Have you ever been so moved by beauty that you cried?
That’s what happened to me on Labor Day, (a day celebrated in the U.S.) when Paul and I took a bike ride around Schoodic Point in Acadia National Park. Perhaps I was more sensitized after our spat a few days before when his motorboat billowed black fumes and came to a halt. Our abandoned trip to visit friends brought out the worst in both of us. Continue reading
How often do you experience the absence of sound? I don’t mean white noise, which is fairly common in doctors’ offices, or from traffic, television, radio, or even the wind, but actual silence, where you don’t hear anything. Continue reading
My mother’s side of the family came together this past weekend, for the first time ever. There were some whose names had never before passed our lips. We stayed on our island in Maine, which has become a summer gathering place for members of my immediate family. The numbers at meals swelled to as many as 24 between the ages of 99 and 23. Our core group totaled 16, braiding three different lines descended from my mother and her two brothers. Continue reading
Genesis 2: “And the heaven and the earth were finished, and all their myriads. And on the seventh day God finished His work, which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day… And God blessed the seventh day, and made it holy…”
This past week an English/Israeli philosopher friend of Paul’s and mine, Michael Kagan, led several salons at our house. One of the topics was on keeping the Shabbat, or Sabbath; a day for being not doing. Continue reading
Are you feeling overwhelmed with those great, green gourds, the size of baseball bats?
How many times have you watched people on a city street or observed someone in a doctor’s office, and wondered what their thoughts were?
Continue reading
It’s morning! The first yellow light of day lays a gentle hand on my bed. I open my eyes and look outside. Continue reading
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how to find peace after a loved one dies.
Two weeks before my brother Richard’s death, several family and friends said he told them he finally felt complete in his relationship with me. For Richard, completion appeared to be about peace. I too have had a growing feeling of peace with him, but something felt incomplete until a few days ago.
Dreams are fun to play with. They often provide me with valuable insights. I use a technique adopted from Carl Jung and Fritz Perls for understanding them, where I play with various parts of the dream in first person. In this way, rather than trying to figure the dream out from my head, I let the meaning find me.
Death of a loved one turns the world upside down. Time gets distorted; it’s hard to remember what day it is, how anyone can be going to work as usual, or how to get from now to tomorrow. Continue reading
