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On cutting free what was never yours to carry I had a sort of waking dream today. It was a most amazing experience. I had been reading the news and, as is pretty common these days, felt a panic attack coming on. I used a technique I’ve learned to focus on the physical sensations in the…

I have made it my personal mission to launch a Fleet of 100 Lifeboats in response to the multiple global crises we now face. Recently, a friend asked where this idea came from. As I was talking through a possible response with one of my collaborators, we realized it’s a challenging story to tell because it involves…

From the edge of 2017 Rarely has a year been as hated as 2016. The poor thing; so unfairly accused. After all, all 2016 did was provide 365 days. It was up to us to fill them. Each day, we had a choice: to be resolved, to live our convictions or to let it slide.…

Daily Reflection 2025-05-21 I want to coin a new term: larva brain. We talk about our reptile brains; this is like that but different. The larva brain is a sort of layer over top of the organic brain. These larva are parasitic, feeding off the electricity of a brain that’s freaking out. It’s the larva…

Daily Reflections 2025-05-19 It’s a rainy morning. We had a gorgeous day yesterday and I spent most of it in the garden preparing beds for planting so I’m a bit stiff and sore this morning, but in a good way. And I have a few thought rattling around. I read a great piece by Jennifer…

On barbs, bravery and belonging My dad turned 93 last week. He’s been sober for about sixty of those years, with a gap in the middle that started about the time I came along. The drinking hadn’t always been a problem. It came on in his thirties, the way these things sometimes do. Pressures started…

A story about trusting the counsel of rocks and other things older and wiser than you. Some evenings, the world feels too loud for language. Emails multiply like rats, the news mutates into performance art, and even well-meaning people suddenly require more emotional bandwidth than the average small-town power grid can provide. On those nights,…

Every action you take has an energy signature. Some actions have a “buy now, pay later” quality; they leave you with an energy debt. They short-change what is necessary now and postpone it until later. Not only do they leave you with an energy debt, there is always, as it were, an interest charge. Taking…

Because patience isn’t passive Sometimes Monday afternoon feels like it should be Friday night. Thursday at least. Everything is over-scheduled. The calendar looks like a game of Tetris played by an anxious god: ferry runs, presentations, meetings, and the occasional spiritual ambush disguised as a “networking dinner.” You think the bottleneck is out there —…

Learning to see what’s already moving Some days it feels like I’m standing in a blizzard of good intentions. Emails, grant proposals, meeting notes, invitations — all swirling so thick I can’t tell what’s moving and what’s stuck. The world turns white, and it’s hard to tell up from down; forward from backward. I had…