending Everything Is Fine

I DON’T WANT TO DWELL TOO MUCH on the present state of the world in this newsletter, which I’ve always seen as a little escape from reality. But I have been thinking about how that desire—to escape reality now and then—helps us survive, much like our animal instincts to avoid rotting food or to instantly freeze when someone knocks on our front door and we weren’t expecting anyone. (Call first, you monsters…

Read more

2 months ago · 300 likes · 53 comments · emily nunn

2. Garden

The day after the Turkish eggs adventure, I decided my front yard needed to become a garden. The sadness from the news the day before was still very much with me, and my strong instinct was to plant beautiful things. So I went to the nearby Lowes to pick up potting soil, zinnias, and snapdragons, and got to business. It felt so good to put my hands in the earth and put these little ones out where anyone passing by my house can enjoy them. On top of that, irises and wisteria that had been planted by the woman who owned my house before me were coming into full bloom. Ahhhhh…. deep peace.

3. Laughter

Anything that makes me laugh out loud is deeply appreciated right now. That’s about all I need to say about that : )

4. Practice

This one is also very simple — I’m finding it so helpful right now to return to my sitting meditation practice. Even just 10 minutes first thing in the morning makes a huge difference in my capacity to make it through each day.

If you’d like to integrate a daily practice into your life, these posts might be helpful:

Those four things are tops on my list right now. How about you? What favorite things are getting you through these times? I’d love it if you drop ideas, poems, videos, recipes, anything you like in the comment section. Let’s create a resourcing list that we can all draw upon when we need an extra boost.

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Other Places to Find Me and My Writing

• In February, invited me to be part of her “Beginner’s Mind” series of interviews exploring mindfulness and creativity. You can sit in on our conversation here.

• I’ve got another Substack: Postcards from New Mexico. It’s a lot of fun to explore, please check it out!

• I’ve got a book — Work That Matters is a mindfulness-based guide for people who are seeking right livelihood.

Welcome to The Practice of Life — a place to slow down, befriend yourself, and move through the world with kindness and awareness. Everything here is freely offered without paywalls. If you appreciate what you find, please consider a paid subscription or one-time donation.

TIP: Click on the article title above for the best viewing experience.

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April 1, 2026 / Full Moon • Pink Moon

Today I want to share with you something from my book, Work That Matters. Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about this short essay that’s included in the book. When I wrote it ten years ago, the reference point was the fear that can come up when we contemplate making a big change in our career (and any other part of our life).

While that’s certainly still a thing, I’m struck by how our shared reference point has expanded exponentially in the past decade to now include a world teetering on the edge of climate catastrophe, economic collapse, and nuclear war. These things are no longer theoretical possibilities, they are knocking at our door.

If we, like most humans, have a strong need for certainty and security, we are being stretched to and beyond the limit these days. In our very uncertain world, I thought this might be a helpful short read.

The way Work That Matters is structured, there is a chapter for each of the “6 Keys to Liberation-based Livelihood,” and each chapter is capped off with a story from my own life that illustrates that Key. This is the one that accompanies “Make Friends With Uncertainty,” Key #4.

A couple of pieces of background that are helpful as you read it —

• The two people quoted, Jami Sieber and Katya Lesher, were profiled earlier in the book as examples of what it means to create work that has meaning and joy.

• In the last paragraph, I refer to “Core Intention.” This is one of the main concepts of the book. In contrast to “passion,” your Core Intention doesn’t have to be connected to an object or an activity — instead, it’s the essential reason that you’re inspired to do those things. You might recognize that you love to cook. But when you start to dig for your Core Intention, you discover that the driving force underneath that passion is actually that you love to nourish people. And that desire to offer nourishment can take many forms — cooking is simply one of them.

Even though the book and this essay are about work and livelihood, I believe the principles in them can apply to every area of our life. I hope there may be something in this short piece to support you, wherever you’re at right now.

A Meditation on Security

One autumn, I went for a hike at one of my favorite places on the planet, Ghost Ranch, in Abiquiú, New Mexico. This is the land that Georgia O’Keeffe fell madly in love with, where she spent many years capturing the majesty and mystery of the earth and sky in her paintings.

I chose the Box Canyon Trail, one I hadn’t been on for a few years. Since my last visit, tremendous summer monsoons and a magnitude of rain caused flooding in the area. As I made my way through the twists and turns of the trail, I felt disoriented. Nothing was where I remembered it. Could this possibly be the same path I had been on before? My feet had memorized a way through the canyon, but it wasn’t this one! I looked for familiar forks in the trail and landmarks, but everything was different.

When I arrived at the stream that flows through the center of the canyon, I saw uprooted trees everywhere. Some of these trees were lodged in places that had been the original trail, now blocked and entirely rerouted. The roots of these upside-down trees had caught all kinds of natural debris: rocks, feathers, leaves, sand.

I sat down on a boulder, noticing how unsettled I felt. There between the high canyon walls, I looked up and near the very top of the northern wall I saw a rock column that I remembered from before, standing like a sentry over this disarray. I realized how much I count on something as seemingly solid as the earth to be unchanging. Yet here I was, in a landscape of upheaval.

Everything and anything can change, in any moment. We know this intellectually but it’s a different story when our body experiences it. Those who have experienced serious illness and who have been touched by death know this truth intimately. When I asked Jami Sieber what helped her deal with the uncertainty of her path as a musician, especially earlier in her career, she told me,

I was very sick when I was fourteen and almost died. I experienced a great deal of fear, and yet I survived. That became the basis of how I lived after that. There was something about facing death and giving in to that possibility that my illness would limit my ability to speak or do other things. It became my teacher, and the basis of how I find courage in my life. It took me years to recognize that gift. I really see it now. That’s my guide, and that also led me to healing work. I saw what human touch and human presence can do, the presence of heart.

Katya Lesher had a similar story:

Having been diagnosed with cancer myself, and having been around death and dying and illness, I know that anybody’s life can change in an instant.

I feel like we’ve been convinced that if we do certain things in a certain way, we’ll be secure, and it’s not true. People lose their jobs every single day, or have an accident or illness that prevents them from doing their jobs. None of it is certain. Just recognizing this is freeing to me. We have an out breath, and that may be our last out breath. But then we have another one, and it’s like “Yay, what can I do in this moment?” That’s what we have, each moment.

We have this idea that we can count on things happening in a certain way if we do certain things. We think if we are a reliable, hard worker, we will be rewarded. The idea of “Security” traps and deadens us more than we realize. I don’t mean to flippantly dismiss your concerns but I do want you to realize that you may have less security than you think with your current job—or anything. The truth is that everything is impermanent. There is no guarantee that something won’t happen that results in big changes in your current work situation, and this is out of your control (despite the illusion of control that we often hang onto).

Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues and founder of One Billion Rising, brings this point home in a powerful way:

In fact, security is essentially elusive, impossible. We all die. We all get sick. We all get old. People leave us. People surprise us. People change us. Nothing is secure. And this is the good news. But only if you are not seeking security as the point of your life.… I am proposing that we reconceive the dream. That we consider what would happen if security were not the point of our existence. That we find freedom, aliveness, and power not from what contains, locates, or protects us but from what dissolves, reveals, and expands us.1

When your life is guided by your Core Intention rather than a need for things to be certain or by other people’s expectations, the rewards are great. All that’s required is the courage to let go of the myth of security, and the openness to venture into “unanswered wonder” as Jami beautifully describes it.

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Some questions for contemplation…

• What do you understand as your Core Intention for your life?

• How does your relationship to uncertainty and instability change when you anchor yourself into your Core Intention?

• “The myth of security” may be possibly a little easier to puncture when it’s confined to a limited aspect of our life, such as a job change. How do you see that concept being relevant (if you do) now as we face multiple crises on the world stage?

Going through a career transition and want to do it in a mindful way? Check out my book Work That Matters: Create a Livelihood that Reflects Your Core Intention

New Moon / March 18, 2026

Art is medicine. Creativity is balm.

In these dark times, deep medicine is needed. This past month, these three shining examples stood out to me —

1. An artist conjures meaning out of devastation

“Bamiyan: A Continuum” by Andra Samelson

In her Three Threads Substack, offers “an invitation to pause and deepen into the fullness of our human experience with art as our guide.” The “Three Threads” are creativity, spirituality, and social justice.

This recent post featured a stunning work of art by Andra Samelson, a multimedia artist based in New York City. Samelson created “Bamiyan: A Continuum” not long after the Taliban blew up two huge statues depicting the Buddha in the caves of Bamiyan, Afghanistan. These Buddhas had been carved into the sandstone cliff some time between c. 544 - 644 CE, and carried a great deal of historical, cultural, and religious significance. Their destruction, carried out in 2001 only a few months before the Sept 11 attacks on the Twin Towers, felt insurmountable. And yet Samelson took this as an opening to explore something deeper. As she writes,

“I chose to paint a seated Buddha over images of the two colossal Buddha statues that were destroyed to symbolize the state of meditation, serene and indestructible. Despite the destruction of these great statues, the wisdom and power of the Buddha’s teaching have not been diminished.”

Wong’s post on this artwork is wonderful as she gives more of the back story and invites us into a meditation on impermanence, as well as constructs of self and other.

2. Claude Monet’s water lilies

’s work is frequently lyrical — and heartbreaking. In “The Texture of Wartime Monet,” she mines a vein of suffering at the heart of Claude Monet’s life, and turns it into gold:

“Look and you can see beneath the surface of the water: that dread, that waiting. Would it be destroyed, the garden in Normandy, like so many others? Would it all be dug up? Monet’s water garden, that paradise it took him so long to earn, and to build. But then another wife died, and a son, and a beloved dog. Can’t you see them there, the wives, the son, the dog, the war—in his brushstrokes, in the depths of the water?”

Brennan delves into the story behind Monet’s water lilies, a project he started the year his son died from illness, and continued into the unfolding of World War II. As the French countryside around him was being bombed and friends encouraged him to leave his home and studio in Giverny for his own safety, he refused: “I shall stay here regardless. If those barbarians wish to kill me, I shall die among my canvases, in front of my life’s work.”

As if all that wasn’t enough, Monet was also grieving his wife Alice, who died just three years before, and was going blind.

Knowing this back story gives these works of art even more urgency and poignancy, which Brennan beautifully captures in this essay. The world and our lives can literally be falling apart and yet, perhaps like Monet, we can lean into creativity as our life preserver.

3. Art in unexpected places… Alysa Liu

Finally, I was so moved this past month by watching Alysa Liu’s extraordinary performance at the Winter Olympics, which won her and the U.S. a gold medal.

What made it remarkable was not the technical expertise she displayed, though that was there. It was the backstory of how Alysa retired from professional skating just a few years before, tired of being told how she should move and dress, tired of the competitive foundation of the sport. She needed to be free, she needed to rediscover her own unmediated relationship to skating — and for Alysa, she is absolutely clear that skating is her art form, her way to express herself to the world.

This freedom is what shines through this performance, and it broke my heart open. I’m guessing it may have done the same for you. At a time when we in the United States have so much to be ashamed of, when so many of us wish with all our hearts that we could stop or change the horrific acts our government is committing, to have Alysa Liu embody what is good about this country feels incredibly healing. She skated so beautifully because she was unattached to winning a medal. These moments on the ice were all about transmitting light and joy.

Let’s remember that feeling of complete liberation and pure joy once more and savor Alysa’s artistry:

Other Places to Find My Writing

• I’ve got another Substack: Postcards from New Mexico. It’s a lot of fun to explore, please check it out!

• Dharma Compass is my monthly column on the Buddhist Global Door website. My most recent article: Toward a Socially Responsible Mindfulness

• I’ve got a book! Work That Matters is a mindfulness-based guide for people who are seeking right livelihood. Please check it out and tell others about it.

Memories fade quickly, even when we beg them to stay. As I start this essay to take you along on the rest of my January road trip, the experiences from those ten days are already slipping through the crevices of my brain.

Photos help. I had my iPhone on that trip, as I imagine nearly all of us do these days, and while I didn’t take hundreds of photos there are enough for a reasonable facsimile of memory. So here we go…

When I last left you, I had released some of my parents’ ashes at one of their favorite parks near Pasadena (where I grew up), with the help of a friend.

Yael and I walked back to my car, feeling very pleased that we had found such a good spot for my mom and dad, and without being detected. She offered to take me out to dinner—it felt like this was something to commemorate together. I loved the idea and pointed us toward a restaurant that had been a family favorite: Mijares in Pasadena.

This is where I wish I would have taken some photos, but I didn’t. You’ll just have to imagine a vintage, old school Mexican restaurant that sits near the freeway, an institution in the city for more than 100 years. You’ll have to imagine the margarita that we shared (or did we each get our own? Here is where I forget…). You’ll have to imagine the “garbage burrito” I ordered, smothered in all kinds of goodness. Two old friends, cherishing each other’s company, all the more aware of impermanence after our clandestine task to honor my parents.

The dispersal of their ashes was the main purpose of this road trip but the task was not yet finished. I was surprised by the quantity of ashes that come from a cremated body. My dad’s box was significantly heavier than mom’s, which made sense because he was six feet tall and she was about five feet five inches. Although dad lost a lot of weight at the end of his life because of COVID, he still weighed a good 150 pounds, whereas mom was probably closer to 90. My point being – there was still plenty left over after the park visit, so finding more resting spots was on the list for the remainder of the trip. I didn’t really have a plan, I trusted that the right places would reveal themselves. Most of my journey was run on intuition and heart, not firm itineraries.

On Tuesday, it felt time to start the long return trip home to New Mexico. I didn’t especially want to re-trace the same route back. In this way I am my father’s daughter – dad was forever seeking different roads to try out, and as much as possible he avoided interstates. When I looked at a map and measured out the miles, I was surprised to learn that going home by way of Las Vegas, Nevada, was not any longer than the way I drove out, and my cousin happened to live there. Bingo! I chose my new route.

As I left Pasadena, I made one last stop under the iconic Colorado Street bridge that spans Arroyo Seco, home of the Rose Bowl. I had forgotten that Colorado Boulevard, which runs right through the middle of Pasadena, is also part of Route 66. I never knew there was a sweet park right underneath the bridge. I took a short walk, then it dawned on me this would be another wonderful resting spot for mom and dad. They had moved to Pasadena in the late 1950s from Ohio, lived here for 60 years and loved it. I felt a bit guilty about extricating them from this temperate climate to go to Northern New Mexico and into cold winters. This small park, called Desiderio, seemed like the kind of place they would enjoy, and the setting was dramatic with the bridge’s arches overhead.

Once more I went on a secret mission since I wasn’t sure if it was okay to leave cremains here. I waited until a woman walking her dog got in her car and drove away, found a quiet spot under a tree, and left a small amount of ashes there.

I headed northwest to Oxnard and met up with my friend Leslie for a beach walk and dinner, then drove to Ventura to stay the night at a cool place called The Clocktower Inn. The next morning I got more quality time with the Pacific at Solimar Beach. I savored every liquid moment before heading back to my high and dry desert home in New Mexico.

Saying goodbye to the ocean, I headed east through the verdant Heritage valley along the Santa Clara River, and then into the vast Mojave desert. I pulled over for a break in Baker, California, which turned out to be home to the world’s tallest thermometer, installed to commemorate a record-breaking 134 °F day in July 1913. Yikes! Fortunately it was a lovely 70 degrees day for me.

Near Baker I took a side trip a mile or so into the Mojave National Preserve and pulled off the road to take in the landscape. The view was gorgeous—miles of sandy desert punctuated by hills and mountain ranges, and everything green from recent rains. It was so quiet, like being in a church. I felt the nudge of my spirit and decided this would be another good resting place for mom and dad. No one was anywhere around, so this was the most relaxed of the releases. After I finished, a huge raven hovered in the air currents above me for a good ten seconds. I took this as a very good sign that my parents approved.

That night I stayed just outside of Las Vegas. In the morning I enjoyed a short and sweet visit with my cousin Michelle before orienting south, passing the dramatic Hoover dam and reconnecting with Route 66 in Kingman.

Here I’ve got to back you up a week earlier to my westward drive when I was also in Kingman. I stopped there at the Arizona Route 66 Museum and saw an exhibit called “The Angel of Route 66” about Angel Delgadillo, a barber and business owner who was instrumental in establishing Route 66 as an historic highway. Angel is still very much alive at 98 years old; this fascinating exhibit was intended to capture his rich life in stories.

On this day as I kept driving east, I vaguely remembered a friend who worked for the National Park Service telling me to stop in the small town of Seligman and go to Delgadillo’s Snow Cap Drive-In. I veered off Interstate 40 (my dad would have been proud) and meandered on old Route 66 into Seligman. Alas, the Snow Cap was closed for a winter break. Needing to stretch my legs, I wandered down the road and into the first gift shop I came across. On a table in the front was a pile of Angel’s memoir, The Road to Happiness. I brought a book to the counter and chatted with the woman there – who turned out to be Angel’s daughter, and who knew my park ranger friend, Kaisa! I stayed for about half an hour while Mirna told me stories about her dad, who was a real bodhisattva in his community, and invited me to the upcoming big centennial party for Route 66. I may just return for that! Watch more of Angel’s extraordinary story on this video.

Oh and I have to add: before Angel opened his Seligman barbershop in 1950, he went to the American Barber College — in Pasadena.

The next day, I made it back home to Española with some of my parents’ ashes still in my car. I really wanted to finish this mission. One of my favorite nearby destinations is a trail near the town of White Rock that overlooks the Rio Grande, so I packed mom and dad one last time. I hiked up to a hill with a view of the Sangre de Cristos and Pecos Mountains, and released the rest of them in this spot. Look carefully — do you see the two hearts in the mountain?

After this journey, I really do believe Angels are all around us….

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Going through a career transition and want to do it in a mindful way? Check out my book Work That Matters: Create a Livelihood that Reflects Your Core Intention

New Moon / February 17, 2026

First — let’s take a moment to marvel at the convergence of spiritual and cultural holidays going on right now: Mahashivaratri, an important Hindu festival honoring Lord Shiva, has been in motion since last week; Tuesday (the new moon) is the Lunar New Year (the Fire Horse!) as well as the beginning of Ramadan, and Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday; and Lent starts on Wednesday. Truly auspicious.

For January’s new moon, I offered 3 Spiritual and Practical Keys to Make it Through End Times Fascism. The post seemed to hit a nerve with a lot of folks, so today is a follow-up: ways to put community into practice, how to navigate differences that may seem impossible to bridge, and how to strengthen your inner Healer. Let’s go!

1. Turning ‘community’ from a good idea into reality

“Community” is a word that gets tossed around a lot. It’s easy to talk about it, but what does it mean to truly nurture a community? How do we move beyond community as a good idea and put it into action?

First, it’s important to understand it takes time. That’s the very definition of community, to me: people with whom we have established a history of mutual support and trust. But there are ways to kick the process into motion and accelerate it.

Our friends in Minneapolis offer a case study on the power of community ties. Many of them have lived and worked alongside each other for years, and in many cases those ties go back generations of families. Over the last few months, we’ve witnessed how those ties have made possible a unified and powerful wave of community care and resistance to oppression.

is a Substack writer who lives in Minnesota, and she’s gifted us with an on-the-ground view of what it feels like there right now. She’s also been generous in sharing her observations on community. I want to share this excerpt from her January 31 Note on Substack. It’s chock full of great ideas and tangible things you can do to grow and strengthen community right in your neighborhood:

A lot of people keep asking, “What can we do from far away?”

The short answer is COMMUNITY.

Community gets built on random Tuesdays, in parking lots, in church basements, at the bus stop, in the checkout lines, and during Girl Scout cookie sales.

The “big heroic things” everyone notices… are made possible by a thousand small relationships that already existed.

Here’s my guide on “how to love like a Minnesotan”

· Host a neighbor dinner. Pick a date. Make it simple. Soup + bread. Tell people, “Bring a bowl.” Learn names. Learn pets’ names. Ask, “If you needed help fast, who would you call?” Build the phone tree before you need it.

· Become a regular somewhere. Grocery store. Coffee shop. Hardware store. Library. Look people in the eye, and call them by first name, ask them about their grandkids and listen to the answers.

· Be “that” parent. Sit in the stands of the dance studio, karate dojo, hockey rink and force the other parents to talk to you. Volunteer to organize the fundraisers and the ticket-sales. Pay attention to the kids whose parents don’t show up, and check in on them. Notice the parents that seem not-okay, and network with others to help.

· Volunteer. Sign up for the bake-sale and the food shelf, your HOAs, the libraries, the community centers. By joining and organization, you’re joining a web, a mycelial network of mutual support.

· Stop for the person on the side of the road. Pull over. Ask what they need. Sit with them until help arrives. Being witnessed calms the nervous system. It reminds people they’re still human. I spent 10 years road-tripping for a living with a not-entirely reliable car. I’ve broken down in multiple states, and MN is the only state where people pull over to help within minutes of me pulling over.

· Practice your breath when everything is fine. Three slow breaths, a few times a day. Train your body to return to center. That way, when something wild happens, your breath shows up like muscle memory. This is so fucking important. BREATHE DAMNIT!

· Befriend your Black and Brown and LGBTQ neighbors with your whole heart. Be curious about who they are as human beings, and what they have to teach you about life. Go to their restaurants, and keep going back. Become regulars at their places of business. Let the relationship be real, mutual, and ongoing. Community becomes sturdy when everyone belongs.

· Listen to your elders like they’re a living library. Elders carry maps, and communities with maps move differently. Ask for stories, and listen even if you’ve heard them a dozen times because it takes a dozen times to really embody the lessons. Write down what they say. They’ve been through it all, and their wisdom comes in the quiet little spaces between their stories.

There’s lots more! Read ‘s full Note here.

I also want to lift up the amazing work that Kelly Hayes does as a community organizer based in Chicago. Her newsletter Organizing My Thoughts is a great place to find interviews, essays, lists, and musings about how we can take political action together and create a better world.

2. Navigating difference and the shadow side of community

As anyone who has ever lived in an intentional or spiritual community knows, it’s not a walk in the park. Living and/or working in close proximity to people who apparently share the same values as you may start out feeling blissful, but inevitably you’ll soon run into the shadow side—yours and everyone else’s. This is when it gets interesting, and when a lot of us choose to bail on the “living in community” experiment. I confess to having bailed several times in my life, no community angel here!

But it is possible to practice ways to communicate and be in relationship with people who are coming from very different backgrounds and perspectives from us, even when conflict arises.

Here’s a story from my life, and two resources—one spiritual and one strategic:

a. My own experience with a neighbor who was an enthusiastic Trump and MAGA supporter:

b. Dharma teacher on embodied compassion as a way to move through a field of conflict:

“When compassion is embodied, it becomes protective. There are many stories of this. Vietnamese nuns and monks moving through war zones unharmed because they carried compassion rather than fear. Tibetan practitioners who survived years in Chinese labor camps later showed remarkable resilience and no signs of trauma. One elder Tibetan monk shared that the greatest danger he faced was not physical harm, but losing compassion for his captors. Black folks in the US who remained so creatively and wisely loving towards white supremacists that they were eventually converted to the cause of Black liberation. Or the powerful example of the monks from Fort Worth, Texas on the Walk for Peace to Washington D.C. these past 3 months, braving the extreme cold, walking 20 miles a day, hearts full of love and strength, inspiring us all to find deeper peace in our own daily lives.”

The whole essay is excellent, and includes a list of resources at the end:

Kaira Jewel’s Substack

Compassion as Protection: Practicing with Those Who Cause Harm

Kaira Jewel’s Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber…

Read more

4 months ago · 70 likes · 3 comments · Kaira Jewel Lingo

c. The Spectrum of Allies

This tool comes from George Lakey of Training for Change.

Movements and campaigns are won not by overpowering one’s active opposition, but by shifting each group one notch around the spectrum (passive allies into active allies, neutrals into passive allies, and passive opponents into neutrals), thereby increasing people power in favour of change and weakening your opposition.

Here’s a detailed description of The Spectrum of Allies and how to use it.

3. Explore and strengthen your Inner Healer

The Four Ways of Engagement is a framework I developed many years ago, originally as the Mandala of Socially Engaged Buddhism. It draws on the concept of archetypes to help us tap into our inherent strengths. When you discover an archetype that’s alive in you, you connect with a deep source of power. This is key to preventing or overcoming the burnout that can easily come when we’re taking part in activism.

One of the four archetypes is the Healer. The essential energy of this archetype is about bridging divides and helping to make things whole again. That might mean coming back into relationship with a disowned part of ourself; it might also mean weaving back together a community that’s become fractured by polarization.

All of us have some aspect of the Healer in us; for some it may be the dominant archetype. I’ve made this module of The Four Ways of Engagement — which is a gift for paid subscribers — free for this week. It includes real-world examples of the Healer, an audio guided meditation to help you tap into the energy of the Healer, practices, and guiding questions. Have fun exploring it and let me know what you discover!

EXPLORE THE HEALER ARCHETYPE

Other Places to Find My Writing

• I’ve got another Substack: Postcards from New Mexico. It’s a lot of fun to explore, please check it out!

• Dharma Compass is my monthly column on the Buddhist Global Door website. My most recent article: Toward a Socially Responsible Mindfulness

• I’ve got a book! Work That Matters is a mindfulness-based guide for people who are seeking right livelihood. Please check it out and tell others about it.

Welcome to The Practice of Life — a place to slow down, befriend yourself, and connect with the world from kindness and awareness. Everything here is freely offered without paywalls. If you appreciate what you find here, please consider a paid subscription or one-time donation. Thank you!

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February 1, 2026 / Full Moon • Snow Moon

Recently I returned from a 10-day journey, a kind of pilgrimage to my roots in Southern California and to bring my mom and dad’s ashes closer to their longtime hometown, Pasadena. This was also my first trip back to the area since 2019, when I helped my parents to move into an assisted living center in Santa Fe. Not long after that, the pandemic came, and then in 2021 I lost them both to COVID.

This was an old school road trip, a good deal of it along Historic Route 66, traversing the Colorado Plateau into the Mojave Desert all the way to the Pacific Ocean and back. I did it by car rather than plane or train because I was carrying my parents’ ashes, and they weren’t lightweight!

But as the trip went on, I realized how perfect it was to be doing this “with” them, because road trips were such a highlight of our family life. My dad was passionate about travel and for many years worked as a trip advisor for the AAA. Back in those days, before smartphones and GPS systems, folks had to rely on paper maps to find their way. Dad reveled in planning trips for people, and our house was filled to the gills with maps, “TripTiks,” and travel books. There was something just right about having both of them in the backseat, albeit in a much transfigured form, as I navigated the highways.

One of the things I most love about travel is how it often feels like I’m entering some kind of portal where synchronicity and magic come up in a much easier way than happens in life at home. I’m reminded of one of my favorite quotes, from Gary Snyder:

Like inside a big mind, the animals and humans all can talk, and those who pass through here get power to heal and help.

This trip had a lot of that going on. I’d love to share it with you, so hop in the car and let’s go!

Day 1 was an easy drive to Winslow, Arizona (cue up the Eagles song). For many years I’ve stayed at La Posada, a classic railroad hotel that has been lovingly restored to its original glory. The Turquoise Room is the amazing restaurant inside the hotel where I savored pork carnitas and a prickly pear crème brulee that night, and the “Arizona Corn Maiden” for breakfast the next day. This was the biggest splurge of the whole trip, and entirely worth it.

Day 2 was another easy drive, Winslow to Kingman. I kept the miles low because I stopped in Flagstaff for a visit with a friend who until that point I’d only met online. Hilary Giovale is the author of Becoming a Good Relative and simply a good human being. It was wonderful to finally get to know each other in person as we took her dog YoYo for a long walk into the pine forests that thread through so much of Flagstaff.

Hilary clued me in to one of her favorite stores in town, Winter Sun. I stopped into this magical spot and met Phyllis, the owner, who gave me a warm welcome when she learned we both shared a friendship with Hilary, and walked out with some beautiful art cards and braided sweetgrass. Feeling energized and refreshed, I continued the westward drive, moving quickly because a rain and snowstorm was bearing down on the mountains around Flagstaff.

My first stop in Kingman was In ‘N Out Burger, an homage to my California roots. We don’t have them in New Mexico! To this day, I am convinced nobody makes a better burger/fries/shake combo. But the real highlight was my Airbnb, on the outskirts of town with a beautiful view of the valley to the south. The owners are animal lovers, and their backyard is home to a horse, chickens, and falcons and hawks. Greg, one of the owners, introduced me to his eagle hawk, Perry. I didn’t get a picture, so you’ll have to trust me when I tell you what a thrill it was to be up close and personal with a hawk and look right into his eyes, wild and wide with focus.

Day 3 finally brought me into California. I crossed the Mojave Desert – greener than I’d ever seen it with all the rain there in recent weeks -- and stopped in Victorville where I met up with my friend since first grade, Pattie, and her husband Tony. Two more wonderful human beings who I hadn’t seen since before the pandemic, and it was a stroke of grace that we were able to get together now as they were headed out the next morning for Utah.

Days 4, 5, 6, and 7 landed me at my destination -- Pasadena. Every day I was able to connect with family and friends who had been such a core part of my life when I grew up here, so long ago, and on the more recent trips when I was trying to figure out how best to support my aging parents.

I reveled in the warm temperatures and all the things that make Southern California feel like paradise — the San Gabriel mountains, lemon trees, colorful flowers blooming in the middle of winter.

And I discovered that when you’re working on a memoir, it’s incredibly helpful to visit the places that had a formative role in your life.

I saw the house I grew up in, now lived in by another family. That sweet Victorian farmhouse in the middle of Pasadena was such a nurturing container for my childhood.

I stopped by St. Andrews, the Catholic church and school I attended from first grade all the way through high school. Those buildings look the same, but Pasadena is a lot different than it was during my youth. Much of what’s now called Old Town has been gentrified beyond recognition. I remembered the stark contrast between the church – a beautiful brick building with a landmark clock tower that was designed after an Italian church – and the surrounding neighborhoods. Our parents would warn us to get to school quickly and avoid walking on Raymond and Fair Oaks Avenues. Back in those days, the streets were lined with flophouses, liquor stores, pawn shops, and the unforgettable Pussycat theater. I still recall walking by the marquee featuring “Deep Throat,” asking my mom what that movie was about, and seeing the horrified look on her face.

This whole time, I had mom and dad’s ashes with me but no real plan about where and how to release them. I hadn’t made any formal arrangements, and I could hear my mom’s ever penny-pinching voice in my head: “Don’t pay to do this! You can find something for free!”

One thought I had was to bring them to a park they loved, but a little research revealed that park authorities would not consider this okay. Still, I couldn’t get this idea out of my mind, it seemed just right.

My beloved friend Yael, who I knew from my days in the Bay Area, happened to be in Los Angeles the same time as me. We made a plan to spend a day together and had a great time showing each other sites from our youth – she had grown up here too, even though we didn’t know each other at that time of our lives. Original Tommy’s, Angel’s Flight, Beverly Hills, the Fairfax Farmer’s Market, our childhood homes… we covered lots of ground that day.

When we returned to Pasadena, Yael offered to help me on my mission with the ashes. We went to the park – which shall remain nameless – to do some reconnaissance, and found the perfect spot. She kept watch for me as I gently placed several handfuls of mom and dad’s ashes into the earth, under a pine tree. They made it home.

I was going to keep going with this trip all the way to the return back to New Mexico, but you know what, this feels like a perfect spot to end this travelog, at least for today. Time to pull the car over for a rest stop and bathroom break ; )

Thanks for taking the trip along with me, and maybe we’ll finish it up next full moon!

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Going through a career transition and want to do it in a mindful way? Check out my book Work That Matters: Create a Livelihood that Reflects Your Core Intention

New Moon / January 18, 2026

During the last couple of weeks, the volume on the intensity of these times got turned up. Those of us in the U.S. are in the full onslaught of a fascist government, with boots on our necks. The people of Minneapolis are on the main battlefront right now, and it won’t end there.

As we witness this horror and engage however we can, it’s important to remember that authoritarian domination is inherently unstable and prone to collapse. The series Andor, which reads like a blueprint for our times, includes this manifesto from the character Nemik:

…The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that. And know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the Empire’s authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege.

Or to put it more succinctly and staying in the Star Wars canon:

To move it out of the fictional realm and into reality-based words from a gifted community organizer, Kelly Hayes (co-author of Let This Radicalize You, a great read):

Fascism has no equilibrium. Its reliance on escalation as proof of legitimacy requires continual acceleration. This process produces contradictions and instabilities that can and must be exploited.

I don’t mean to minimize the severity of what’s going down but somehow we need to anchor into hope. While this cannot go on forever, there is no telling how long it will last and it will continue to be terrifying while we’re in the thick of it.

For this new moon, I put together three keys to keeping the faith and staying engaged effectively. Vive la resistance.

1 / Embrace a life-giving ethos

Last month I shared this essay from Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor. The point they make is so essential that I’m raising it again. Fascist governments and this particular blend of fatalist Christians and tech billionaires are all rooted in a life-denying perspective. We don’t need to convince them that life on Earth is in peril. For different reasons, they also see our world coming to an end and yet have no problem with that. In various ways, they are angling to benefit from the apocalypse and take care of their own at the expense of everyone else. If you’ve read Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, it’s a similar scenario.

Klein and Taylor argue that the most potent tool we have is our capacity to embrace life and radiate that love outward to others. I agree.

Every day, the most important thing you can do is anchor yourself in what gives you meaning and joy. I don’t mean doing that to the exclusion of actions necessary to stop the immense harm that is unfolding. But your commitment to your own connection with Life needs to be fundamental and unwavering. Time in nature, time with beloveds (in real life, not just online), time engaged in activities you love – cooking, art, poetry, dance, travel, laughter, meditation, sports, whatever it is for you. Don’t lose touch with this.

There’s a song I’ve been loving lately – “We Shall Be Known” by Ma Muse. The verse reminds us to keep coming back to the well of nourishment. These times will call on us to make great sacrifices and there will be unimaginable suffering. Yet we can lead ourselves and others to the well, and we must to keep our souls and hearts alive.

It is time now, it is time now that we thrive
It is time we lead ourselves into the well
It is time now, and what a time to be alive
In this Great Turning we shall learn to lead in love
In this Great Turning we shall learn to lead in love

Enjoy the song here (this is a newer remix with FunkPharm, Jami Sieber, and Wildchoir):

2 / Know that spiritual authority will prevail over man-made authority

This principle flows quite naturally from the first one. When you’ve rooted yourself in a life-giving, life-affirming place, you are already operating from a spiritual dimension – whether or not you realize it or use that language to describe it.

Call it what you wish, this is about recognizing that there is a force more powerful than military might and dictatorship. Last year I put together this collection of people-powered revolutions:

We need to steep ourselves in these stories right now, to remember the ancestors who overcame oppressive conditions through brilliant and creative strategies, and to learn from them.

I highly recommend signing up for ’s Substack, Letters to Beloved Community. Kazu is a trainer, educator, life-long student, and practitioner of nonviolence, restorative justice, social change and collective healing. In December, Kazu shared a two-part series on Nonviolent Direct Action which I encourage you to put on your reading list:

Letters to Beloved Community

Nonviolent Direct (In)action - Part One

Read more

6 months ago · 54 likes · 11 comments · Kazu Haga

Letters to Beloved Community

Nonviolent Direct (In)action - Part Two

Read more

6 months ago · 25 likes · 17 comments · Kazu Haga

An essential element of spiritual authority, at least how I have learned it as a Buddhist practitioner, is to not see someone as “the enemy,” or “other,” but as an inseparable part of our human family. This can be damn hard, especially when we’re watching ICE agents blatantly abusing power to harass, physically hurt, and even kill innocent people. But we cannot stoop to calling them monsters even if their acts are monstrous. If we do that, we are participating in the same dehumanizing instinct that is at the root of all violence.

This does not mean we don’t hold people to account for their actions. Strong and clear boundaries are essential. But a spiritual, restorative justice approach seeks to hold open space for the possibility of healing and transformation to occur, even for those who have committed the most despicable acts. is a Dharma teacher in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh who recently wrote a “love letter to an ICE agent.” Her writing challenges us to remember that people can change, but only if we release our own tendency to demonize them and practice radical inclusiveness.

Kaira Jewel’s Substack

Love letter to an ICE Agent

Kaira Jewel’s Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber…

Read more

5 months ago · 73 likes · 9 comments · Kaira Jewel Lingo

3 / Practicalities

Finally – what are the practical steps we need to take to get through this?

Along with staying in touch with that which gives us Life, relationships are fundamentally important. Your ability to survive and thrive in these times is directly related to the health of your community connections. If you don’t already have a group of friends, neighbors, or spiritual comrades you can call for help, do whatever you can to cultivate that circle, now. It doesn’t have to be big--even three or four people who are committed to being there for each other will make a huge difference.

In training for nonviolent direct action, this kind of circle is often called an affinity group. The people in it learn to deepen trust in one another and come to agreements on what each will do in the case of some kind of emergency or disaster, or an arrest in the case of direct action. Who can be counted on to check on someone’s family or pets? Who can accompany you to the jail or hospital? Who can provide financial support if needed, perhaps in the form of a loan? Who has access to healthcare professionals, lawyers, or others whose skills may be needed? Also – affinity groups can and should have fun with each other! When I engaged in civil disobedience in 2003 to protest the war in Iraq, our group called itself the Turtles and we got in plenty of time before the action to get to know each other in playful ways.

Learn more about Affinity Groups and how to form them

The other great thing about affinity groups is that they make it more possible to take bolder actions and risks. We are going to need to uplevel our commitment to democracy and justice if we want to have a chance of turning the tide of this godawful repressive regime. What are you willing to do or give up in the service of our greater good? This is a serious question. Some of us have obligations as caregivers for children or elders and that needs to be our focus. Others of us don’t have those constraints and can go further out on the limb, especially if we know we’re not alone and someone has our back.

We also need to think about how we stay in touch with each other. Don’t rely solely on social media to be in close contact with those important to you as things fall apart even more. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and even Substack will likely be subject to purges and censorship and other ways to divide us. Make sure you’ve got email addresses and/or phone numbers, especially for your inner circle but also for others you want to be able to stay in contact with. Signal is also another good and secure app for staying in touch under the radar.

If you’ve got a newsletter going on Substack, make sure to export your data (email addresses of your subscribers and your posts) at least once a month. Keep that information safe, you may need it to re-establish contact if something happens.

I hope you find these suggestions useful. I’d love to hear how you’re navigating these times with some sense of sanity.

Leave a comment

Other Places to Find My Writing

• I’ve got another Substack: Postcards from New Mexico.

• Dharma Compass is my monthly column on the Buddhist Global Door website. My most recent article: Toward a Socially Responsible Mindfulness

• I’ve got a book! Work That Matters is a mindfulness-based guide for people who are seeking right livelihood. Please check it out and tell others about it.

  

New Moon / December 19, 2025

Recently a friend from Zuni Pueblo shared with me that this December new moon (which happens to fall very near winter solstice) marks the new year for their community; it’s a time of fasting and quiet reflection, of storytelling. When she said that, I could feel my own yearning for going into that kind of creative silence right about now, to move beyond thoughts and words and to swim in the deep waters of heart and intuition.

This new moon offers us an invitation to reflect on the year we’ve all been through, and to feel into a vision for the one yet to come, to connect with our deepest intentions in this the dark time.

This last new moon message of 2025 comes in a bundle of three:

• a few personal reflections on this past year

• a mini-review of a book that will nourish your spiritual path

• a brilliant manifesto that offers a compass for navigating these turbulent times

1 / Year-end Reflections

In my last full moon message, I shared a Reflection and Intention process with these five questions at the heart of the process:

1. What am I celebrating? What am I grateful for? What has been wonderful and magical about this past year?

2. What is one aspect about myself that I have especially loved this year? What am I proud of?

3. What would I have done differently this year?

4. What do I want to let go of?

5. What do I want to call in for the coming year?

If you’ve had a chance to let those questions work on you and if you’ve had insights from the process, I’d love to hear about it!

Leave a comment

As I went through the process myself and looked back at these past 12 months, what stood out is what a remarkably harsh year this has been, not just for me but for all of us. In my small world, so many beloveds were lost: people, dogs, even trees. For all of us, we’ve been witnessing unimaginable terror, cruelty, and trauma unfold in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, U.S. cities invaded by Gestapo ICE troops, and so many other places. And this is only the tip of the iceberg, I don’t have to tell you, you’ve been living through it too. The frequency and level of suffering has been relentless.

Yet when I looked back on all this, I saw that nearly everything I was grateful for was connected to those very places of heartbreak.

As I accompanied my old dog Lucy on her dying journey, I somehow found it in me to rise up and meet the moment, to face fears and anxieties and move beyond them into vulnerability, trust in the unknown, and faith in the power of love. In the process, other people showed up in beautiful ways, miracles unfolded.

When I looked at the atrocities that went down this year in places like Gaza, in the streets of Chicago and Los Angeles and other cities, I also remembered the courage of those who are speaking out loudly against genocide, against the way immigrants are being targeted. They aren’t just using their voices, they are putting their bodies on the line, often putting their own lives at risk. This is a testimony to the remarkable strength of the human spirit.

I haven’t yet done the Intention part of the process, but some of my responses to question #5 are giving me a hint of how I want to step into the new year: with openness, curiosity, and a receptivity to new beginnings.

2 / Holding Nothing: a mini book review

Hold Nothing: An Invitation to Let Go and Come Home to Yourself, by , is a wonderful tool for navigating the inner planes of our being. In this beautiful new book, illustrated with artwork by the author, she paints a detailed picture of what it feels like to live from intention, and the qualities that are nurtured with a consistent contemplative practice.

Elena is an artist, mother, longtime yoga teacher, and more recently a Zen practitioner. Our paths crossed at Upaya Zen Center where she has been studying chaplaincy with Roshi Joan Halifax and faculty, and I am grateful for an embodied familiarity with her clear presence and warm smile.

In her writing, Elena has a gift for making practice entirely accessible and for conveying the ineffable benefits that come with it. Take this passage, about listening:

Creating a field of generous attention and care takes practice. As we make our initial attempts at listening with precision and gentleness, we are changed slowly and quietly from within. You might notice you’re walking in the world with fewer words and more creativity as you grow older. You might experience a level of kindness toward yourself that feels like a release of linear thinking into a more spacious sense of inner freedom, which is precisely the offering you’ll make to those in your life with whom you’ve not been listening attentively.

Elena shares personal stories that illustrate these elements of practice, grounding the whole book in a down-to-earth and at times humorous way. These personal accounts are interspersed with practice and writing prompts, encouraging us to go deeper in our inquiry.

There are 45 practices throughout the book, many of them in the form of heart- and mind-opening questions, that invite the reader into explorations of qualities such as opening to tenderness, seeing with compassion, and listening before speaking.

Holding Nothing is the kind of book that invites you into deep reflection, if that is a place you wish to go. When I was involved in Upaya’s Chaplaincy Training (as its director as well as a student), one of my favorite descriptions of a chaplain was someone who comes alongside another and supports them to find the spiritual anchor that makes it possible to navigate challenging life situations. With Holding Nothing, Elena offers the reader an opportunity to become their own chaplain. As she writes:

This book is an invitation to come alongside yourself, to experience new ways to approach your own heart, to listen well, and to love yourself with rigor, certainty, warmth, and tenderness. To live deeply and reverently in the smallest details.

This book would make an excellent gift for someone you love, and that someone might be you!

3 / Breaking the Apocalyptic Fever

Of all the things I’ve read this year in search of guidance to get through this mess we’re in, the one that has stayed with me the most is an article titled “The Rise of End Times Fascism” by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor, published in April 2025.

It’s quite long and much of the first part of the piece is brutal to take in. But Klein and Taylor’s analysis of how we got to this point and where we’re at now is spot-on. Here’s the very short version:

End times fascism is a darkly festive fatalism – a final refuge for those who find it easier to celebrate destruction than imagine living without supremacy.

You may not want to dive into the whole article, though I encourage you to. But I want to highlight this section near the end that offers a blueprint for coming out of this apocalyptic nose dive and finding our way toward the “another world” we know is possible, thanks to Arundhati Roy. Here’s an excerpt:

How do we break this apocalyptic fever? First, we help each other face the depth of the depravity that has gripped the hard right in all of our countries. To move forward with focus, we must first understand this simple fact: we are up against an ideology that has given up not only on the premise and promise of liberal democracy but on the livability of our shared world – on its beauty, on its people, on our children, on other species. The forces we are up against have made peace with mass death. They are treasonous to this world and its human and non-human inhabitants.

Second, we counter their apocalyptic narratives with a far better story about how to survive the hard times ahead without leaving anyone behind. A story capable of draining end times fascism of its gothic power and galvanizing a movement ready to put it all on the line for our collective survival. A story not of end times, but of better times; not of separation and supremacy, but of interdependence and belonging; not of escaping, but staying put and staying faithful to the troubled earthly reality in which we are enmeshed and bound.

Storytelling is one of the most potent tools we have to bring this world into being. We cannot and we must not let stories of doom and dread take root in our hearts, in our children’s hearts, in those we love. I think back to my friend from Zuni Pueblo’s description of this winter solstice time on the Pueblo, a time of fasting and storytelling. This is a time to allow the story of interdependence and belonging to be planted at the very core of our soul, and for those seeds to be nurtured by our love this winter.

With that, I am headed out on a winter break to rest and renew my own body/mind/soul, and I wish you a peaceful solstice and holiday season.

Other Places to Find My Writing

• I’ve got another Substack: Postcards from New Mexico.

• Dharma Compass is the name of my monthly column on the Buddhist Global Door website. My most recent article: Toward a Socially Responsible Mindfulness

• I’ve got a book! Work That Matters is a mindfulness-based guide for people who are seeking right livelihood. Please check it out and tell others about it.

Welcome to The Practice of Life — a place to slow down, befriend yourself, and connect with the world from kindness and awareness. Everything here is freely offered without paywalls. If you appreciate what you find here, please consider a paid subscription or one-time donation. Thank you!

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December 4, 2025 / Full Moon

As I write this, I am taking my own ‘backward step.’ In the Zen tradition, December first to the eighth is a practice period called Rohatsu, marking the time that Gautama Buddha committed to sitting under a bodhi tree to deeply understand the nature of suffering and how to liberate oneself from it. Zen practitioners around the world gather in zendos during this time to meditate many hours a day, take part in communal meals (called oryoki) and work times, and listen to Dharma talks.

My version this year is an at-home Rohatsu, a modification of the traditional form because I still have work responsibilities to tend to. This week I am being more disciplined than usual about a morning and evening sitting practice (7 am and 5:30 pm), not engaging in social media or looking at news, and simply inviting myself to a quieter space as the days grow shorter. I am already feeling more peace and spaciousness, less reactivity, more insights.

This is the gift of practice.

And it reminds me that this full moon is the perfect time to once again offer you a practice I’ve been engaging in for many years now.

These last few weeks of the year are a potent time to pause and look back at where we’ve come from and ahead toward where we’d like to go, and how we’d like to be. I’ve been fine-tuning this Reflection and Intention process over the years until I found a flow that felt right to me. It’s a very heart-based and intuitive process, in contrast to the more common approach of listing accomplishments and then setting resolutions (which never really worked for me!). I invite you to make it your own in whatever way feels right for you.

How to Do a Reflection and Intention Process

I’ve split the process into two parts, and suggest that you allow yourself at least a day or two between the two parts. Just like a good cup of tea, the insights you begin to harvest in Part 1 need time to steep inside you. That also takes the pressure off to “figure everything out” or make plans during the first part. They really are two different kinds of energies, and for me it works best to do them at separate times.

Part 1: Reflection

If possible, give yourself a whole morning or afternoon to dive into this first part of the process. Go to a place where you can be assured of solitude and quiet. Bring a journal and your favorite pen, and you may want to have art supplies on hand if you want to create a vision board (optional). You may also want to bring your calendar from the past year as well as any journals you’ve kept to help remind you what’s unfolded during this time.

If you have a spiritual/contemplative practice that helps you connect with yourself like meditation or yoga, begin your day with that.

Then allow yourself time to reflect and write on the following questions:

1. What am I celebrating? What am I grateful for? What has been wonderful and magical about this past year?

2. What is one aspect about myself that I have especially loved this year? What am I proud of?

3. What would I have done differently this year?

4. What do I want to let go of?

5. What do I want to call in for the coming year?

Creating space to allow this process to unfold is crucial. Give yourself at least 30 minutes to reflect and journal on each question. Take a break between questions, return to your yoga or meditation practice for a while, or take a walk. Switching gears like this is balm for the creative and reflective self.

If you think you’ve come to the end of your writing after a short time, wait a few moments more and see what comes. If you need prompts to get you further, you might try considering the questions from the perspective of each of these categories:

• Spirit

• Creativity

• Relationships

• Livelihood/Finances

• Physical wellbeing

Explore each of those areas of your life in relation to the above questions.

What the questions are designed to do…

• The first three questions are the reflective ones, questions that should evoke enough memories and thoughts to paint a meaningful picture of your life over the past year, and also to exercise your gratitude muscle. It’s fine to list some of the things that you’ve accomplished this year, but make sure to dig a level deeper to notice why those things are important to you, and how you got there. Did you have to break some old habits or patterns to do these things?

• The fourth question begins to open the door for intentions for the new year. It recognizes the truth that we often have to let go of old beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors in order to make space for new ones to take root in our lives.

• The fifth question is similar to goals and planning for the new year, but allow yourself to paint in fairly broad strokes here. This is all about vision and intention at this stage — I would encourage you not try to set goals here. Instead, focus on connecting to your most heartfelt aspiration, both for your life and for the state of the planet right now. It really is okay to be as general as saying that you want to live in more abundance in the coming year, and that you envision peace on earth. You’ll get more specific in Part 2.

• As part of this fifth question, it can be helpful to create a Vision Board (also known as a Dream Board) to give your intentions a visual dimension. You can do this the old-school way by tearing out images and words from old magazines and calendars, or check out this free digital vision board tool from Canva. But you might also want to wait on creating this kind of visual representation until Part 2.

Part 2: Intention

After you’ve completed your reflection and journaling, let everything sit for a couple of days. Then set aside two or three hours, return to what you’ve written, and start filling in more details in response to question #5: What do I want to call in for the coming year?

This is when goals and objectives take their place, if this is important to you. Goals are an explicit manifestation of your intentions. But in this process they aren’t the starting point. I’ve found that my goals are much more powerful if I back myself up one step and first connect with my deepest intentions, as we did in Part 1.

Once we’ve identified an intention and a goal related to it, objectives give us tangible ways to measure if we are moving toward our goals.

Here’s how that might look. Let’s say I discern that my intention is to have vibrant good health, because that’s how I am best able to contribute to the world — and making a contribution is one of my core values. A goal I could set would be to exercise more consistently. An objective for that goal might be: go to the gym three mornings a week and do a cardio workout for at least 30 minutes. But again, it should all tie back to your root intention so that you feel connected to your big “why” for doing this.

You might want to use a template like the one that provides. Chris has been sharing his Annual Review process since 2005, and it’s fun to check out the ways we have similar and different approaches to it.

If you’ve gone through the process described above, your goals and objectives will be firmly rooted in your deepest intentions, and that will provide you with an amazing spark throughout the year.

As you go through this practice, please be gentle with yourself, both in the way that you reflect on your life — honesty, yes, but please, no harshness! — and also how you carry your intentions and goals into the new year. This is all about living from a place of love and intention, not willpower and grit.

I’m planning to do this process over the next couple of weeks. I look forward to sharing what I discover in my new moon message, and invite you to let me know what comes up for you as well.

Leave a comment

Going through a career transition and want to do it in a mindful way? Check out my book Work That Matters: Create a Livelihood that Reflects Your Core Intention

New Moon / November 20, 2025

If you’re new here, these New Moon posts usually feature curated lists of people, places, and things that I’ve been appreciating. In some parallel universe I’m certain I am a librarian because I take great joy in putting these together and connecting readers with goodies that I hope will nourish your soul.

Today’s post is dedicated to some of my favorite poets here on Substack. From the outset I should say I don’t know a whole lot about poetry, but I do know when it touches my heart. Poetry is such a different animal from prose (though of course there are works that cross boundaries), and I find myself turning to it when my emotional world needs to come more to the surface, or when I’m swimming in intense emotions and desiring to find a home in someone’s words.

The four writers highlighted here have touched my heart through their poems. I hope you’ll take time to explore their Substack publications and see what speaks to your heart, and consider supporting their work with a subscription (free or paid).

Luisa Kolker, Black Butterfly Diaries

Luisa Kolker

Poetry, essays, and memoir from the threshold of shadow and light, intertwining beauty, struggle, and liminal states. For all who are drawn to the wobbly, intimate work of being human.

By Black Butterfly Diaries

is the name of Luisa Kolker’s Substack. Luisa has been writing poetry for over six decades (she started young!). In her words, her work comes from “the threshold of shadow and light, intertwining beauty, struggle, and liminal states. For all who are drawn to the wobbly, intimate work of being human.”

Luisa has been a friend and colleague for a long time, we first met at Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe many years ago. I know her to be a gifted healer (she practices shamanic psychotherapy), and it’s been wonderful to discover her gifts as a writer and poet. Here’s one that she recently shared on Black Butterfly Diaries:

Sea Change

We hunker down for the storm,

knowing neither of us will survive.

No one ever has.

The halyards scream at the wind,

sails slap with fury against the inevitable

change of course.

You and I and this world

are getting old.

And, yet, I see the miracle of morning sunlight in your eyes.

I fold my hand into yours.

There is no safe harbor,

but there is home.

Marisol Munoz Kiehne, Pausing for Ponderings

Pausing for Ponderings

Poems ... Prompts ... Passages ... Photographs ... Inquiry ... Inspiration ... Instigation ... for curious caring creatures

By Marisol Muñoz-Kiehne

is a kind of haiku bodhisattva here on Substack. I kept seeing her name and brilliant haikus pop up on other people’s posts, and then on my own, echoing and amplifying the spirit of the post. It’s like the most beautiful butterfly has just alighted on your words and graced it with their magic, then taken the pollen and spread it to the next flower. Marisol shares her haiku, reflections, and photos on Pausing for Ponderings, which is a wonder to explore. In her own words, “This pondering psychologist has no training in poetry 😊. Pausing for poems? Out of respect for poets and reverence for poetry, a clarification. When words and paragraphs are arranged in the form of verse and stanza here, rather than literary expressions they are writings in which we play with ideas, images, perceptions, emotions, rhythm and rhyme.”

Here are some samples from her recent posts. Enjoy!

Down hallowed hallway
towards a great mystery
all living things march.

Heartbeats stop, blooms wilt.
Is this end the final end?
Energy transforms.

Butterflies recall.
Beyond spelling bees, they teach.
Pollinators know.

Tiny industrious ants,
heavy-lifters, well lined up.
Loyal team players.

Anagha Smrithi, A Poem a Week

A Poem A Week by Anagha Smrithi

A newsletter about the poetics of everyday life. Weekly poetry, straight to your heart and inbox. By poet and writer, Anagha Smrithi.

is a young poet who hails from India and started posting on Substack in 2023. At the time she was working as “an overqualified, underpaid editorial assistant” and was looking for a way to return to a steady writing practice. She publishes one poem a week and they are glorious. Here’s a recent one.

Magic Trick

Some say the trick is to live each day
as though it were the last.
But as for me,
I would rather live like I have days
and days
and nowhere to rush to.
Unhurried, I feel the grass
still cold with last night’s rain,
under my feet.
I release the morning like a dove.
I vanish into a daydream.
I pull a white chain of tomorrows
out of my sleeve, one by one,
hoping they will never end.

Troy Putney, In Search of Supreme Beings

In Search of Supreme Beings

Photos, Poetry & Prose inspired by the multitudes of sentient life our singular planet sustains.

By Troy Putney

is a writer, photographer, and conservationist based in California. In his words, he hopes to “help others fall in love with this planet and join in the movement to create a more sustainable and just society.” Troy writes with exquisite sensitivity to ‘things as they are,’ and I find his poems deeply nourishing and healing. You might too. Here’s one of my favorites:

In Silence

There is no truth to be found

in a world of businessmen,

only in the souls of outcasts

who’ve endured absurdity,

fires, floods, famine, and fools,

and still find ways to offer kindness

to the very merchants of their pain.

Forgiveness, our wisest elder,

why must we always wrestle

in darkness rather than light?

Why must we always sit silently

hidden amongst what remains?

Should our betrayers not see

open wounds, shattered bones,

soot stains in cheek creases,

our weary hands trembling

as we caress and care for what’s left

of our broken, bleeding hearts?

The old sage rattles in the wind,

trusting in the phases of the moon,

the order of the four seasons,

the seeds in his eternal heart,

the sun to awaken our world,

the sky to reflect wisdom back

into the hearts of the misguided,

so hope may lasso the wind again

and plant herself deeply within

the heart and souls of this broken land.

The Four Ways of Engagement

Four Ways of Engagement, a gift for paid subscribers to The Practice of Life, gives you a pathway to learn about the power of archetypes (Healer, Warrior, Creator, Teacher) and discover the one that feels most alive in you. In my experience, this is the key to taking part in activism that gives us life rather than burns us out. This is a framework I’ve been developing and refining over the past 20 years. I’m a big believer in the idea that we need diverse modes of activism, both in our communities and within ourselves, to effectively move toward a more just and peaceful world.

Every module includes reflections on each archetype, real-world examples, an audio guided meditation to help you tap into the energy of that archetype, practices, and guiding questions. Past participants have found the journey to be illuminating, and even fun!

If you’re a paid subscriber, thank you! You can start the journey here.

If you’d like to become a paid subscriber to access the Four Ways of Engagement online journey, and to support my work as a writer, you can sign up with the button below and receive a 50% discount on the first year of your annual subscription until November 30:

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Other Places to Find My Writing

• I’ve got another Substack: Postcards from New Mexico.

• Dharma Compass is the name of my monthly column on the Buddhist Global Door website. My most recent column: Buddhist Solidarity with Apache Stronghold

• I’ve got a book! Work That Matters came out in 2017, but it still has a lot to offer to people who are seeking right livelihood from a mindfulness-based approach. Please check it out and tell others about it.

Welcome to The Practice of Life — a place to slow down, befriend yourself, and connect with the world from kindness and awareness. If you’re arriving for the first time, you may enjoy this introduction.

November is gratitude month. It’s also my birthday month, and I’m giving the gifts! From now until Nov 30, I’m offering a 50% discount on the first year of your annual subscription. If you appreciate what you find here, that’s a great way to say ‘thank you,’ and your financial support creates possibilities for me to spend more time on writing, including a memoir-in-progress. Another option is to make a one-time donation.

Full Moon / November 5, 2025

The story of a dog is never just the story of a dog. It’s the story of the people and places and conditions that were part of a dog’s journey with us. It’s the story of the secret places in our heart that only our furry one could know, and sometimes it feels like they could fade away when that furry one has departed her body.

I’m not sure I know how to write this story in a way that will give you the fullest picture of what my little dog, Lucy, meant to me for the 16 years we shared time on this earth, all the way until her death a couple of weeks ago. This will be imperfect. But I’m going to give it my best try because if Lucy taught me anything, it has been to lean into everything.

Perhaps we will start at the end.

Two weeks ago, on October 23, Lucy’s other beloved human, Gina, and I, buried her on a farm in rural Northern New Mexico. She now rests alongside two of her puppies, Gandalf and Gracie, who preceded her in death by a few years. We wrapped her small body in the red fleece blanket that was always in the back seat of my car for her, and in a fine lavender silk textile embroidered with elephants, one that I picked up during a journey to Varanasi, India, many years ago. Nothing but the best for Lucy.

This burial spot was a full circle journey for Lucy, for Gina, for me. Sixteen years ago, Lucy – then without a name – was a stray dog who found her way onto this farm that belonged to my longtime friends Lisa and Djann. It soon became clear that she was pregnant, and then she gave birth to five puppies.

At the time, Gina and I were in a partnership. She fell for Lucy big time and their bond was sealed when Gina stayed up with her all through the night she had her puppies. We waited a couple of months for them to be weaned, and then brought Lucy home to begin her new life in Santa Fe. She was a good mom to her kids for a few weeks, but it was so clear she was done with that gig when she jumped in our car with glee and never looked back. Somewhere in that time, Gina gave her her name, short for Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. And what a diamond she was.

So that was the end, and that was the beginning.

In between was 16 years of smiles, laughs, long walks, road trips, and new friends made through Lucy’s considerable charms. It was never like living with a dog, it was more like living with a small human hidden inside a dog costume.

One of the first times I was at home alone with Lucy, I was mumbling something to myself in the kitchen. I looked over and noticed she was staring back at me with the most intense expression, clearly hanging on to my every word. Rarely had I experienced that level of listening from another human being, let alone a dog.

Then there was the time soon after Lucy arrived at our house that Gina took her for a walk into the nearby hills. The trail up into the hills was winding, it was by no means a straight shot back to our casita. They had been gone for a while and I was working in my home office when I heard a sound at the front door. I looked down and saw Lucy waiting at the door, by herself. She seemed just fine but I wondered what happened to Gina. I brought Lucy in the house, walked down the road and ran into Gina a little ways from our house. She looked worried and told me she had let Lucy off leash at the top of the hill and couldn’t find her. I reassured her that Lucy had made her way back home, a truly remarkable feat for a dog who had only landed in this neighborhood a few days earlier. This was one smart pup who knew how to find her way home.

There is so much more that could be said about Lucy. One of my favorite pieces of writing is from my dear friend Katya, who spent a whole month with her in 2014 and started the essay with this to go along with the photo below:

This is Lucy, the Magical Dog, leaping, running free, ears flapping, tail wagging – Run Lucy Run!! Well, this is a photo of Lucy, which really doesn’t give you a feeling of her beautiful spirit. If you know Lucy, you will know what I am talking about. She is little and she is big, all at once. She has a love of life that is contagious. She is willful, confident and very clear about what her needs are (one merely needs to pay attention). Lucy definitely lives life to the fullest. (You can read the whole fabulous essay here. )

While I loved animals, I also loved my autonomy and ability to travel whenever I wanted. Even though I initially resisted the idea of adopting a dog, Lucy soon won me over and I fell in love with this 18-pound bundle of luminosity and fun. What started out as Gina’s idea became our shared journey. In time our partnership transitioned to a friendship, and then Gina moved to another state to start a new life of her own. The plan was that I’d keep Lucy for a while until she got settled, but as time that passed, it became clear that Lucy was becoming ‘my’ dog, and I was becoming her person.

Being a caregiver does not come naturally to me. In fact it’s a role that I’ve resisted mightily for a good part of my life. When it started to become clear that Lucy would be with me for the remainder of her life, I had some freak-out moments anticipating all that would be called on to see her through old age. A similar dynamic unfolded with my mom and dad, which I write about extensively in the memoir I’m working on. I’ll spare you the psychoanalysis, but mostly I want to let you know it was a struggle for me to show up in that way for both my parents and Lucy. Many times I was looking for an escape hatch out of both situations, and there wasn’t one. But as Pema Chodron once wisely said, “the wisdom of no escape.” Oh the things I have learned…

In the spring of 2024, both Lucy and I were attacked by a neighborhood dog. Lucy got the brunt of it, with a puncture wound on her neck and bites all along her beautiful floppy ears. There was a moment during that awful incident when I thought I’d lose her then and there. But thanks to our great vet and immediate surgery, she pulled through. There was a lot involved with her recovery, and just when it seemed like things were finally getting better, last fall Lucy went into a period of about a week where she ate almost nothing. That was another point where I thought she might not make it (I wrote about it here). But she did – Lucy was quite a bounce-back queen!

Something about that episode last fall became the point when I was finally able to pivot from resistance to fully embracing the relationship that Lucy and I had, and knowing without a doubt I was in it to the end. I thought a lot about the caretakers of elephants in Thailand, called mahouts. They don’t ‘own’ their elephants, they are in a lifelong relationship with them and their charge is to ensure their elephants are healthy and happy. That felt like my assignment was with Lucy – to walk alongside her in her journey through life and keep her safe and happy. The payoff was watching how people would light up when they met her. Lucy activated more smiles and love than I could ever count.

After getting through that rough period last fall, most of this past year together had been bliss. Lucy’s health was stable, she had good energy and wanted to go for daily walks at our nearby college, and she still mostly enjoyed meeting people even though she could no longer hear anything. I savored every moment, knowing it wouldn’t last forever.

Over the last month things slipped pretty quickly. She refused to eat many of her favorite foods, and our walks were getting shorter. Lucy’s usual enthusiasm for life was fading. Her vet had noted elevated kidney levels a year ago, and another blood draw this September showed that kidney disease was worsening.

When I started sensing we were entering the end zone, I went into a kind of panic mode. As much as I can tell you intellectually that I understand death is a natural part of life, my nervous system and body had an entirely different reaction. All kinds of fear and anxiety rose up, and I was quite frankly a mess. I knew I needed help to get through this journey.

Lucky for me, just the right people were within reach, and some of them showed up quite magically. My first move was to set up a call with Chloe Hope, author of Death & Birds here on Substack. In the hour we talked, I got to explore some of my experiences and fears around death, and around losing Lucy. It meant everything to have Chloe’s compassionate listening and wise experience to lean into. It allowed me to breathe more space into that fear and come out on the other side into love and trust of the dying process. I even came up with a little mantra to say when I could feel myself veering into panic: SALT. This reminded me that support, abundance, love, and trust were always available and I could choose to turn my attention in that direction. It became a daily practice.

Not long after that call, I re-connected with an old friend I had lost touch with for many years. Sharon, a hospice nurse who loved animals, began checking in on me each day when I told her what was going on with Lucy. Soon it became clear that we were in a hospice situation, and the intent was to keep Lucy as comfortable as possible and to keep me as supported as possible so I could be present to her in a loving way. Sharon even offered to help with home subcutaneous injections that would keep Lucy hydrated, as dehydration is one of the big impacts of kidney disease.

Other dear friends who loved Lucy and me offered support in so many ways – Kristi accompanied us to the vet and took care of Lucy to offer me a much-needed respite day, Luisa texted me each day, Amy offered a support call. And there were more. It truly takes a village.

The last week of Lucy’s life was difficult. She mostly stopped eating, and started throwing up yellow bile – a sign that internal organs were stressed and failing. She was still alert most of the time and didn’t seem in pain, but she was getting weaker. Sometime during that week, Gina called and told me she was going to fly down to be with us. I felt such a huge sense of relief. Even with all the support from friends, it was still like carrying a very heavy weight to go through this process. I was so grateful that we would share the rest of the journey together.

Gina’s flight was arriving in Albuquerque on Saturday evening. That day, Lucy mostly slept and was quite disoriented and I wondered if she would even make it until Gina’s arrival. I took my favorite hoodie, with a picture of Native American activist and poet John Trudell, and covered her with it. It felt like good protection.

Gina planned to rent a car at the airport and drive the nearly two hours to my house. Then, a miracle happened. While waiting in the Seattle airport, Gina texted that she saw my friend Tara there, who had been at the retreat center where Gina worked. The two of them had connected at the center and they were aware they both knew me. Tara lived only about 10 miles from my home, so I suggested to Gina that maybe she could give her a ride here which would get Gina to my house much faster than the car rental.

Now here’s the best part – Tara is John Trudell’s daughter. The hoodie that I covered Lucy with earlier that day? I got it from Tara a few months earlier. Magic.

When they both arrived, Lucy finally woke up and walked right over to Gina, tail wagging, as if to say, “You’re here! Now everything is really okay!” I’m pretty sure Lucy decided to stay around an extra few days now that her other beloved human was there.

During the next days, we had exquisitely beautiful moments together with Lucy, as well as very difficult conversations. On Sunday we took Lucy for one last drive up into the mountains. She stayed in the back seat the whole time and didn’t have the energy to go for a walk, but it was clear she loved being with both of us. We lounged in the sun in the backyard. We gave her all the love we had.

The week before, I had made a tentative arrangement with a vet to come to the house on Monday for euthanasia. Now that Gina was here and Lucy was still somewhat alert, I felt like we could go a bit longer in the process. But Sunday night was rough and on Monday morning I questioned that decision. We talked about it, and both felt that we would wait at least another day. Monday turned out to be a very peaceful day for Lucy, and we spent a lot of it simply laying on the floor next to her. Her breath was so light, light as a feather. It felt as though at any moment she might slip away. I think both of us were hoping for that kind of peaceful transition where she would find her own way.

It didn’t quite work out that way. Lucy hung in there, but more capacities were diminishing. By Wednesday morning, she was stumbling around the house, and it seemed to me that she was looking for a way out. She’d get herself lodged between two pieces of furniture, or she’d stand in front of a wall or door, perhaps waiting for some portal to open. That was when I knew it was time.

The vet who could do in-home visits wasn’t available that day, but I live only moments from a wonderful animal shelter. I called and asked if they’d be willing to come to the car and do the process. I didn’t want Lucy’s last memory to be going inside a vet’s office, one of the things she hated most. They agreed.

When the time came, we made the short drive with Gina holding Lucy in the backseat. By that time, Lucy was exhausted and mostly asleep. The woman vet met us at the car, and with the utmost kindness, gentleness, and skill, she administered the sedative and anesthesia that end a life. It was the most sacred moment I could ever imagine – heartbreaking, yes, but also a gift to be with this little one to the very end, and to know it was the right thing to do.

Somewhere during that time I wrote to Chloe, who reflected back to me, “You’re both in the eye of this most precious and sacred time, now. The density of presence and peace here can be so profound.” And it absolutely was.

Lucy gave me so many gifts in our 16 years together, and her parting gift was to help me finally and fully understand death as a natural part of life. To sit with her for those days and witness the changes in her body, and to stay as attuned as possible to what she might be experiencing and when the moment called for a compassionate choice, was one of the most intimate things I’ve ever experienced. And then the next day to bring her body back to the farm where we all first met her, and return her to the care of the Earth… through it all, fear dropped away. Love prevailed.

So yes, this is a story about a little dog. I’ve just spent a lot of time and words trying to put it together, and I know it’s incomplete. It’s also a story about bearing witness, about ritual, about community, about love. It’s about the people that Lucy had a knack for bringing together, and somehow bringing out the best in all of us. Perhaps that’s why it feels so important to me to work these words out and express them to you, however imperfectly. Thank you for hanging in there with me.

Here’s to Lucy, here’s to Love.

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This month’s new moon came and went, and I missed writing to you with the usual curated resource list.

Over the past few weeks, my beloved dog Lucy (17, 18, 19 years old? rescue dog mystery!) went into a steep decline in health. These days have been full of vet visits and difficult decisions, and this past Wednesday, I had to make a compassionate choice for her. There is so much to share with you about how this unfolded, so many miracles and moments of magic even in the midst of heartbreak. Right now, though, I am recovering from emotional and physical exhaustion, and asking your understanding for missing the usual publishing cycle.

I will return with a new piece of writing on the November 5 full moon. Until then, I’ll leave you with this post from the archives. Dia de los Muertos is coming on November 1, a potent time to connect with our beloveds who have returned to the Great Mystery.

take good care,

Maia

Welcome to The Practice of Life — a place to slow down, befriend yourself, and connect with the world from kindness and awareness. If you’re arriving for the first time, you may enjoy this introduction.

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Full Moon / October 6, 2025

The right question at the right time is a key to unlock possibility.

Over my years of training and practice as an anthropologist I’ve come to love questions. You could even call me a “questionologist.” I’ve got a passion for figuring how to ask a great question. I see it as a practice, which I define in this way:

An activity that you do on a regular basis (ideally each day) that helps you to cultivate a sense of self-awareness, joy, equanimity, resilience, and compassion for yourself and others.

Some years ago, I invited a number of people whom I admired to share the most important question they’d ever asked themselves. In some cases the question had a clear answer, but more often it served as an invitation to look more deeply at their lives. Here are a few of the responses:

Roshi Joan Halifax, acclaimed Buddhist teacher and anthropologist, and founder of Upaya Zen Center. Roshi was my first meditation teacher, and she continues to be a dear friend.

The Question: What is the most important thing in your life?

The Answer: Right now.

, Relational Mysticism teacher and licensed psychotherapist of Mexican and Russian-Jewish descent. Her workshops and individual sessions have been a wonderful vehicle for transformation for me.

The Question: What are you willing to do to come to your own assistance?

The Impact: Actually, this was a question that someone asked me at a time in my life when I felt really broken. Desperately, I flailed in every possible direction to avoid the ultimate and obvious truth: that I was it; no one else could save me from the black pit of ancient pain I encountered in the core of my being. And so my answer to that question became: “I will do whatever it takes. I will die to my lifelong attachment to looking okay while feeling awful. I will let my heart break and rebuild it again. I will be the friend, mother, lover for whom I’ve been waiting.”

Desiree Adaway, a consultant, trainer, coach and speaker building resilient, equitable, and inclusive organizations. She holds a vision for people’s lives, workplaces and communities until they can hold it for themselves.

The Question: What am I afraid of?

The Impact: This question exposes me to my vulnerabilities and fears. I get to name them then face them. I get to lean into discomfort and when I do, I get to feel resilient. There are great lessons for me in both those activities. This is good medicine. The healing kind that makes me feel strong spiritually.

We as a society like to run away from discomfort. We don’t like being the only ANYTHING. It’s natural for us to enter a room, whether it’s a yoga class or a networking event and search out someone that looks like us, or sounds like us so we can relate to them. We do this to help ease our anxiety. Our social security blanket.

Yet I argue it’s good for us to push a bit and lean into discomfort and fear- I am not talking about living in a place of high anxiety every day – but to step into a space that is new and unfamiliar. This discomfort is a gift… one that very few people or organizations actively seek. This discomfort should push your boundaries so that you feel tired, but it should never hurt. Like when you speak your truth and your voice is loud and clear and just a bit shaky. Discomfort and fear are medicine.

Lisa Wilson is, in her words, “a cheerleader for living a more fully authentic life, and definitely a creative + playful spirit myself.” She’s also a photographer, artist, mom, and good friend.

The Question: When is it better to be kind than to be right?

The Impact: Many years ago I heard the phrase, “Sometimes it is better to be kind than to be right.” To some this may seem obvious, but I was raised in a world where success was praised. I debated with my father for hours just for the sake of debate – strengthening those logic muscles. In school I quickly learned that if I could find a way to be right, I “won.” I had no choice but to pay attention to the tremors that this phrase of kindness vs. correctness sent through me. The question that arose made the difference in my life practice: “When is it better to be kind than to be right?” Like a gentle constant breeze, this question continues to blow against the forms of my beliefs and shapes my life experiences and practices.

, a Zen teacher, Reiki master, and Kumu Hula (master hula teacher). She’s also a good friend and a gem of a human being. Any time I go to Chicago, I love visiting the peaceful oasis that she and her husband Robert have created there.

The Question: What do I want to do in the years remaining before I die?

The Impact: [As I get older] I’m starting to think about the fact that my body will physically disintegrate at some point. So, how do I want to spend my remaining time here? A friend recently told me the best advice he ever received was, “Don’t get good at something you don’t like doing.”

At first that didn’t really resonate with me…and then I thought, “That makes a lot of sense.” Why keep doing something that doesn’t nourish and feed your body, mind and heart? I’ve always tried to follow my bliss or do things that feed my heart. Sometimes it’s hard and I wonder if I still love what I’m doing. It’s good to ask questions and not expect an answer right away.

THE PRACTICE

How can we work with questions as a practice? How do we ask the kinds of questions that have the potential to liberate our lives?

Here are a few guidelines that I’ve found helpful:

1) Ask questions that will expand your mind and heart beyond their current limits and boundaries.

One way to do this is to watch for the assumptions that are embedded in the language of your questions. For example, you might ask yourself:

“How can I get a job that will make me happy?”

Notice that there are two assumptions here: one is that you need to get a job, and the second is that the right kind of job will make you happy.

Now try looking at this from a different angle that bypasses those assumptions. You might ask,

“What would my life look like if I was completely involved in a project that I loved?”

This question moves you beyond both of those limitations and encourages you to think out of the box rather than repeating an old pattern.

2) As a general rule, don’t ask questions that can be answered with a “yes” or “no.”

Those kinds of questions will almost always cut you off from possibilities rather than create them. However, like any rule, there are times to break this one. The best exception I can think of is this question, which I often ask myself when I’m faced with a difficult choice:

“Am I making this decision from love or fear?”

In this case, the “yes” or “no” that reveals itself tells me everything.

3) Ask BIG questions.

Don’t stop with yourself. Let your questions lead you to an expansive vision of where we’re going as a collective. Some examples:

“What would a healing and equitable society look like?”

“What would our planet look like if we could really recognize what a miracle it is to be alive and supported by the Earth?”

Another way to do this is something called “backward engineering” –- imagine the end point, the vision that you want to see come to fruition, and then work backwards with questions to identify what it would take to get to that point. Here’s an example that’s derived from the work of Joanna Macy:

Imagine that it is 100 years from now, and we as humans have found a way to get through the past century of environmental, social, and spiritual crisis. We have figured out how to live sustainably on the earth, how to be at peace with each other, how to resolve our conflicts without resorting to violence and war.

Sit down with each other and share the story of how we got here. What were the turning points that allowed this to happen? What gave you the strength to make it through the difficult times? Who was instrumental in this process?

4) Get comfortable asking questions that can’t be answered.

In the Zen Buddhist tradition, koans are questions which cannot be understood nor answered with our logical mind. Instead, we have to feel our way into them, live them, and watch how they unfold in our life. And then there is the marvelous quote from Rainer Maria Rilke:

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

Those are some guidelines to work with if you feel called to this practice of questioning. But if you just want a great list of questions to begin to sink your teeth into right now, here’s a collection to get you started.

Pick one or more of these to work with, and notice the magic they work on you:

1. How am I feeling in this moment? Really slow down and pause as you ask yourself this, and notice the responses from inside you: emotionally, physically, mentally. Just be receptive to the information that comes through, and release yourself from the need to change or fix anything.

2. What am I waiting for?

3. If I knew I would die in a month, what would be the most important thing I could do in that time? (Try this out with different time periods — for example, a week, a year… notice how your response varies.)

4. What am I holding back? List anything you would like to express but haven’t been able to yet. (This one comes from )

5. What would my life look like if I were liberated from fear?

6. What is the best possible outcome of this situation?

7. What is the hidden gift in this challenge?

8. How can I best use my time and talents to contribute to positive, sustainable transformation in myself and in others?

9. Is this who I want to continue to be?

10. How do I know you? What is our connection, our purpose for meeting or reconnecting? What is our soul history, our work, our future?

11. What do I need that will make me feel complete and make this experience complete?

12. Is this my work to do?

*** Remember, with most of these questions there is no requirement to get a quick, definitive answer. Play around with simply letting them sit in the background of your life, and see what might be revealed over time. Questions tend to work best when they have lots of breathing space. ***

Would you like to go deeper into this practice of asking questions? Check out these books:

• Change Your Questions, Change Your Life by Dr. Marilee Adams

• The Power of an Open Question by Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel

What questions have you found liberating in your own life?

Leave a comment

New Moon / September 21, 2025

We’ve arrived at the balancing point when day and night are equal – autumn equinox in the northern half of our beloved Earth, spring in the southern half.

Here in Northern New Mexico it’s a gorgeous time of year – warm days, cool nights; harvests of corn, beans, and squash; one last burst of blooming flowers. There’s something so bittersweet about this season. It signals the end of the bountiful summer harvest and the expansive energy of long days full of sun, moving into a quieter time of going inward and preparing for the deep cold of winter. Leaves turn brilliant colors and then fade away, to fall to the ground and turn into the matter that makes up rich soil.

All of it connects to the new life that will come next spring, but first we have to trust in the darkness and wisdom of winter to get there. And that makes me think…

Goodness will prevail. It always does.

This doesn’t mean we don’t have to fight for what is right, protect the most vulnerable, and perhaps even make huge sacrifices at times. It doesn’t mean we won’t be in a dark period, perhaps for a long time.

But goodness is in people, everywhere, and it has a way of coming out when space is created for it.

Be a goodness-space-creator.

This new moon message is dedicated to sharing resources to help you do that.

1) Healthy Masculinities

We’ve been watching a very warped and wounded version of masculinity unfold in recent news, and it’s heartbreaking to witness. Thanks to my friend , I found this beautiful essay:

Radiant Wise Women

What About the Men?

How can women invite men to join us in reclaiming our shared humanity…

Read more

9 months ago · 6 likes · 2 comments · Lee Sumner Irwin

An excerpt:

There are a lot of men out there who want to stand beside us, but they don’t quite know how to get there. They feel they would have to abandon everything they were told they should be, in order to join us in reclaiming our collective humanity. In the past, anytime they tried to be allies to women, they risked being harmed - whether by women who have rejected them for not being strong enough, or by other men who took advantage of them or bullied them. Over long spans of time, these experiences have led to men becoming resentful, depressed, and in many cases, violent. A culture of tribalism and the fear of not belonging continues to be a breeding ground for violence and war.

Gender is one of the places we most get socially conditioned, whether we are born male, female, or something in between. Unwholesome formulations around masculinity and femininity can really mess us up and stand in the way of becoming the glorious and multidimensional human beings that is our potential.

I am fortunate to be connected with a coalition of New Mexico nonprofit organizations and individuals who have been working to address this challenge. This group has created the “Healthy Masculinities Toolkit,” intended to help community members explore gender, reimagine masculinities, and deepen consent within relationships. It’s a wonderful resource and it’s free to anyone to use and adapt for your community.

DOWNLOAD THE TOOLKIT

2) BOOKSTACK!

Kinship Medicine by Dr. Wendy Johnson

The kind of nonfiction books I most appreciate take on big ideas but do so through compelling stories and details. Kinship Medicine: Cultivating Interdepedence to Heal the Earth and Ourselves (2025, North Atlantic Press) is such a book, and I have been thoroughly enjoying reading it.

As a family doctor and public health worker for decades, Wendy Johnson is intimately familiar with healthcare systems. She’s practiced medicine in Cleveland, Ohio; Mozambique; and my own region of Northern New Mexico. The first part of Kinship Medicine is Dr. Johnson’s diagnosis of the illness that has consumed Western medicine: individualism and disconnection from nature. The second part is the cure. She skillfully makes the case that in order to transform the Western medical system, we need to move from seeing health as an individual pursuit to understanding wellbeing as completely interdependent with community and nature.

One fact that I found fascinating: the salient factor in healthcare outcomes is not simply poverty, but rather societies that are characterized by inequity. The United States offers a prime example. Even though in many ways the U.S. is a “rich” country, levels of life expectancy, mental health, and happiness are lower; infant and mortality rates are higher, and there are many other concerning statistics. As Dr. Johnson notes, “Those [countries and U.S. states] with more equal distributions of wealth and income also have more social support programs, and, by almost every measure, a healthier population.”

Dr. Johnson explores some very big themes in this book and weaves together history, economics, medicine, anthropology, and more. But some of my favorite passages are when she shares stories of her patients in community health clinics as well as vignettes from living in rural New Mexico where acequias (waterways that are stewarded by community members) offer a model of what this interconnected way of life could look like. There’s also a fascinating section where she does a deep dive into some of the locations that have been dubbed “Blue Zones,” places where it’s not unusual for people to live into their 90s and even 100s.

I think Dr. Johnson’s prescription is right on, and I hope anyone who works in healthcare and anyone who is in a position to impact policy will take time to read this excellent book.

BUY KINSHIP MEDICINE

Find Dr. Wendy Johnson on Substack:

Kinship Medicine

Writing about the intersection between human well-being and the health of our planet.

By Dr. Wendy Johnson

3) Creator/Artist as a Way of Activism

Those first two resources point toward an archetype that is one of the Four Ways of Engagement, a framework I’ve been developing and refining over the past 20 years.

The Creator/Artist has the courage to have a bold vision, to see what does not yet exist and help it come into being, to create new systems that embody the world we wish to see. The Creator/Artist has the gift of thinking in possibilities rather than limitations. This archetypal energy is a wonderful counterpoint to the Warrior, another one of the archetypes. The Warrior is absolutely necessary to stop harmful actions, while at the same time the Creator/Artist brings the vision that is necessary to sustain the struggle and move towards something beautiful. One of the people I think of as a great avatar for this archetype is Grace Lee Boggs (1915 - 2015), an amazing activist and visionary.

The Creator/Artist isn’t only a metaphor. There are many artists and works of art that have contributed in significant ways to struggles for liberation, justice, and peace. Think of this poster, created by six New York men with ACT UP who wanted to light a fire of awareness around the devastation of AIDS in the 1980s

While some of us have a very strong Creator/Artist energy, we all have the seed of that archetype within us and there are many ways to nurture it. Here’s one: Get a set of crayons, pastels, or markers, and a blank piece of paper or canvas. Allow yourself to play with colors and shapes you might not usually use, and enjoy the practice of being completely unattached to any outcome. Discover what’s possible!

I’m a big believer in the idea that we need diverse modes of activism, both in our communities and within ourselves, to effectively move toward a more just and peaceful world. The Four Ways of Engagement, a gift for paid subscribers to The Practice of Life, gives you a pathway to discover the archetype that feels most alive in you, and learn ways to cultivate it. Every module includes reflections on each archetype, real-world examples, an audio guided meditation to help you tap into the energy of that archetype, practices, and guiding questions. Past participants have found the journey to be illuminating, and even fun!

If you’re a paid subscriber, thank you! You can start the journey here.

If you’d like to become a paid subscriber to access the Four Ways of Engagement online journey, and to support my work as a writer, here’s the magic blue button to do so:

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Other Places to Find My Writing

• I’ve got another Substack: Postcards from New Mexico. It’s quite different from The Practice of Life, a fun romp through Northern New Mexico twice a month.

• Dharma Compass is the name of my monthly column on the Buddhist Global Door website. My most recent column: The Great Way Depends on the Smallest Things.

Full Moon / September 7, 2025

In August, I lost a friend.

When I moved into my current home in July of 2020, I was delighted to have four fruit trees in my modest backyard: apple, apricot, peach, and plum. This was the first home I’d ever “owned” and in those early pandemic days this place felt like a refuge from the intensity of the larger world.

The plum tree stood like a sentry outside my bedroom window. I don’t remember plums that first summer, but the following spring, after the deaths of my mom and dad from COVID, it burst forth with beautiful white blossoms, a harbinger of hope. That summer it gifted me with dozens of gorgeous reddish purple plums, as it has the past few years.

This spring started out like any other, and the plum tree was happy to step into the season with her full regalia. In early summer, small fruits began to come out. I even shared a short video here on Substack Notes of the tree during a gentle rainstorm:

But in July there were concerning signs. One branch lost all its leaves. It looked like there may have been insects burrowing into that one, so I checked in with my awesome arborist who suggested I saw that branch off. The rest of the tree looked okay. But over the next couple of weeks things went downhill fast. Soon nearly the entire tree was bare. Kelsey the arborist came to look at it, and told me it was most likely beyond saving. I have known Kelsey to save other trees that looked pretty far gone, so I accepted her prognosis. For a moment we fiddled with the idea of cutting off all the limbs except the very last one that still had a few leaves, which would have created a kind of Dr. Seuss tree. But that just seemed so sad, and we both agreed it was best to take her down completely. Kelsey turned out to be a skillful death doula for the tree and me.

I don’t know why this loss hit me so hard. Sure, it was a sweet tree but for the first few days after, my emotional response was pretty over the top. Every time I looked out my bedroom window, all I could see was a huge empty spot and my heart felt inordinately broken. Then I realized this plum tree was evoking memories of my friend Katya.

As it happens, today’s full moon is exactly four years since Katya’s death on September 7, 2021. To say that was a hard year would be a vast understatement. Mom and dad both died in January of 2021. Less than three weeks after my mom’s death, Katya was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer which had metastasized to her brain. Less than seven months later she was gone too.

In my mind their three lives are woven together, and so are their deaths. Katya was very much a part of my journey to find some sense of peace with my parents so that I could focus on getting them out of harm’s way in their Southern California home and bring them to an assisted living center in Santa Fe in 2019, just before COVID landed on these shores. This is the focal point of the memoir that I’m working on — how I changed from someone who moved as far away as possible from my mom and dad for many years of my life, to someone who was willing to re-engage with them, get them out of a bad situation, and bring them to live just a mile from me. Katya walked a lot of steps of that journey alongside me.

She was very familiar with death, dying, and grief. Katya’s family got dealt a pretty rough set of cards. Many years ago her brother had died of cancer, then her father, then her brother-in-law. She went through a bout with ovarian cancer, long before I knew her, but survived that. Then at the start of the pandemic, her adopted sister died of COVID. I couldn’t even imagine what Katya’s mom had been through with all that loss.

Katya turned all those experiences and other losses into her own path of awakening. More than anyone I’ve ever met, she thought about and talked about death — what it felt like to be with someone who was dying, what it felt like to contemplate her own death, what doors could be opened through grief. She got a master’s degree in social work and for a number of years worked in pediatric hospice, accompanying parents through grief for their lost children. She also made art, and impermanence and death were strong themes in many of her creations. Multimedia and photography were some of her favorite forms, as was haiku, like this one:

I tell you all this and it sounds very heavy, but the truth is that Katya was one of the lightest people I’d ever met. She didn’t carry those inquiries like a burden but like a gift, an invitation to live life to the very fullest. She excelled in that assignment. And she had a wicked sense of humor.

One of Katya’s last assignments was to shepherd me through the period of time from January 5, when my mom tested positive for COVID, through my dad’s death on January 16, and then my mom’s death on January 30. I got tremendous support from family and friends throughout that time but Katya’s steadfastness was extraordinary.

When I got the call from the assisted living center that my dad was actively passing, I texted to let her know. Her immediate response was, “I’ll be right behind you.” She waited in the parking lot of the center for hours that day because staff wouldn’t let her inside due to pandemic restrictions, even after I told them she was like a sister to me. When I finally came out after my dad’s death, we couldn’t even hug because I had been inside a room with two people who had COVID — but her presence was everything. A week later when I migrated to a hotel in Santa Fe to be closer to my mom and be able to visit her every day as her health went into a nose dive, Katya stayed in my house and took care of my dog, Lucy. We talked every night on the phone, and her gentle questions about how I was doing as I sat in vigil with mom for five days got me through that baptism by fire. She made two trips with me to the funeral home to pick up their ashes. Every step of the way, Katya held space for me with love, strength, and trust as I accompanied my parents through their departures.

When she received her terminal cancer diagnosis just a few weeks later, all I could think was that this was one fucking hell of a cruel joke that God was pulling on me. And I didn’t even believe in God. But I couldn’t find anywhere else to place my rage at losing this dear friend. To be honest, I’m not sure I’ve fully gotten through that anger.

As I looked out over that empty spot where the plum tree used to be, I started to understand the parallels. Katya’s presence in my life during the eight years we were blessed to be friends felt like having that plum tree as a sentry outside my bedroom. Someone who was watching out for me, who wanted to see me live my best life. And like the plum tree, her departure came far too soon, in the midst of the fullness of her path. She was only 58 when she died. Her physical absence left a gaping emptiness in my life. Over these four years, the acute pain of that grief has abated, but it still gets tugged at times. The loss of the plum tree tugged it.

I’m not sure why I’m writing all this to you now, except that on departure anniversaries it feels important to tell stories of our loved ones. Perhaps it’s as simple as that. In October, the month after Katya’s death, I was swimming in a sea of grief for all three of them. Grief for my parents had gotten put on the back burner when Katya’s cancer journey began, and after her death the flood gates burst. I got a graduate education in grief during the following year. Some time that October, I watched the movie Coco, a colorful tale about Dia de Los Muertos and a young Mexican boy who inadvertently makes a trip to the land of the dead. My big takeaway was that these memories and stories are what keep our loved ones alive.

I miss Katya every day, and wish you could have met her. Actually you can, in a way. Her website, Pausing Turtle, is still up. I tend to it, as another way to keep her spirit alive. Feel free to visit and discover this amazing woman’s writing, art, and haikus.

ANNOUNCEMENTS…

The Four Ways of Engagement

The Four Ways of Engagement is a special gift for paid subscribers of The Practice of Life. This holistic framework is intended to open up nourishing possibilities for how we engage with the world. If you’re struggling to find a kind of activism that resonates with you and doesn’t lead to burnout, you might really appreciate The Four Ways.

You can move through this five-part online journey at your own pace. Learn more here:

Everything else on The Practice of Life is free, without paywalls. This publication is based on a model of generosity, not transaction. But I wanted to offer something special to thank those who are kind enough to support me with a paid subscription.

Other Places to Find My Writing

• I’ve got another Substack: Postcards from New Mexico. It’s quite different from The Practice of Life, a fun romp through Northern New Mexico twice a month.

• Dharma Compass is my monthly column on the Buddhist Global Door website. My most recent column: Dharma and Diversity: Unlearning Racism.

• And I’ve got a book! Work That Matters has been out for a number of years now, but I like to think it’s “evergreen” and continues to serve people who are seeking meaning through work (in its most expansive definition).

  

New Moon / August 23, 2025

It’s good to be back. After taking nearly a month off of writing for The Practice of Life as well as pressing “pause” on a couple of other writing gigs, I’m ready to create and co-create again in our Substack playground.

Sensing into rhythm helps me a lot, perhaps at heart I’m a writer with a musician wing. (Music has played a significant role in my life).

Here’s how my rhythm generally goes. Every week I dedicate Wednesday to working on my memoir. That mid-week break in the rhythm of the other parts of my working life feels right. Every Saturday I try (not always successfully) to keep digital devices turned off, something inspired by my friend Yael’s practice of Shabbat. Now I’m discovering that it does my soul good to take a backward step in mid-summer and mid-winter, to have dedicated fallow and fun time. In the past I’ve tried to sneak this into my usual routine, not taking much “vacation” time completely off. But I’m getting how important it is to draw boundaries around my energy and give myself the gift of unfettered freedom from responsibilities to anything other than my own wellbeing for a period of time.

Perhaps this sounds basic and you already know this! For me it’s meant remembering that I can’t function like a machine, and understanding myself more like a plant that moves between stages of sprouting, growth, blooming, fading, and dormancy. What kind of rhythm do you find your life attuned to?

I’m finding the rhythm of this newsletter, too. The new moon post (like this one) is a time for pop-up lists, images, and sharing works of art that I love and think you might too. The full moon post is (usually) a longer essay exploring one of the themes of this publication: contemplative practice in everyday life, right livelihood, creativity. and engaging with the world from a place of kindness and awareness,

All to say this post is going to be a mash-up of all kinds of goodies! Let’s go…

Fun Announcement!

I’ve created a special gift for paid subscribers, The Four Ways of Engagement, a holistic framework intended to open up nourishing possibilities for how we engage with the world. This is an online journey you can move through at your own pace. And if you’d like to become a paid subscriber, I’d be so grateful.

All the other posts here on The Practice of Life are free and there are no paywalls—this publication is based on generosity, not transaction. But I did want to create something special as a way to thank those who are kind enough to support me with a paid subscription.

Discover Great Writing

There are some amazing writers on Substack. Here are just a few of the posts that I loved this past month:

From , an End-of-Life doula, baby bird carer, and writer par excellence from England. Every time I read one of Chloe’s essays, it’s like going to the best Sunday church service. I feel both challenged and comforted, and my sense of what it is to be human and mortal expands beyond what I thought possible. And my heart opens, over and over.

Death & Birds

filaments

Read more

10 months ago · 320 likes · 116 comments · Chloe Hope

From , a Black queer poet, essayist, and organizer from Brooklyn, New York. This is such a vital piece of writing about Black August, which Saint Trey calls “a living ritual, a season of study, mourning, resistance, and remembrance.” This essay pulses with life.

Notes From The Undrowned

This Is Not a Month, It’s a Memorial

Writer’s Note…

Read more

10 months ago · 35 likes · 2 comments · Saint Trey W.

From , an artist, poet, and Zen priest. This is one of the most fun and creative posts I’ve read here. Sal ‘surfs’ off of other social media posts and conjures up something entirely original. In the process, she’s doing something radical: “It’s one way to reclaim my attention, one way to stay alive to the present.”

Free Words

Ever-refreshing Hells and a few Heavens

Dear Friends…

Read more

10 months ago · 11 likes · 1 comment · Sal Randolph

Other Places to Find My Writing

• I’ve got another Substack: Postcards from New Mexico. It’s quite different from The Practice of Life, a fun romp through Northern New Mexico twice a month. Most recently I wrote Manko Food Truck, about a food truck that serves up innovative Native Fusion Food.

• Dharma Compass is the name of my monthly column on the Buddhist Global Door website. My most recent column: Dharma and Diversity: Unlearning Racism.

And Finally… My Summer Vacation : )