bother to look. Nevertheless, someone sits quietly somewhere inside us and bears witness to all that goes on, without judging. It may take days, months or years after an event for us to realize what the witness has seen, but it’s a knowledge we can rest in even if we may flinch from it. The living truth helps us to be more wholly ourselves as it reshapes us into better persons. Here’s one truth I’ve uncovered. Although I want to be perfect and long to have everybody love me, I am sometimes an angry lady, a guilty lady, a self-pitying lady and a varsity self-attacker. But why attack the person who forgets her keys at home or leaves a low fire burning on in the sto... posted on Mar 26 2016 (16,288 reads)

following are my opinions, and do not reflect the opinions or policies of any particular prosecutor's office. (Laughter) I am a prosecutor. I believe in law and order. I am the adopted son of a police officer, a Marine and a hairdresser. I believe in accountability and that we should all be safe in our communities. I love my joband the people that do it. I just think that it's our responsibility to do it better. By a show of hands, how many of you, by the age of 25, had either acted up in school, went somewhere you were specifically told to stay out of, or drank alcohol before your legal age? (Laughter) All right. How many of you shoplifted, tried an illeg... posted on Apr 3 2016 (15,098 reads)

of how many tattoos they have, how threatening they superficially appear — when you give them the gift of recognizing their humanity, everything changes for so many. And what’s so sad is that you'll see these kids, they may be 18, 19. But when you talk to them, and you sit with them, and you listen to how much they’ve suffered, and you recognize in many ways they’re still children, and they’re just looking for that person who will embrace them and love them. It can be just really extraordinary. MS. TIPPETT: Yeah it is. We’ve just got a few more minutes. So I was watching a panel, I think it was a CCARE conference that you did in 2014. ... posted on Apr 17 2016 (30,993 reads)

journey as a parent of a specially-abled son has been one of extreme emotions – from disappointment to hope; from pain to joy; from love to anguish – it’s been a journey like never before. When Vivaan was born, one of my close friends sent me Kahlil Gibran’s famous poem On Children. The first verse in the poem is often quoted, but I would still like to share it here. Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. My journey as a parent of a differently abled son has been one of extreme emotions &ndash... posted on May 2 2016 (15,054 reads)

to the delight of receiving a postcard in the mail, this project manifests Ellie’s belief that there are infinite ways to spread joy through creativity and generosity. Anne and Ellie hope that these seeds of mindfulness and creativity find fertile ground throughout the world. Feel free to download the images and color them in. The act of coloring can be a simple exercise in mediation or a light-hearted creative process. Color beyond the lines and give them as gifts to yourself, loved ones, or strangers! Breathe As we watch ourselves breathe, we see what is within us constantly mingling with what is outside, and the truth of no solid, separate self becomes apparent. C... posted on Jun 1 2016 (17,165 reads)

open to yourself? If you start by not finding fault with yourself and not finding fault with your circumstances, then you’re not bitter about your failures. Then it’s much easier to be kind to other people because you’re not gritting your teeth. So there’s a spontaneous quality to actual kindness. Is kindness always a result of an authentic spiritual life? When you really stop believing your thoughts, you notice that you have more gratitude, appreciation, and love toward life. You realize that you can’t oppose your own life, so you feel this way even toward the people you thought were difficult because they’re part of your life, too. It’s... posted on Jul 6 2016 (17,609 reads)

Dance (Word Press 2008), which won the 2009 Paterson Award for Literary Excellence; More (C&R Press 2010); Gold (Cascade Books, a division of Wipf and Stock, in their Poeima Poetry Series, 2013); Small Rain (Purple Flag, an imprint of the Virtual Artists Collective, 2014); and Barbara Crooker: Selected Poems (FutureCycle Press, 2015). Margaret Rozga: When I reviewed your book Gold for Verse Wisconsin, I loved the joy, the optimism, in many of your poems, even those that pay their respects to sorrow. Those poems focus on your grief at your mother’s death, but in the third section of the boo... posted on Jul 26 2016 (11,129 reads)

the clinical. … Be metaphorical, be mystical, be whatever you need." I find here the implication that it is our deep regard for the human condition that moves us beyond the complacent and routine. It is in our profound respect for service to others that we touch mystery and wholeness. At the heart of integrative medicine is a bold invitation to go beyond the clinical, into regions that capture our hearts and imagination. Caring is fundamental. Nothing else really matters without love as an organizing principle. Or as one patient I know told her physician, "I just want someone who gives a damn." Caring relationships can and should be with our care providers, but t... posted on Aug 4 2016 (16,264 reads)

[laughs] I was homeless and just sort of walking around in a stupor in September and October. I was always looking for places to practice. I would practice over in that eucalyptus grove by the entrance to the UC Berkeley campus. RW:  You’d have your flute. MS:  Right. I had my flute with me. I discovered I was good at finding spots. I started sneaking into what’s called the Florence Schwimley Little Theater in the Berkeley High School complex. It’s a lovely little theater. I’d put a piece of cardboard in the door lock so when they left, I could just open the door and get in there, and I’d spend the whole night. I’d practice in th... posted on Aug 7 2016 (11,642 reads)

is a chosen narrative, then new stories, new aesthetics, are also new truths. A century after Rilke extolled the soul-expanding power of difficulty and urged us to “arrange our life according to that principle which counsels us that we must always hold to the difficult,” Hirshfield writes: Difficulty itself may be a path toward concentration — expended effort weaves us into a task, and successful engagement, however laborious, becomes also a labor of love. The work of writing brings replenishment even to the writer dealing with painful subjects or working out formal problems, and there are times when suffering’s only open path is through an ... posted on Sep 6 2016 (10,892 reads)

or an artichoke one by one down to the heart, where, surrounded by yet one more protective choke of thistle, lies the delicious heart that distills the taste of the whole plant. So, I’m there and almost ready to take that last bite of the heart of the fruit. Like most marriages, I guess, we were a mixed bag of personality differences, varied preferences, unexamined childhood traumas, weaknesses and strengths, hopes and passions. I think he and I partnered each other with as much love and courage as we could, making every mistake in the book on a daily basis but trying to learn from them and carry on. We, with our children, were a brave but merry little band most of the time, ... posted on Sep 14 2016 (19,403 reads)

another to experience it.” He reflected how bringing the exhibition to life, the ups and downs of the journey, had been a practice of listening, of trust, of letting go of control and of collaborating in the spirit of friendship and community. As part of Buddhas on Death Row, I reached out to friends and family to mail their reflections and responses to Moyo’s opening of heart. That sharing created powerful ripples, including this note from Moyo: “All this love and belief in me from all these lovely people who love so naturally and purely is having me ask what is the real me? Is it my closed-hearted moments or am I truly an endless river of free-flowing... posted on Sep 21 2016 (10,963 reads)

Eisenstaedt, Children at a Puppet Theatre, Paris, 1963 Each summer I teach creative writing classes at the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth. It’s a wonderful job for many reasons: my colleagues are uniformly, eccentrically brilliant, I’ve taught at campuses all over the country, from Los Angeles to the U.S. Virgin Islands, and since the program is a sleepaway camp, the mood is always more summer vacation than school-day drudgery. But the real reason I love this job, what makes me cross an ocean and leave my spouse behind for six weeks every year, is my students: my breathtakingly intelligent students, radiating curiosity and teenage awkwardness and de... posted on Sep 28 2016 (33,641 reads)

that this gift is in each of us awaiting discovery: We are disabused of original giftedness in the first half of our lives. Then — if we are awake, aware, and able to admit our loss — we spend the second half trying to recover and reclaim the gift we once possessed. Let Your Life Speak remains an indispensable read. Complement it with philosopher Roman Krznaric on how to find fulfilling work and some thoughts on making a living of doing what you love, then revisit Palmer on the art of inner wholeness. ***** For more inspiration join the Awakin Call this Saturday with Philippe Simonin and his "Dream to Share Dreams". More ... posted on Dec 2 2016 (23,333 reads)

from a word that means to give. To forgive a debt is giving solvency to another—absolving them, pulling them out of debtor’s prison and back into the light of the living. We can also free ourselves from debtors prison. Why not do this? As Charles Dickens tells us, no one ever paid their debts while locked away in debtors prison. We can practice tuning into a frequency outside the prison of the self. We can practice saying “forgiven.” Months after the death of his beloved wife Joy, C.S. Lewis had a vivid sense of her as he took his morning bath. Up until then, he seemed always to be thinking of her absence, of the vast hole her absence left in the world. Real, li... posted on Jan 23 2017 (10,673 reads)

longing is larger and more encompassing than empathy itself. Connection does not require us to feel similarly to each other – it requires us to be ‘real’, emotionally authentic. If you have ever experienced a moment with a friend or partner when you were upset with each other, you spoke frankly with each other and this brought you closer together, then you know exactly what I mean. If we take ownership of our emotions, even being angry with each other can bring us to a deeper love. That ineffable but most fulfilling moment of connection comes from truth, not from agreement. If all we ever offer in dialogue is an empathic response, then perhaps we are not being honest &ndas... posted on May 15 2021 (42,876 reads)

matter what. I have found that so many folks living with cancer are sur­prised by who shows up and who doesn’t. As humans, we crave certainty. Se­curity. We want to know, Why did this happen? Will I be OK? What if there are no answers and no certainty to be found? What if we can’t know? Does that mean peace of mind and heart are no longer possible? Not necessarily. By letting go of what we thought we knew, we just might be able to open ourselves to finding love, support, meaning – and even magic – in the least likely of places. A deeper peace may be found in living the ques­tions, rather than clinging to our old certainty. We can move fo... posted on Feb 15 2017 (13,750 reads)

are deeper: who are you, in your depth, what is the nature of your relationships, are you bold, loving, dependable, consistency? And most of us, including me, would say that the eulogy virtues are the more important of the virtues. But at least in my case, are they the ones that I think about the most? And the answer is no. So I've been thinking about that problem, and a thinker who has helped me think about it is a guy named Joseph Soloveitchik, who was a rabbi who wrote a book called "The Lonely Man Of Faith" in 1965.Soloveitchik said there are two sides of our natures, which he called Adam I and Adam II. ... posted on Mar 12 2017 (49,082 reads)

roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a forest greater. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless. … We have been in training for a dark time such as this, since the day we assented to come to Earth. For many decades, worldwide, souls just like us have been felled and left for dead in so many ways over and over — brought down by naiveté, by lack of love, by suddenly realizing one deadly thing or another, by not realizing something else soon enough, by being ambushed and assaulted by various cultural and personal shocks in the extreme. We all ... posted on Mar 13 2020 (212,345 reads)

medical miracle ignited his passion for music and science which he channeled into his wildly successful 30+ year career as the CEO of the world’s largest and most-awarded audio communications agency, Elias Arts.  It's from this uniquely intuitive and empirical place that he stands against the conventional economic thinking that businesses exist simply to make a profit. Scott’s work is a force for bringing out the very heart and soul of business.  By designing for love in some of the world’s biggest companies, he’s a leading voice for the idea that business success is not the goal, but rather a by-product of offerings that fuel people to expres... posted on Mar 16 2017 (7,862 reads)