Today I arrived at my son's apartment in Paris after an overnight flight. I had a short nap and before heading out to dinner I was offered this bathtub/shower to wash up in.
Read MoreHappy New Year! I hope that everyone had a restful break. This year, rather than making resolutions, I have been letting them go. About eight years ago, I made the resolution to do sitting meditation every single morning. And until recently, I have kept that resolution, rising from bed very early, even in the darkest, coldest mornings, sitting through illnesses, sitting in hotel rooms, on planes, and even while in doctors' waiting rooms. But last month, something shifted...
Read MoreHappy Holiday Season! I remember when my kids were young and my parents would show up at our house for Christmas. My dad would still be turning off the engine and my mom would already be up on our front porch lugging several lawn-sized garbage bags filled with presents. She truly looked like Santa Claus when she arrived at our house, with full arms and a huge excited smile.
Read MoreI am sitting outside enjoying the sunshine and the solitude. Our 18 house guests from the last week just left, and I am basking in the quiet both outside and inside my mind. Amazingly, tonight will be the first night in 8 months where we won't have any guests staying at our house. I thought that at this moment I would feel exhausted and relieved, which I do, but I will also miss the community and connection...
Read MoreThis morning during my sitting meditation, I planned whether I would do walking meditation after sitting. I decided to do it. During my walking meditation, I thought about how, if I finished quickly, I would be able to do a long walk in Rock Creek with my dog, Gus. Then I got to Rock Creek, and I was immediately planning my route through the park. Once I decided which way to go, I started planning my day...
Read MoreNext week my son heads off to France for a gap year between high school and college. He is pretty excited about it, and we have begun planning which suitcases he will bring, buying him a new suit for his internship, and figuring out how he is going to get all of his stuff from here to there. And while we were planning, I remembered a time when he was ten years old and we went on a two-day trip to Cleveland...
Read MoreIt's swelteringly hot outside these days. I have noticed that when I am walking or running outside in the heat of the day, I am sometimes preoccupied with the oppression of the heat. Some days I have a hard time enjoying what I am doing outside because I get stuck on thinking about the heat and how to relieve it. If I am going somewhere with air conditioning, I start to think about how nice it will be once I get inside...
Read MoreHappy 4th of July! One of my favorite childhood memories is spending Independence Day in my mom's hometown of Algonac, Michigan. In Algonac, the week leading up to the 4th was always the "Pickerel Tournament," which consisted of a very rickety but fun carnival and an ongoing fishing tournament,which I completely ignored. The big finale for the week was always the 4th of July parade...
Read MoreWe had the wonderful pleasure of hosting a family of robins on our family room overhang this month. It began when we saw the mother robin frantically putting together nests in four potential sites, scattering a huge pile of sticks and shiny threads on our patio. She apparently decided against someone's old birthday balloon because she left it dangling in front of our window. She did finally settle on the "best" location, the one closest to our kitchen window...
Read MoreI was lying in bed one morning last week with the clatter of heavy rain on the roof above my head and the sweet coziness of a warm comforter, when I realized that it was already 6:15, and the Wednesday morning sitting meditation was beginning at the studio in 15 minutes. At that point it was really too late to get to sitting on time, but I considered, very briefly, leaping out of bed, throwing on some clothes, and racing over...
Read MoreSpring has arrived! How wonderful to see the daffodils blooming and to feel the sun on our faces again. And at the same time, we had more tragedy than usual this past month: the terrible earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and, closer to home, the tragedy in our local yoga community at Lululemon in Bethesda. How can we reconcile the beauty and excitement of spring with the horror and suffering of events like these?
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A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of visiting my family in Michigan. While I'm there, I always try to have a sandwich at Olga's Kitchen restaurant.
Read MoreHappy February! I hope that you have endured the freezing temperatures and ice this past month, and have been staying warm with your yoga practice. After the death of our 12-year-old chocolate Lab about a month ago, our 11-year-old Standard Poodle started acting strangely. Our dogs had been together for nearly 11 years. In 2000, when we brought home Gus, an 8-week-old poodle, he met Coco, who was 18 months old at that time.
Read MoreHappy New Year! I hope that all of you enjoyed your holiday, and got at least a little extra time off and rest. I enjoyed having my kids at home, and hanging around the house more. I also had the opportunity to watch a few movies, and one that I particularly enjoyed was Despicable Me. It was a hilarious animated movie about a self-satisfied villain who adopts three adorable little girls...
Read MoreLast week, several days before our Thanksgiving feast, I happened to be in a local store, and was surprised to see a lot of Christmas decorations and displays. Well, I wasn't completely surprised, having watched this trend toward seasonal overlap growing over the last few years. What was surprising, though was that the Christmas displays helped illuminate some teachings I heard from Rod Stryker, Cyndi Lee, and Sean Johnson...
Read MoreCan you believe that it is already November? The fall seems to be going so quickly, and Thanksgiving is only a couple of weeks away. Thanksgiving has been one of my favorite holidays for many years, especially when we traveled to Michigan to enjoy Thanksgiving with family. I think that one of the reasons I liked it so much was that all we did was arrive and enjoy...
Read MoreOne of the joys of having older children is that we learn so much from them. This summer, one of my daughters read an inspiring book, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide and recommended that I read it also. Reading that book started me on a journey toward a deeper understanding of some of the most painful and difficult issues we face today, including the sex trafficking of young women around the world...
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