Reflections
... a quiet place to pause ...
These reflections began as ordinary moments that quietly became extraordinary. Some were born from meditation. Others from family, grief, hospice, nature, and the quiet surprises that invite me back to Presence.
My hope is that, as you read them, you'll find a gentle place to pause, breathe, and remember the peace that has been within you all along.
An ordinary Tuesday
Returning to meditation teacher training has reminded me once again that every moment can become an opportunity to practice being while doing. As Ram Dass reminds me in the book I chose to begin this journey with, Polishing the Mirror, I can touch into my spirit while also being a grandma. Eating a slice of pizza together, holding Charlotte's precious hand as we crossed the parking lot, listening in awe as she read to a therapy dog, sitting with a hospice patient ... each becomes an opportunity to return to loving awareness. I AM in the role, yet I am also the awareness witnessing the role.
Yesterday, I experienced one of those ordinary moments that quietly became extraordinary. I took my granddaughter, Charlotte, to our local library for a program where children read aloud to therapy dogs. As I watched her sitting beside Chloe with a book in her lap, the world seemed to slow down, and my heart expanded beyond the words I could use to explain.
There was no rush. No striving. No masks to wear. No need to be anywhere else or anyone other than who we already are. There was simply a sweet little girl, a gentle dog, a grandma, and the quiet miracle of beings completely present... touching into something beyond words to describe the experience....
It reminded me that the Divine so often meets us in ordinary moments, if only we are present enough to notice.
In the busyness of our everyday lives, it's so easy to forget. I know I do.
Today, I find myself feeling deeply grateful ... for the abundance of ordinary moments that quietly become extraordinary when I slow down enough to truly be here now.
August 5, 2026
Trusting What I Can't see (Yet)...
This week of the meditation certification program I AM enrolled in (again) , while reading Pema Chödrön’s When Things Fall Apart, I found myself thinking about how quickly I want to fix things when life feels uncertain. To reach out. To make something happen. To create a story about what the silence means.
But what if there is another way?
What if I can stay open without trying to fix?
Trust what I cannot yet see?
Hold the boundaries I need without closing my heart?
I took this photograph from the ferry on a morning when I couldn't see very far beyond the water. Andrew it feels so different to me.
Maybe I don't always need to see where I am going.
Maybe the practice is trusting the journey, meeting what is here, and remembering that I can sit compassionately with myself while the rest of the story unfolds.
Just maybe...
August 12, 2026
This breath. This step. This moment.
Recently, an inquiry in my meditation teacher training invited me to sit with a question:
Who AM I beyond my ego, my titles, and the roles I carry?
Another invited me to remember a present-moment experience that happened beyond the ego.
I've been sitting deeply with both.
Eleven years ago, my beloved husband Rene was accidentally shot in the leg by one of his dear friends during a day at their gun club. In a nanosecond, life as we knew it changed. Rene left home that morning standing tall and strong, running his own jewelry business. By that afternoon, he was on an operating room table while doctors tried to save his leg — and his life.
To say I was terrified, worried and overwhelmed would be small words.
But something happened within me that I still find remarkable: I kept my heart open.
What followed was nearly a year of surgeries, recovery and uncertainty. Rene became a patient and, almost overnight, I became his caregiver.
I had just graduated from meditation teacher training, and that year became another kind of teacher training for me.
I began to understand that service to someone who was sick could become a path — a vehicle for coming closer to knowing the Divine. Day after day, somehow I had the energy to show up for Rene and for myself. I learned about service, trust, faith, surrender and love. I learned who could stand beside us and who couldn't.
And Rene was extraordinary through all of it.
Eleven years later, his leg is still with him. His work as a jeweler has prospered beyond anything we could have imagined then, and our lives took a completely different trajectory.
Remarkably, Rene has often said that being shot was, in some strange way, a gift.
Not because either of us would ever have chosen what happened. But because of where life eventually took us.
So can we change the trajectory of our lives?
I say yes. Hell yes.
Recently, while I was still sitting with these questions, life seemed to offer me another answer.
Rene had been invited to visit the dear friend who accidentally shot him all those years ago. He is now nearing the end of his life. I asked Rene if I could go with him.
When it was time to leave our visit, I extended my hand and held his dear friend's hand. I looked deeply into his eyes, and he looked into mine. For what felt like an exceptionally long time, neither of us spoke. And yet somehow, everything was being said.
For those few moments, there was no shooter and no victim's wife. No judge. No caregiver. No past to change and no future to figure out.
There were simply two human souls looking into one another's eyes.
What I saw was Divine love. God in drag, as Ram Dass would say.
What a holy instant.
Maybe that was my answer...?
Who AM I when the roles fall away?
Hmm...
I AM loving awareness.
Perhaps changing the trajectory of our lives isn't always about controlling what happens to us. Sometimes we don't get a vote.
Perhaps our power lies in how we choose to show up and meet what is unfolding in the present moment.
The photograph accompanying this reflection was taken in Tulum a year after Rene was shot. I was beyond afraid climbing that pyramid. davidji was at the top waiting for me, encouraging me:
Stay present... stay present...
I couldn't climb the whole thing at once.
I could only meet the stones beneath my hands.
The place beneath my foot.
This breath.
This moment.
The next step... and then the next.
Looking at that photograph now, after these inquiries and that extraordinary visit, I see all of it through different lenses.
Maybe, just maybe, so much of this kooky journey of life is exactly that.
Pausing...
Taking in...
This breath.
This step.
This moment.
And remembering, to the best of my ability...
I AM loving awareness.
August 19, 2026