Sweet Otto has gone. The only cat I ever loved. He was my sister’s cat and he seemed to know instinctively what I needed when I returned to England to grieve after Laura died (see post My New Love, 7 August 2014). He jumped (uninvited) into the hammock beside me and put his paws around…
Category: ALL
Liz and Rayya
It squeezed my heart to hear Elizabeth Gilbert’s recent news. In case you missed it, the Eat, Pray, Love author Liz Gilbert announced recently on her Facebook page that after learning of her best friend of 15 years, Rayya Elias’s, liver and pancreatic cancer, she realized she was the love of her life and there was…
Dragonfly
This summer I’ve been constantly delighted by dragonflies. Kayaking along the Wallkill River in the Catskills, a beautiful purply-green dragonfly alighted on the prow of my little boat and accompanied me for a long stretch of my journey. In England last month, I sat to meditate in my parents back garden and afterwards opened my…
The Measure of Success
‘Are you a parking garage?’ the voice said on the phone. When I said ‘No!’, he sounded very disappointed. How I laughed at the silly surreal-ness of it afterwards. It was just the break I need in an otherwise colorless day. After three weeks away, it is easy to come home and start tidying…
Galicia
If you crossed Switzerland with California you might end up with something like Galicia, one of the least touristy regions of Spain. It is an oft surprising mix of mountainous land with pine trees, ambling dairy cows and misty, lush green slopes, combined with bougainvillea, white sandy beaches and intense cloudless blue skies. The whole place…
Life Backwards
The philosopher Kierkegaard said a life could only be understood backwards. Perhaps looking back we glimpse the patterns – the footsteps that led us to where we are now. Last night I awoke with a start remembering two funny coincidences that made me think Laura’s and my soul were entangled before we met. I remembered…
Santiago De Compostela
On the roof of the Santiago De Compostela cathedral, Spain with my Sister’s family
My Dear Sis
My dear sis is growing stubble on her head, she says. The chemo is over and her body is trying to rebound, sprout some new hair and return to vibrant health. Chemo sounded miserable. After the first round she wasn’t sure she would be able to do the whole 3 month course. Her liver…
What If…
What if every drop of love and joy you feel affects and expands the pool of human consciousness; bringing more joy and light into the world? And what if every drop of anger, fear and anxiety does the same; creating more of those destabilizing emotions? Then wouldn’t the best way to improve the world be…
On Grief
I’ve come to believe that you don’t heal from grief. And you don’t get ‘over it’ either. Instead you heal around it. The body creates a safe place for it to live on inside. A sort of encapsulated sanctuary where it doesn’t poison your day to day existance with sadness, but where it can just…
Wonder
‘The world is not perishing for lack of wonders. The world is perishing for lack of wonder‘ – GK Chesterton *** ‘Those who don’t believe in magic, will never find it.’ – Roald Dahl, The Minpins (his final book).
When We Die
When you die, whether you are spiritual or atheist, one thing seems quite likely – that you will see a departed loved one (your parents, your old friends) appear at your bedside in the hours or days before you pass. Those who work with the dying believe they come to fetch you – to whatever…
Aliceheimer’s
Aliceheimer’s is a poetic little book about a daughter looking after an aged mother with alzheimer’s. Alice has a memory like swiss cheese. But her daughter Dana Walrath doesn’t focus on the loss. Instead she sees her mother as having special powers such as the ability to speak to dead people, to time travel and…
Soul Love Forever 