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.

From the filmy, synthetic oval of the airplane window, the desert seemed as barren and dry as a forsaken, late-summer creek bed. From that distance I couldn’t see the endless varieties of beauty that awaited. I compared the lush green of my home to this rough, oceanless ocean floor, and found it lacking, and even forbidding. It made me thirsty and restless.

Over these next few weeks we’ll be shaking off the husk of winter, riding the great wheel of the year’s cycle, and opening to the new offerings of spring. The cherry blossoms, the spring-loaded baby goats and the fasting Christians will all be focused on the time of renewal. Although it feels unique each year, these seasons repeat themselves and every winter prepares us and the ground for fresh, new beginnings.

When your eyes are tired

the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone

no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark

where the night has eyes

to recognize its own.

There you can be sure

you are not beyond love.

Is it good news if it hasn't been snowing where you are? Is this bad news if it has? Many of us are eager for the levity of spring to relieve this burden of dark and cold which has weighed us down for some time now. But maybe if tulips suddenly appeared, there would be opportunities we would otherwise miss.

When my kids were littles, we had a disc of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in the car, and so I know all of the words to all of the songs. These clever, jaunty jingles sometimes fit the moment perfectly. The complete phrase above is, "Up from the ashes, grow the roses of success.".

Have you seen the little green fingers of plants starting to push their way up, from mysterious underground hideouts? Or buds at the tips of stick-like stalks, that otherwise look like kindling? I want to warn them, "Wait! go back to sleep, like the groundhog always does. We're not ready yet!".

Are you listening? I've been "listening" to William Stafford's poetry this week. He reminds me of two super important things that I usually either confuse or forget. These bits of wisdom are:

1 - My mind is not always a reliable resource for questions like, "How am I?".

2- The world around me is full of actual wisdom. The pace that this goodness is given is more like a drinking fountain than a Camelback: it demands that I slow down, or actually stop to be able to drink it in.

Last night I dreamed - blessed illusion - that I have a beehive in my heart and that the golden bees were making white combs and sweet honey from my old failures.

-Author unknown

I am so small I can barely be seen.

How can this great love be inside me?

Look at your eyes. They are small,

but they see enormous things.

-Rumi

We often feel too small to make any difference in the world, and so forget our eternal connection to the entire universe.

piece of fire.

i have no new expectations for the year ahead.just let me live the way that i know best.let me feel the earth on my feet and rejoice that i am still standing.let me listen to the waves of the sea and find peace in knowing that the tides always return to wash over me.let me dream about sunsets that are not promisedand skies that are not always blue.let me make love to conversations that bring me closer to knowing myself and

The Miracle of Exposure:

"As the door to the temple swings open, and we feel more at peace and in place inside, we may look back on all the years we spent in hiding, concealing our own vitality. It is appalling the amount of energy we invest into trying to fit in, wanting to please and impress people…

I am way out of my hula hoop.

If this hula hoop is new to you, let me explain. This concept from Al-anon, is that we all have our own hula hoop, or a circle around our own body, that defines our personal space. The rule is that everything inside the hula hoop is your business, and everything outside is not your business. Everything.

I know, you're probably already googling for verification, and you'll find, as I did, that it actually does rain diamonds on both Jupiter and Saturn!  Apparently, if you are a gas giant, you can turn lightning into methane into graphite into diamonds! It's not as poetic to recite how this happens, but it quiets the star-gazing dreamer in me, who wants to share uplifting facts and have an answer when folks say, "What??!!! Rains diamonds?".

Well, beloved community, we did it! With all of your support, good wishes and Bellingham connections, I found myself a fantastic new home.  Thank you.

I truly believe that the kind words of love and encouragement I received from my community, near and far, buoyed me up to continue my search. I also am confident that the universe heard your vouching for me, wishing and praying for me to land safely and even beautifully.

Be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars, you have a right to be here.

Whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore, be at peace with God, whatever you conceive god to be…

Yes, it's here at last, the fall. I seem to trick myself every year into believing that summer is the very best season, and each year the fall effortlessly surpasses her competitor. I am taken by the rich array of colors in the autumnal palette, fiery and passionate, like a triumphant Joan of Arc, singing her last moments of life.

Change can be dramatic and unsettling. It can also reveal beauty that was previously unknown, or unseen, like the crisp, white stars that seem to emerge, once the sky has darkened enough.

As the summer sun creeps down toward its southern, wintery home, I feel that telltale change in the air.  It smells spicier and cleaner, and it's laced with a primal knowing that changes are en route. Change, transition, and transformation, always mean both losing and gaining. Our human minds often fixate on loss, baffled at our inability to hold on to anything. It is uncomfortable to make space for this grief and powerlessness, yet it may be central to dreaming into our next steps. Once again, we're asked to hold both.