I Worried Mary Oliver I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers flow in the right direction, will the earth turn as it was taught, and if not how shall I correct it? Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven, can I do better? Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows can do it and I am, well, hopeless. Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it, am I going to get rheumatism, lockjaw, dementia? Finally, I saw that worrying had come to nothing. And gav

I am forever grateful to Evelyn, a dear friend and mentor who first introduced me to my inner child over two decades ago. I was not really familiar with this and she suggested I first find a picture of my little one when I still contained all of my magic. I knew just which picture to choose and she suggested that I look at it daily and simply check in with her to see how she was feeling and doing. I soon learned that just like the practice of meditating, there was no right o

A Litany of Remembrance by Roland B. Gittelsohn In the rising of the sun and it’s going down, We will remember you; In the blowing of the wind and the chill of the winter, We will remember you; In the opening of the buds and in the rebirth of spring, We will remember you; In the blueness of sky and in the warmth of summer, We will remember you; In the rustling of the leaves and in the beauty of autumn, We will remember you; In the beginning of the year and when it ends, We wi

Here's what I most want you to know: this really is as bad as you think. No matter what anyone else says, this sucks. What has happened cannot be made right. What is lost cannot be restored. There is no beauty here, inside this central fact. Acknowledgement is everything. You're in pain. It can't be made better. The reality of grief is far different from what others see from the outside. There is pain in this world that you can't be cheered out of. You don't need solutions. Y

“Oh the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.” ~Dinah Maria Murlock The sense of sifting and sorting that Dinah, the author of this quote articulates I felt as I moved through a very painful

Treading water is a survival skill learned by all swimmers early on as is floating. I remember practicing both as a child at summer camp in the icy, cold waters in the Penobscot Bay in Maine. I couldn’t wait to be told, “Time to get on your back and float,” as my legs became weary of pumping just hard and long enough to keep my eight year old head from gulping huge mouthfuls of salt water. Living into loss may feel much like treading water and gobbles up our energy reserves.