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 [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]

 
Now that spring is slowly, hesitatingly emerging here in Washington, DC, I have a new habit.  Each morning to and from work, I get off the bus and I walk.  All in all, I’m probably walking 25 minutes each way, but it is wonderful because I’ve been pretty sedentary all winter.
 
In general I am full [...]

The metamorphosis.  It’s happening.  I feel as if I am going through some kind of awakening, down to my DNA.  Old, long-buried loves are being resurrected in my heart, and it feels extraordinary.  Recently, I’ve gotten obsessed with GarageBand, which I’ve just discovered on my new Mac (no, I swear I don’t work for Apple). [...]

Ah, I have such wonderful friends.
I called my dear friend G in tears last night because the person who was supposed to email me with the information on Ricky’s funeral got my email address wrong and I missed it.  G was going to call, but she assumed I had gotten the email but couldn’t go. [...]

The full moon hangs larger than life in the sky and my heart is open.  
Oh it’s so odd how I swing from feeling so disconnected to feeling so connected, like tonight.
Ricky’s death reminded me that life is nothing but a glorious series of possibilities.  How blessed we are to breathe, how blessed our hearts [...]

I swear, I swear, I am going to get to bed by 11 pm tonight. 
Today, I was an exhausted mess.  The manic high from BlogHer sent me into a sleepless, hyperaroused state.  I am an easily stimulated type and boy, was I buzzing.
I was so tired that my eyes burned all day long.  This morning, [...]

I haven’t yet had a chance to write about one of the biggest transitions I’ve experienced in this three years’ worth of intense transitions.  On October 6, I started a full-time job at a nonprofit downtown that does suicide prevention work.  I am so relieved to have a job in this economy.  I am trying [...]

“Our children are always doing the best they can to stay connected to their BIGness — in a world that expects them to be small.” – Scott Noelle
Being a writer has helped me to mend my relationship with the written word. As a little girl and a young woman, words were used by powerful people [...]