Category: Essays
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Death Meditation Part Two: The Risk of Love
When I was in middle school I was obsessed with the One Last Wish book series by Lurlene McDaniel. With such dubious titles as Let Him Live, and Sixteen and Dying, they were basically romance novels except with terminal illness. Even at ten I was exhausted by life and harbored a secret longing to be…
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Verbiage
“Give yourself a little Grace,” said my friend Callie. Callie and I were sitting on the couches at the Y last week talking about our mutual insanity. I was feeling tired and depressed. She was feeling pregnant. I’d had a difficult week. I hadn’t found a rhythm to this new working-writing-contracting-teaching-mommying life, and the lack…
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It’s All About Me . . . Sort Of . . . Not Really
Every now and again I bump up against the notion that my spiritual practice should not be for or about me. I bristle at this idea because I have been taught that self-care is essential and comes first. How can I help others if I don’t help myself? I understand that when I take care…
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What the Jedi Get Wrong
Master Yoda says, “Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny.” I say, How you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. As much as I adore Star Wars, the one thing about the Jedi that bothers me is their refusal to create space within themselves…
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Three Pines
For Christmas my mother gave me a necklace of three pine trees etched onto a little gold circle, and a pinecone charm on a gold chain with a card that read “Vive Gamache!”. Armand Gamache is the main character in the Three Pines book series by Louise Penny. Three Pines is a fictional town on…
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Silence
Today Today I’m flying low and I’m not saying a word. I’m letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep. The world goes on as it must, the bees in the garden rumbling a little, the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten. And so forth. But I’m taking the day off. Quiet as a feather. I…
Melinda Emily Thomas 