Beloved friends,
I am home, home, home after a month of travel. This weekend will be the opening of my-and-our autumn course Love In Action, which we will explore how nurturing unconditional love within ourselves, for ourselves, in meditation empowers us to approach life with friendly curiosity, identify core needs for ourselves and others, and express needs and boundaries. My work always aims to support, too, our shared living moment of the world. The presidential election will take place during this course and we will be together through whatever comes about there. Our spiritual community is uncommon in breadth, holding Christians, Jews, Muslims, witches, atheists, and led by me, who practices what I've named devotional agnosticism: I don't think I can know what all-of-this is, and I adore that mystery. What holds us together, what we have in common, is our care for the world and for one another: we aim to live in honor and love. Not a love which makes us smaller, but a love which makes us braver and brighter. This work helps us to feel grace, resilience, and connection. It helps us to find and speak our truths. I think it's nice to hear from folks who aren't me about what I do, so here are some things folks have said about our work recently:
"This work has helped to transform my whole being and the way I relate to the world."
"Meditations were so easy to drop into, and gave me more value than any other meditations I've done. I've never had actual insight from meditation before."
"Learning meditation from her is more than just learning to sit. The guidance, modeling, support and creativity in her courses is incredible. There's no comparison to any other meditation class, podcast, app that I can make."
“There’s this ease now that I’ve been craving for so long.”
Thank you for considering spending time with me attending to the skills of your living. If you have friends or communities you think would appreciate my work, helping to spread the word is a tremendous gift!
Resources
The Best Medicine: Laughter
"Middle Age Love" had me flopping like a fish on the couch, gasping for air through my laughter. Hysterical, humble, and sweet, this comedic song is from Riki Lindhome of Garfunkel and Oates. "Relax, it's time, melt your imperfect body into mine".
Big Picture: The Cosmos
A while ago I suggested Crash Course Pods: The Universe as a resource. On our 18 hour drive to The Long Now Foundation's Bristlecone Pine Preserve to assist in the installation of Jonathan Keats' Bristlecone Time sculpture, James and I listened to some of this podcast and adored it, so I wanted to circle back and affirm this recommendation. John Green, known for his podcast The Anthropocene Reviewed and novel The Fault in Our Stars, struck up a friendship with theoretical physicist Dr. Katie Mack after loving her book, The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) and sending her a fan letter. This podcast consists of Katie describing to John the history of... the entire universe. Katie has a wonderful clarity and the respect and amusement she and John have in their friendship are a delight. My favorite fact so far is that we are more Big Bang stuff than stardust: most of the atoms within a human being are hydrogen atoms, and all of the hydrogen that exists was made in the first two minutes after the Big Bang. James and I found this an illuminating, mind-bending listen. Available on YouTube and Spotify and probably other places.
And the Cosmic Mystery: Science is a Story We Tell Ourselves and Test
I think some of what I love most about considering the cosmos is the contrast between the places where we have certainty, the places where we have no idea, and the gummy bits in between. I mean, WHAT BANGED AND WHY DID IT BANG?! What was before that? These mysteries are boggling in a way that I find deeply grounding. As a lover of the mystery and the science that explores it, I was quite tickled by this article in EarthSky about the limits of our current cosmology and by speculation that the whole model or parts of it may be tossed in time. I mean, we've only known about germs for 164 years! We still don't know WHY gravity works! (We can observe and describe but not explain it.) Clearly there is much we cannot comprehend, which lands us once again with friendly curiosity toward existence.
Dance Dance Dance
We are animals on a planet in space: LET'S DANCE! Ed People has asked 3,000 people around the world to show him their favorite dance move. The resulting video footage is hopeful, charming, and inspiring. YouTube has a big list of how to find him on all the different platforms.
The Edgar and The TERF
Why yes, this is an article about a deliberately ugly teen hairstyle. Myriam Gurba's, "The Edgar is all the rage among the foos" was a powerful bit of cultural education and source of contemplation for me. Earlier this year I recommended Sharon Blackie's Hagitude: Reimagining the Second Half of Life before finishing it. I was gutted and horrified when I hit the explicitly TERF 10-page section in the text. I have since then taken more care with my recommendations; I try to remember to search for a thing and "controversy" or "scandal". I've also thought a lot about what I could learn from this sincere moral failing from someone whose body of work I also found much to admire.
What I saw was that this elder was teaching me both about aging wisely and also about the pitfalls of aging. She showed me how vital it is for older folks to question ourselves when we have a knee-jerk reaction to younger folks, how crucial it is if we wish to grow all our lives to look clearly and listen deeply. For me as a white woman, this article is particularly useful since it is about Mexican American youth culture, which gives me yet another direction in which to grow my understanding. I loved learning about rasquachismo – "a complete redefinition of class and beauty that challenges the value of art." My heart adored the idea that "the Edgar belongs to a history of anti-assimilationist hair provocations sported by Mexican American youth." There is great power in the youthful rejection cultural norms that older people may have accepted, grown accustomed to, or simply stopped fighting. I was reminded afresh by this piece how the vitality and moral certainty of youth is a blessing, and how incredible it is that a haircut can express such things.
My Heart Is With You
Many members of our community are concerned for loved ones right now. I am with you in this. My husband's parents live an hour outside Asheville. As I write this on Tuesday I have family in Florida who are debating during the approach of Hurricane Milton between the danger of staying home and the danger of being caught on packed highways trying to evacuate. I know that many of your loved ones are facing danger, too. We have community members with loved ones in the path of war in (I'm listing alphabetically here) Gaza, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, and Syria. Precious friends, my heart is with you. My prayersongs are with you. I sing daily for peace for all people everywhere. I myself do not believe that there is anyone listening; I also believe that everything hears. I believe that it matters to care and to bear witness and hold space in this way to the hope and sorrow of others. If you wish me to hold you or your loved ones specifically in my prayersongs, you are always welcome to drop me a line and ask me to hang a prayer flag.
May all beings everywhere
know peace and wholeness,
freedom and belonging.
May it be so.
May it be so.
May it be so.