Beginner's Heart

Carrots?? Carrots cure the blues?? Welllll, not exactly… But a trip to the Farmer’s Market, a cast iron skillet, and an hour+ of prep time will. For sure. 😉 Dinner tonight is blues food — not the kind where you’re listening to the blues, but the kind you fix when you want comforting. At least…

So after two afternoons of rental cars, two days of airplanes, and a packed day of looking at a house, we’re home. And boy — home seldom looked so ambivalent… Glad to be here? Absolutely — the sheets are clean, animals are ecstatic we’re back, and I can cook! I immediately went out for the…

Today, as I listened to the housing inspector recite the (very small) flaws our new house has, I thought about change. About moving, about uprooting, about transplanting. My garden is full of transplants — the azaleas from my mother’s, the dwarf crape myrtle moved from one side of the house to another. The 2 peonies…

It’s taken 30 years, but I finally get Ram Dass’s message: Be here now. For me? It’s be here. now. And that period makes for the emphasis I need to remember. Today I woke up wishing I could just already be in Virginia, ensconced in our new house, w/ the small remods we plan already…

During the Việtnam War, there was a popular folk song covered by several artists ~  Where Have All the Flowers Gone? Written by Pete Seeger as an anti-war song, it continues to be one of my favourite anti-violence statements. Yes, it’s about war. But it’s also about the ongoing pattern of sanctioned violence. It’s about a culture…

Friday is my annual physical exam. I don’t particularly enjoy it — although I like my doctor. It’s something one does, to be sure you’re okay overall. Preventive maintenance. So I have to get up abominably early, w/ NO caffeine & no breakfast, and go get needled, poked, & prodded. Plus answer the same dumb…

My animals are far better people than I am. And they’re certainly better Buddhists. They love me no matter my mood, whether I forgot to feed them, whether I feel like messing with them or petting them (sometimes I feel more like messing w/ them — tickling their feet, skritching them against their fur lines)……

I just spent the BEST weekend: writing poetry, visiting w/ one of my most beloved writing communities. This is one of my very favourite weekends of my writing year. I get to immerse myself in talking about writing. I write; I read; I coach; I laugh & cry & do it all again. All weekend.…

One of my favourite musical groups is Playing for Change, a social action movement w/ music as its platform. When I’m blue — not infrequently these days, as I cull tangible memories (‘stuff’ to the uninitiated) — I listen to their ’round’the’world hit Stand by Me, in which musicians from Santa Monica from Amsterdam from South…

While I was sitting at my desk thinking about what to write about, I found myself staring at my bulletin board. Realising that it’s a kind of window into what I value. It took a long time for me to put up a bulletin board; I had to find one that was both functional &…

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