10 Ways to Honor the Fall Equinox

10 Ways to Honor the Fall Equinox

September 22nd is the fall equinox. Another year, another fall, a time of harvest. To see, to re-member, to gather, and to celebrate what we are growing and have grown in our gardens this year. Sometimes, we are moving so fast in our lives that we don’t take a...
Celebrate Love

Celebrate Love

A few months ago, I was thinking about the end of May. Because at the end of May is when my mom would have been 100 years-old. I found myself reflecting on her life and the loving, joyful effect she had on those around her. During this time, I wanted to gather with...
Give Sorrow Words: How Writing Heals

Give Sorrow Words: How Writing Heals

Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak whispers the o’er fraught heart and bids it break. ~William Shakespeare The World as I Knew It Was Gone When my mom died, I was flattened. The rug wasn’t pulled out from under my feet. The rug was pulled out from under...
A Summer Swim Team: Twelve Years Old and the Heyday of My Life

A Summer Swim Team: Twelve Years Old and the Heyday of My Life

Twelve years old and a summer swim team is a touchstone on the timeline of my life. Little known fact, I’m a great swimmer. It’s one of the few things I’m not modest about. My teacher and coach, Bob Schleihauf, taught me the most about swimming. Before him was another...
Creativity Without the Critic  ~  There Is a Different Way

Creativity Without the Critic ~ There Is a Different Way

  Works of art are of an infinite solitude and no means of approach is so useless as criticism. Only Love can touch and hold them and be fair to them. Always trust yourself and your own feeling as opposed to argumentations, discussions or introductions of that...
Are You Suffering From Grief Brain?

Are You Suffering From Grief Brain?

Shortly after my mom died, I drove to see a friend who was in town visiting from New York City. We met for lunch at a restaurant, and on the way home I unconsciously drove through a red light. Thankfully, no other cars were around. A few weeks later, I went through a...
Talk About Grief & Why It’s Important

Talk About Grief & Why It’s Important

Hello Friend, As someone who has become a grief educator, it serves to talk about grief, about sorrow and loss. Two reasons come quickly to mind. First, our culture at-large can then begin to understand the many colors of sorrow and loss without sweeping it under the...
Rest When You Don’t Have Time

Rest When You Don’t Have Time

Time is such an elusive monster. I say monster because of the way it dominates our lives with clocks, watches, meetings, appointments … I’m already exhausted just writing that out. How often do you think or hear someone say, “I don’t have the...
How to Stop & Rest to Prevent Burnout

How to Stop & Rest to Prevent Burnout

Taking breaks and time-outs from your work is essential to your health, essential to your feeling good, and relaxed and successful as you move through your days. Instead of the daily grind and rat race many people find themselves in, how do you stop and rest in the...
It’s the Small Things

It’s the Small Things

This was written in early January of 2020 It’s the small things that help me. Tonight at the local grocery store, outside, eating under the stars is one of their workers* on break, a young man who is also autistic. He’s very open about his autism. He’s sweet and kind...
Bridge to Compassion in Polarizing Times

Bridge to Compassion in Polarizing Times

I live in what people call a predominantly “red” state, and I just returned from visiting another predominantly “red” state, staying at the home of a man with Trump signs in his yard. I am a Biden supporter. I don’t own a gun or any weapons. I don’t stock food and...
On Suicide and Love

On Suicide and Love

When someone we know in the news, an entertainment celebrity, a sports figure, fashion or music takes their own life, it can send shock waves through our fragile systems, and shock waves through the world. We have been touched by their lives and sometimes feel...
August Drums

August Drums

Music on the Mountain Do you hear the drums in the background of your life?                                                  There                                                              Hear                                                                       ...
How to Rest in 4 Easy Steps

How to Rest in 4 Easy Steps

My mom, Cathy, was a great rester and is the inspiration behind REST. She started meditating for an hour a day when I was a young girl. As a teenager, I joined her in meditation, which became a lifelong practice. But beyond meditation, my mom knew how to go into a...
Our Collective Grief

Our Collective Grief

  Our Collective Grief was written and recorded after the murder of George Floyd.  
Companioning Philosophy ~ Help in Grief

Companioning Philosophy ~ Help in Grief

Companioning Philosophy Dr. Wolfelt’s 11 Tenets of Caring for the Bereaved by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. www.center-for loss, com Companioning the bereaved is not about assessing, analyzing, fixing or resolving another’s grief. Instead, it is about being...
A Day to be Called Home

A Day to be Called Home

If life is a movie, Wednesday afternoon at 3 PM must have been the scene where one is called home. I took my mom to the doctor’s office. It was nothing serious. JG, our trusty caregiving friend, came with us. The first good chair in the doctor’s reception area sits...