This Mama’s Dharma

I’ve just begun a 10-month online course called Awakening Joy with Buddhist meditation teacher James Baraz and a whole host of guest teachers. As the name would indicate, it’s about cultivating happiness, wellbeing, peace, serenity, whatever you call it, in your daily life. I continue to be amazed and humbled by technology because it really [...]

Thanks to Ms. Single Mama for inspiring this video!!

It has been a very interesting few weeks.
Interesting is putting it mildly. It started when I got some completely unexpected and very upsetting health news - basically it was yet another cancer scare, and the good news is that it is benign and things are more or less back on track. But something has happened [...]

For the past few weeks, I have been working on improving the co-parenting relationship with Sami’s dad, and I think my efforts might be bearing fruit. Sami is our joint venture, and we might as well approach his care and upbringing from a spirit of cooperation and relative friendliness. It’s been easier said than done. [...]

I have been neglecting this poor blog all summer, but I’d like to think that I have a bit of a good excuse.
I was busy recording a spoken word album, working with a professional producer here in DC. This is how my life goes; when I take on a new project, something else gets neglected. [...]

On August 2, I turned 34, and soon after, had a mini breakdown. It could have just been really bad PMS, but it felt like more than that.
I am perfecting the art of the mini-breakdown. It involves a few days of intense crying jags, not feeling real, barely being able to work, calling all my [...]

I am a notorious killer of plants.
My body amazed and awed me by growing a baby inside itself and then birthing him out, yet I have never quite managed to keep a plant alive. Even cactuses would wither and die under my fierce neglect. I took my very non-green thumb as a mark of shame, [...]

Discipline is not my strong suit these days.
My sitting practice - more or less out the window.
Mindful eating/consumption? Not so much. My ass is slowly but surely expanding, a universe of its own, and I’ve moved to elastic waistbands for the time being.
Exercise? If you count carrying a kicking, screaming 42-pound preschooler out of Target, [...]

I’m tired so tired not a fan of this feeling that life is passing me by and my child grew an inch I swear while I was gone for four days in CA and sometimes I feel like when I am with him I am not really with him because my mind is always wandering [...]

This is a very special time of year for me when New Age Mama comes out in full force.  It is the Aries New Moon - the astrological new year, so to speak.  A ritual that I began for the first time last year was to make what is called a “treasure map” - a [...]