How do you feel about 45 and rainy? Thunder booming like a Civil War reenactment? Oh, how about icy mini marshmallows pelting the window like aggressive little stones. Just when I've surrendered to another month in these pilly sweaters, a holy strip of blue slices through the sky's white dome and somewhere behind me a surreal, garish rainbow drops in, "Oh, hi. Oh, this old thing? Yea. ".

Did you feel that tilting, that tipping, that falling into more light this week? After the briefest pause of balance between day and night, we're unfurling into the abundance of spring. Something that went underground last fall is now manifest: maybe it's visible, audible, smell-able and feel-able. You can feel it, can't you?

Can we simultaneously be quiet and firey? This slice of the calendar marks the midway point between the winter solstice (quiet and reflective) and the spring equinox (the return of our firey sun). Pagans are awake to these spokes of the wheel of the year, celebrating the planet's cycles and our connection to nature's gradual transitions, in this case, from quiet darkness to emerging light.

When I shared this nugget of insight with yoga friends at a cozy dinner recently, I got teary, because I realized how we all need this recognition right now. The whole world can feel like it's a runaway train, full of innocent circus animals, careening into former pillars of stability, leaving us distraught as we seek some ground on which to stand.

Brahma, Vishnu, Śiva

Creation, preservation, destruction...

These are founding principles of yoga philosophy, personified in Hindu gods: everything that exists, once did not. It came into form, from nothingness. It is living now, and it will dissolve back into nothingness one day.

Moving into this new year, ponder what is ready to go, to die, to return to formlessness in your life. Perhaps this is the only way for that new thing to be born.

Can you see the places where you are stuck, or attached, or afraid?

This has been a week of magical surprises in the ice! I saw that animal skull above, sculpted by Whatcom Creek, and tried to capture its wildness. I wanted to remember this moment, this temporary expression, before it disappeared.

This still, soft respite of snow time helps me slow way down, and encourages me to really notice that the world is offering itself to me, as Mary Oliver says.

It feels, at once, like something totally unique and new, as well as a remembering of my deep connection to all life, that is often overlooked when "real life" overshadows this felt sense of wisdom.

"Whatever else we might think of this world-it is astonishing.There really is no ordinary world, ordinary life or ordinary course of events. In fact, nothing is usual or normal. Not a single stone, not a single cloud above it. Not a single day and not a single night after it. And above all, not a single existence, not anyone's existence in this world." -Wislawa Szymborska

In this Halloween season of costuming, I've been wondering about the roles we all play, as revealed by the ways we dress.

My dark green Lulu Lemon hoodie sends a message, as do my deep blue, no-name, form-fitting yoga pants, and the chunky, crimson, Blundstone boots I prefer. I am dressing up, but for whom and why?

I just returned from a 5-day silent meditation retreat. As you likely know, I love to talk, so this was like fasting for this chatty Cathy. We were also encouraged to fast from our phones, written communication, and even reading.

Why did we subject ourselves to this?

What a time to be alive, here in the Pacific North West, amid the juicy generosity of blackberries. Best part? They're free! You might pay through the bloody scratches and the solar exposure, but when you taste that sweet, tangy, berry juice, that culmination of life force (prāna) mobilized through the prickly canes of fairy tales,

you'll know it was all worth it.

There are songs singing, in my bones

I can barely hear the notes, they are older than I know.

They sound like the ones I’ve not brought home yet,

The one’s I’ve not yet named,

The ones I’ve pushed away.

How can I be whole until all of you, all of you I have claimed?

Why deny this lineage is how I am alive?

“We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time."

-TS Eliot

Though June was officially Pride month, Bellinghamsters always stretch this celebration out, like an old time rainbow taffy, made longer for more enjoyment. How do you feel about all of the flags that have emerged over these past few years, recognizing so many underrepresented members of our culture?

First Installment of Cat’s fairy tale Don’t Make Me Laugh

Expectations are just resentments under construction. I heard these words of wisdom when I needed them the most: when I expected folks to behave in the ways I believed to be best: when I was usually disappointed, and ultimately, resentful. Over time, my resentment followed the breadcrumbs back to its rightful owner - me! As painful as it was, I had to experience that resentment towards myself, for setting myself up, again and again, through my expectations. 

A perfect example is June 21, the Summer Solstice. Where I live, this longest day is over 16 hours, and yet I awoke to cloudy skies (again) this morning. My expectations of a day with the word "Summer" in its name, include sunshine, temperatures above 64 degrees, and some fanfare. Who could I blame?

We are continuously being made over. Not just once, like the Fab Five do on Queer Eye, but on a cellular level, almost forever. For instance, your intestinal cells are only 3-5 days old, while your lung cells have been here 2-3 weeks. Your heart cells are almost legal drinking age, at 20 years, but your bones are still in elementary school, just ten years old.

Regardless of the age you feel, you are still, mostly, pretty young. No one knows how much longer they have, so that excuse won't make it through this no-fly-zone. You are young, so why not let life continue to inspire you?

This week, one of my teachers said, "Aspire to be free of suffering, this is a noble path.". Why just aspire? Because once we attain any amount of liberation from suffering, we want to keep it that way forever. It leads to more grasping, and more suffering. We forget so quickly that we were grateful just a moment ago, and now pray, or assume, that the pain will never - should never - return.

Breathing in, breathing out. Eventually there will just be that last exhalation and we'll expire. We all know this in some sense, but rarely do we behave as if we were all going to die. It's guaranteed, no one escapes it, but we mostly act like teenagers, warned we'll be useless tomorrow if we stay up all night.

Eventually the teen can learn, and determine how they want to experience their tomorrows, but this life's end is linear and one-way. Rarely do people get a second chance to consciously experience death, and rebirth, in this body.

How do you want to cross that threshold?

"It is only through letting our heart break that we discover something unexpected: the heart cannot actually break, it can only break open."

These magical healing words of John Welwood are my mantra today. Apparently, I keep my internal bricklayer striving to keep it together, keep it together, keep it together, like that earnest, third little piggy, and, "Whooooosh!", the house is blown down again.

Right now, can you name your intention for what you're doing? Why do we do what we do? The heart of most practices is to pay attention. This could be rugby practice, or neurosurgery practice, or Zen meditation. Intention is an anchor to meaning, and we all want life to have meaning. Even Bridget Fonda's character in the film Jackie Brown was clear about this, when she was warned that smoking weed would "rob your ambition", and she said, "Not if your ambition is to get high and watch TV.". Only you get to choose this ambition or intention, and how to crystallize it into habit.