A dear friend, in a recent conversation, told me that a mixup at her job was all her fault. It wasn’t (just FYI), but she’s been trained — as both a female and a good person — to accept responsibility for when things go wrong that she’s involved in. Here’s the problem with that:…

This is total Buddhism, folks. Despite the hijab covering her head, and her Palestinian djellabah, this Muslim woman is practicing the most Buddhist of actions: living in the moment, making it into peace and beauty. She has taken tear gas canisters, thrown over several years in clashes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians, and converted them…

I write frequently about being kind to our own flawed and fallible selves. Because I see so many people talking to and about themselves in ways they wouldn’t address horrible strangers. I hear dear friends talk about themselves as failures, citing their inability to walk serenely through their overwhelming lives. Colleagues badmouth their work; acquaintances…

The goldfinches have (finally!) arrived. They’re going through about a feeder of thistle seed every couple of days. My sister, looking out the breakfast room window onto the 1-2-3-4-5-6+ feeding and water stations, wondered aloud what this costs us monthly. It’s not negligible. 🙂 But it’s soooo worth it. Afternoons like this, when there’s still…

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