Sanctification: making sacred. Sacred is an anagram for scared. We are often scared of the sacred. We are scared because we have not been taught how to see ourselves as sacred, how to be sacred, only how to worship what we are told is sacred. We are told that certain things, certain places, certain activities, are sacred. And that is not wrong, as far as it goes. But it doesn’t go far enough. Sacred doesn’t stop at the things, the place, the activities, the people, we believe

It was a revelation of epic proportions when my first meditation instructor said to me, the body feels before you put words to it. I stared at him, momentarily speechless. The body… what? No. I don’t have sensations without words. Words come first. He (wisely) didn’t argue with me, just held his seat and let me struggle against the idea. But eventually I came around. Came around to believing that no, actually, words don’t come first. I actually do feel sensation before though

Who knew a four-day, 2500-kilometre solo drive in the rain, preceded and followed by intense moving activities, could be so exhausting? Last week, when I was en route, I posted a single haiku. This week, sitting in my new place still surrounded by boxes, I don’t even have a haiku left in me! And yet, I’m committed to posting every week. And I’m a day late already. So, what to do? In the time-honoured tradition of busy bloggers everywhere when life gets to be just a little too

She sat quietly, breathing in and breathing out, breathing in the sharp-sweet-bitter-slightly-sulfurous tang of seaweed and of salt. She sat inhaling the scent of sea and seaweed and sea creatures and all things sea. She sat for so long, taking in great gulps of the smell-sight-sound-feel-taste of bright day at beach, that she felt, deep in her spine, the exact instant when the last particle of tension left her body. She felt a tiny click deep in her spine and suddenly she wa

[Continued from last week’s post] Last week I wrote that Jack and I have figured out how to make ourselves at home in many different places, bringing along a few talismans to symbolize that this new space is our territory. Many a time have we found ourselves in some land far, far away, exhausted, jet lagged, grumpy from lack of sleep, food, tired of the vicissitudes and vagaries of travel, yet companionably so. Knowing somehow how to navigate the waves of each other’s moods —

Late afternoon. She’s feeling twitchy and she doesn’t know why. Actually that’s a lie. She knows exactly why. It’s that time of day when she used to pour her first glass of wine. Now, though it’s been many years since she’s touched a glass of wine, the urge still strikes, always at the same time of day, late afternoon. Teatime now, but for a time, it was happy hour, when drinking was still fun and didn’t really mean anything. She remembers those 2-for-1 frozen margaritas in K

Everyone’s addicted to something, says my friend D. And I have to agree with her. Why am I thinking about addiction today? Because I read about someone who decided to get her phone out of the bedroom overnight because she was addicted to it, with all the beeps and burps and deedle-wheedle-dees coming out of the damn thing all day and night, making her feel like she had to respond to absolutely everything NOW NOW NOW even if it was three in the morning and she’d just gotten up

I’ve struggled my entire adult life to Get Things Done. It’s not that I’m ever really idle, not really. Even when it looks like I’m doing nothing, I’m in fact a quivering brew of anxiety about things I should be doing right now, should have done, should do tomorrow — and there’s always something more to do. Am I the only one this happens to or does that sound familiar? I’ve tried probably every productivity system on the planet, paper and digital, at some point or another. As

To pick up where we left off last week: For me, the real deal about being kind to myself is all about being in touch with my own true heart … holding it all without pushing it away or pushing it down. So, how do I do this? How do I personally get beyond the bubble bath and expand into the soft tender core of myself? How do I make friends with myself? Get in touch with my own true heart and hold all of the pain and joy and goodness and sadness, and everything in between, the w

“To thine own self be kind.” I mean REALLY TRULY kind. I mean radical kindness, real, radical self-compassion. The kind of kindness that lasts, that soaks into every aspect of your life, the kind you don’t leave behind when you come home after a retreat. Beyond random acts of kindness. Beyond bubble baths. Beyond massages, spa days, yoga retreats, whatever your budget allows you to do as a form of self-care or even the occasional self-indulgence. Beyond chocolate, binge watch

When people ask me what I’m up to these days, I get all tongue tied and fumbly. I hem and haw about sort of being more or less kind of semi-retired and then I generally mutter something about doing the occasional bit of trademark work or incorporation work, which I did for 15 years or so, alongside my husband. The truth is, he’s working on his own now. I help him out with a couple of very specific things, but mostly I’m learning how to be a writer. I still choke on saying it,

I’m doing something a little different today to honour my (recent) commitment to post on Thursdays: reposting something I posted on facebook, about an article by the psychotherapist and researcher Tori Rodriguez that was originally published way back in 2013 but seems more relevant to me than ever. Here’s the article: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/negative-emotions-key-well-being And my comments: YES! YES! YES! I love this: “Thoughts are just thoughts, feelings a

The trouble with silence is that it’s so hard to find. And because it’s so hard to find, we’re so not used to it. It makes us uncomfortable. So when we’re in a situation that requires silence, we have trouble with it. I recently participated in a mostly-silent writing retreat. Functional talking only — “pass the salt, please” or “your hair is on fire” — with writing-related talk at lunch and socializing at dinnertime. I totally loved the idea of it but the reality did take so

1. FROM A WRITING RETREAT THIS SUMMER Shimmering like white starburst fireworks, sun on gentle waves. Air is still. Calm before the storm? Heat hangs heavy in the late afternoon stillness. There is scarcely any movement. I am deeply at peace. So many water metaphors. Diving deep, touching bottom, not touching bottom. Water and air mutual — water, H2O, contains oxygen and hydrogen. So does air. Air contains water particles, humidity, condensation, inside and outside all the sa