Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! This is not just a day for people in romantic relationships to exchange sweet somethings, but a day for celebrating love in its many forms. It’s been a real joy today to say “I love you” to my mom, my sister, my friends; to this fiercely windy rainy day here in [...]
I began this year by honoring my creative urges in a way that I’ve done all too rarely in my life. Returning home from bringing in the New Year with creatively inspiring friends, Claudia Holt (who picked up the fiddle for the first time in her 50s and is now playing in a band) and [...]
This dispatch comes to you at an auspicious time, the Winter Solstice, described by my Solstice-born friend and songspinner, Pauline LeBel, as a time when “the womb of darkness reaches its fullness…when we rest, when our dreams are seeded, when we ready ourselves for the lengthening days.” Traditionally this is a time when we make [...]
Below is a talk I gave at the launch of Cathy Sosnowsky’s book, “Snapshots – A Story of Loss, Loss and Life,” on Sunday, October 24, 2010. Cathy Sosnowsky’s Snapshots inspires, supports, exemplifies, sustains, and celebrates the mysterious relationship between grief and creativity. As she describes so beautifully, we’re helpless in the face of our [...]
I recently heard about a little girl whose number one rule for a new club she was forming with her friends was “No not having fun.” Can anything be more fundamental than this simple piece of wisdom? There is nothing less fun than not having fun. By fun, I don’t necessarily mean going through life [...]
Yesterday began well. I had a big to-do list – and felt inspired when I created it. I had planned to glean through my old journals, work on articles for my creativity coaching business, make strides in some of my projects-for-hire. But instead I spent the day making soup, watering plants, contacting family and friends… [...]
Lately I’ve been in the habit of spending my days fulfilling my commitments to other people – writing assignments, creativity coaching sessions, responding to correspondence, etc. It’s all good work that I enjoy, but there’s been a nagging sense of something missing – a barely perceptible existential cloud. Not serious but not great either. So [...]
As a child growing up in the 1950s, the phrase, “Whatever your little heart desires” was one of my first encounters with irony. What was really being said was, “Dream away, kiddo, but dreams have no place in this world.” The adults surrounding me were dutiful, conscientious people whose life force was devoted to fulfilling [...]
Before incarnating, I distinctly remember requesting the life of a “Beatnik,” but some distracted functionary at Divine Shipping and Receiving apparently heard “Neatnik,” thereby ruining my life before it had begun. I’m a Neatnik. I always try to wash my dishes before eating dinner. I can’t stand a full email in-box. My office needs serious [...]
I was out for a stroll the other day and came across a woman walking her dog – or trying to. The dog was lying on the sidewalk, refusing to budge. She tried begging, pleading, bribing with treats, etc. but the dog was having none of it. Yanking and suppressed red-faced yelling – because of [...]