Beloved friends,
Happy impending-holy-days as the week flows along! Happy vernal equinox to all. Happy Ostara to my beloved witches. Eid Mubarak to my cherished Muslim friends. I hear in these holy days something of what I see in the image above, a photograph of some flowers I bought my husband James a few weeks ago at Valentine's day. They are peony tulips grown by a woman in my community. Upon receiving them James split the bouquet, putting half in one jar to keep in his desk and half in another jar for me to enjoy. This photograph captures that strange and wonderful last few days in the life of a tulip blossom when their petals get translucent and seem lit from within, watery and luminous.
Trans-lucence: when the light shines through. I hear this in the equinox, this turning of the season. In the Cascadia bioregion I call home there is a massive shift here! We turn from the Big Dark of winter toward the impending Big Light of summer. It's still cold but the light is beginning to shine through. We had a tiny blizzard this weekend; when I rose for the Meditation Gathering a soft funny sound called my gaze to the skylight, which was covered with tiny hail. This turned soon to big, wet, heavy snowflakes. I bundled up in my boots and puffer to shovel and salt the concrete parking pad before my eleven AM guest for bodywork, then the sun blazed all afternoon. The snow was gone by sunset, except in the shadiest places – and the piles I'd heaped it up with my shovel, heh! A translucent season. The fruit trees have begun to blossom. The tiny potted maple my neighbor brought as thanks when invited for brunch is budding! I thought it died in the autumn, but it was simply a seasonal turning. This rebirth feels like a little miracle. So much shine.
I have a dear friend and student who is Muslim. In walking through life with her for the past few years I have been grateful to have a little glimpse of Ramadan, a time in which life shifts profoundly: no food or water from dawn to dusk, and a daily ritual of iftar, breaking the fast at sunset. How careful one must be with one's energy while observing this devotion. It seems to me that Ramadan makes everyday life a little more translucent: letting faith shine through. I know that I feel the preciousness shining through my own days as I hold in my awareness the knowledge that a quarter of the human population, two billion people, have been observing this holy season for the past moon.
I texted that paragraph to my friend to see how it felt to her. She replied with a kind sort of "yes, and..." explained that it isn't only the fasting that shifts energy, but how in this sacred season one is careful with all forms of consumption. She wasn't quite sure at the moment, she said, how to put that into words. I replied that I thought I understood what she meant: that it wasn't just fasting, it was all of life turning toward the sacred, like a flower toward the sun. "Exactly!" she replied. In our efforts to say the ways that we know and reach for sacredness there is such joy. In our efforts to reveal the light as we know that there is such love, translucence, shining.
Tomorrow morning I will celebrate the Equinox with friends, plunging into the sea for a bit. The light shines through in the grace and euphoria that come with the embrace of discomfort. A form of tapas, the yogis might name this endeavor: undertaking discomfort for the purpose of growth or purification. "Rubbing and scrubbing" is how it has been described to me. Scrubbing away at the surface to let the truth within shine more clearly.
This time in the world is a honing time. A time that peels away illusions, that calls us to consider what is dearest to us. It is a painful process, this stripping away, yet in calling us to live with more clarity, we are gifted to feel the light in us, to know the shine of what is dear, what is cherished. It is a clarifying time.
May you find comfort, friend, in the luminosity of life; in blossom, in sunshine, in the seeking of understanding and connection. May this nurture you. May we come, together, to surprising blossom.
Love,
Dahlia
PS. If anyone wishes to speak to me of their experience of some of the other holy days of this season – of Passover, of Lent of Easter – I would be delighted to connect. As a child and teen I observed Lent and Easter so I know a bit of those and I'd love to learn what is alive there now for you. I have only been invited to a Passover seder once, so my knowledge there is small. I would be grateful to learn more. I see that there are online seders? If anyone has one to suggest that is known and where as I kind, curious, not-Jewish person would be welcome, that would be useful, too.
My Workshops for Living are the spiritual heart of my work. They center on 10 weeks of guided meditation and discussion – you can join live on Saturday morning or listen to recordings at your convenience. You get a little private time with me online for conversation, counsel, or practice. At some levels of participation you have the option of weekly reading in which I respond to the personal questions and concerns of individual people; each person takes a turn once or twice to share and to have me respond. Everything is laid out for maximum flexibility and accessibility. I currently aim to offer three of these each year: Winter, Spring, and Autumn.
Registration is open for the spring session. We are exploring a meditation that grounds you into your body, then the Earth, then the cosmos, then back to your body. I'm pretty sure this is the most warmly-received meditation I've created yet. I'd love to share it with you.
Folks in the Winter session have said:
This workshop should be a requirement for living in the present moment. Dahlia threads the realities of navigating the world in this moment with love, compassion and a greater connection to peace. Her teaching is both aspirational and highly grounded in realistic and practical skills. I recommend her work to anyone looking for solace, community and a way to make sense of things. Her flexibility in the offering allows anyone to attend regardless of how little or much time you have to dedicate. Do yourself a kindness and sign up! - S
Someone living in Minneapolis says:
This has been one of the most challenging periods I have ever lived though. It is hard to know what to do and how to keep going. The ground is quicksand. The Cosmic Grounding class has given me a path forward and allowed me to find patches of refuge and safety. The cosmos within and around us can provide a profound sense of comfort when you tap into them. This class has provided guidance and helped me on my way towards finding my own personal cosmos. - K
You can read more or register here.
Resources
On the Economy of Ass
I received a lot of appreciation for last week's missive "Half-Assing is a Virtue", so a little more on the economy of ass for you today, darlings, from the comments of Carolyn Hax's column in the Washington Post (gift link; it's near the end of this long live chat session.) A woman had written for advice about the fact that her husband was upset at her daughter for half-assing high school and a commenter said:
“My mom used to get really upset at what she perceived as my half-assing. I'm 48 now, have a PhD and a thriving and influential career, and I still think there is very very little that is worthy of my applying my whole entire ass. I'm not interested in burning myself out by whole-assing stuff that will be fine if I half- or quarter-ass it.
Being able to achieve maximum economy of ass is an important adult skill. God knows there's no shortage of women out there wearing themselves to nubs because they feel they can't half-ass ANYTHING. It might help OP's husband to understand that what he perceives as a problem in high school could be a great advantage for the many many decades his daughter will spend out of high school.”
Grand-Support
By which I mean: this is who I have turned to, so if I'm your support this is a level up! Belleruth Naparstek is one of the greats of guided imagery work. I am a survivor of stage 4 endometriosis, which involved years of trying every holistic thing I could think of to avoid surgery – and then a lot of surgery, too. Belleruth Naparstek's Guided Meditation to Promote Successful Surgery was a great companion to me on that path. I've shared it here before. This week, however, when seeking it to share with a loved one I'm supporting, I found that the link I'd been using was no longer good. Here's a new one. There are practices for "Help with Anxiety and Panic" and "Healthful Sleep" there as well! This is on the NIH (National Institutes of Health) library – these are research-backed as efficacious practices. I'm going to make an exception to my "no phone in the bedroom" policy in order to try the sleep one tonite.
Best Stargazing of 2026
I'm a little late with sharing this, but there's a lot of 2026 still ahead: EarthSky's guide to the best stargazing of the year. I enter this in my calendar every year and I'm always glad I did.
The Magic of Poetry
Did you know that Krista Tippett's widely-beloved podcast On Being is back for a new season? I learned of this when my friend Emmy told me she'd heard an incredible poem that I had to hear. This turned out to be extra special, as what she was suggesting was in fact one of my life-long favorites: Joy Harjo's "She Had Some Horses". It is too long for me to share here, but here it is, and you can find it in her outstanding How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems 1975-2002, or you can listen to her read it, alongside Tracy Smith with Krista in that On Being episode, which bears the magnificent title "This world is full of everything good, everything beautiful".
Resistance is Love in Action
Building Community
Connection and community give us hope and help us organize, so I'm calling this piece on 50 Ways to Meet Your Neighbor a form of resistance: resisting isolation, resisting suspicion, resisting lethargy and despair.
Giving Voice
I've been finding EarthJustice, who has fought legal battles on behalf of the Earth since 1971, a great resource in my efforts toward daily resistance. It's one of the high-quality email lists: they send me options for speaking up easily on behalf of the planet far more often than they ask me for money.
No National Book Ban
You can join PFLAG in speaking up to your Congressional representative against HR 7661. The American Library Association agrees. The "Stop Sexualization of Children Act" would ban any story with an LGBTQ+ theme in schools for people under the age of 18. Yes, I know that my congressional representative, the first queer latina in the House of Representatives, (YAY Rep. Emily Randall!) is going to agree with me on this issue. I wrote to her anyway because I want the volume of mail to be loud. I also wrote to my mom and my mother-in-love, who live in purple states, to encourage them to sign and share. Here's what I said in case that helps you! It was well-received; they were glad to hear of how to step up and that PFLAG has more resources.
"There is a really scary bill in the House of Representatives. It’s called the 'Stop Sexualization of Children Act', which sounds great, except what it does is ban all LGBTQ+ stories and education of any kind to people under the age of 18. This is SO BAD. I know you agree with me! And since you both live in areas where your voice matters more than mine on this topic, I hope you’ll consider using this quick form to drop a letter to your reps. If you have friends you feel comfortable sharing this with, that would be really great, too!"
Street Party
NO KINGS is coming! March 28. It may be the biggest day of protest in the history of our nation – and you can help make that so.
Supporting Me So I Can Support You
This is entirely human work. My work, done by hand, with my own mind and heart; I do not use AI in the creation of what I offer you. I don't have one. I invest at least half a day each week in creating this for you.. It's a labor of love; I currently earn about $15/hr. I do this because it is important to me, because I hear that it's important to you, and in hopes that it will grow. If you enjoy my work you can give me a raise! You could make a one-time donation of thanks of any size. You could upgrade to a paid subscription for as little as $5/month.
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If you are a supporter, thank you; I am honored and humbled by your willingness to support my work in the world, and you have put food on my table.
