For a Moment

A million years ago, I was in an airplane with my seventh and eighth grade classmates, flying back to California from Italy. We were unbelievably lucky private school children who had just spent a week in one of the oldest cities of Western Civilization doing what eighth graders do–having fun but missing the full gravity

Friends

I have an elderly friend who is a little difficult. I have struggled with her for the last two years in particular. She has cared for me at really dark periods and been here, a fixture in Santa Fe, for me. She can also be blunt, judgmental and plain rude. As a mother figure, I

Stream of Consciousness 2/8/2021

I’ve deactivated my Facebook because it takes too much of my attention and in general adds a level of drama to my life that I don’t need. In a nutshell, I am addicted. It is an issue. In general the internet takes too much of my time, especially during this pandemic. I need to find

Things, 1/23/21

Have you ever tried saying something like “May it be blessed” when you do something or have anxiety around something that happens? The tags on my car are out of date because this year has been a nightmare and today I was driving and cop car drove by and I was overcome with anxiety. I

The Truths of the Heart

“It isn’t possible to love and part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know by experience that the poets are right: love is eternal.”― E.M. Forster, A Room with a View Yesterday, I got an astrology reading from an

Softness in a Culture of Punishment

My favorite voice in Buddhism is a lesser known Zen “guide” named Cheri Huber. I discovered her ten years ago while staying at a monastery in Central California, between my sophomore and junior years of college. The monastery doubled as a resort in the summer and while I was there I was assigned to the

Resentments

Have you ever cried and cried and cried over something until one day you look up and realize you’re not angry or hurt anymore? I may be speaking too soon, but I have lost my resentments toward a certain person in my past, and I don’t why. They have been the star of every painful

Reason for Being

Because my existential hubris is so enormous, I am going to tell you why I think we are here: we are here to identify with the suffering. Buddha will tell you that “life is suffering,” or “there is suffering” (they sound different to me, but both imply a very human denial of the existence of

Vilifying the Other Side Will Not Solve Our Problems: A Post About Peace

Most of us have been through a hell of a lot. We are pretty clear who did it and what was done to us. We know what we do and don’t like. We know who we’re mad at and why. And we can all agree we hate Nazis, for instance. It is my opinion that

What On Earth

Today. Yesterday. The day before yesterday. They were a little much. Yes, today is already a little much. I can’t sleep, and the sleep aids are just giving me a sour stomach, and not sleep. Politics. They really get under one’s skin, even when we’re not involved in them. I was wondering today why people