Joni Mitchell, "All I Want"

I want to knit you a sweater
I want to write you a love letter
I want to make you feel free

A VOICE OF ONE'S OWN: This Saturday!

Voice is an odd, slippery concept. Let's get our hands around it together. A VOICE OF ONE'S OWN takes place this Saturday, May 2, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Details here!

When all this shit is over

I'm going to travel. Watch me. Nothing is going to stop me. Nothing.

From my in-the-car writing session last night

As we talked, the night drew closer and cooler, darker. I stopped seeing the waves and started hearing them. Around me the RV dwellers and the masked walkers did their thing, milled, chatted as they passed. I never loved you more than in that moment. 

Gil Fronsdal on the beautiful mind

It's the citta, the mind that's awakened, the mind that's liberated. This mind is very important for the Buddha and this mind -- he refers to, talks about the mind in wonderful ways -- he never is dismissive of the mind, or never sees the ind as a problem to be liberated from. Rather, it's the mind that's liberated. 

The old ways

I stopped yesterday to let a guy, his kids, and his dog cross the street. He smiled, waved, then waved again. I miss that kind of human warmth, of contact. We're all so scared of each other right now. It seems there is very little room for connection.

Yesterday

From the current Awakening Joy practice letter

Yes, it’s important to open to truths about ourselves that help us develop and grow. But if we only see our faults we remain stuck in those stories. Caught in fear or confusion there is no healing, just a perpetual feeling of “not good enough.” We cut ourselves off from recognizing the good inside. The crucial task in learning to be kind and loving towards ourselves is to remember our basic goodness, along with all our other positive qualities. 

Remember the Babemba tribe in Africa, quoted in Awakening Joy from Jack Kornfield’s book The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace, who remind someone in the community who’s acted irresponsibly of all the good things they’ve ever done. They are encouraging the transgressor to remember his or her goodness. 

We can learn to practice some version of that for ourselves. Recalling one’s good deeds is actually a traditional loving-kindness practice to counteract the tendency towards guilt, shame and unworthiness. Try this for yourself. Take some time and recall as many good deeds you’ve done as you can. What made you act that skillfully? Can you see the natural goodness that wanted to be expressed?

Gil Fronsdal on aversions

So ill will is something to respect in all its different forms, and I think meditation practice is a phenomenal opportunity to allow these forces inside of us to exist in their simplicity. There can even be murderous rage -- strong anger -- which is socially unacceptable in certain situations ... in the privacy of your own meditation with your eyes closed and sitting still, this is a very unusual circumstance where it might be safe to let strong energies of anger, aversion, ill will, to surface, to arise, and be there ... without any need to dampen it down or be critical. And let it be free to move through us.

Gil Fronsdal, "Caring for Self and Others in the Time of COVID-19"

To bring careful attention to emotions changes the nature of emotions. ... Emotions that get fed get perpetuated, often in a not-so-useful way. .. We can have calm fear, calm distress, calm happiness. ... What emotionally do we need to do? What needs our attention? What needs our care?

Full talk here.

As posted on Facebook

I can't believe I took this picture just two months ago. We all miss the outside world and its charms, particularly Little Farm with its friendly denizens and made-for-kids environment.

Kids are resilient. I think mine is getting through this just fine, but that doesn't mean he doesn't miss school, his friends, his routine. It doesn't mean he doesn't pick up on the tensions that can arise in the house. It doesn't mean he doesn't at some level understand that something is very amiss.

All this to say not a whole heck of a lot, just that time has slowed to a crawl but that the precious things are still there, still happy, still waiting.

Gil Fronsdal on caring for self and others

Definitely an interesting dharma talk. Appropriate not only to me but, I would wager, many others as well. Worth a listen.

Read My Mind

This song landed us in Tokyo. I want to go back. Goddamn it.

Andrea Fella on Impermanence and Compassion

When choices are made, whether ours or others ... that tends to perpetuate struggle, stress, and suffering. ... The conditions that unfold in our lives, things may happen to us that are really unpleasant, that are not the result or not directly the result of an unskillful choice in that moment. Random, neutral choices can radically change the unfolding of our lives. And in many cases, I think this is what this virus is.

Nadia Bolz-Weber

She's pretty much the only newsletter I read in its entirety. She's got a new podcast. Check it out. I know I will.

From the Awakening Joy practice letter by James Baraz

Our idea of "normal" has undergone a dramatic transformation in recent weeks. The way I see it, when things are as they are we have two choices: 1) Wish they were different and create even more frustration and suffering for ourselves or 2) Let go of the way we’d like it to be and accept this is how it is. Why add to the already challenging situation by holding on to some idea of how you’d like it to be? ...

What we are really letting go of is the illusion of control in a world of change. This attempt to control things keeps us bound in fear. The virus is showing us in a very dramatic way that things are not in our control. We can respond wisely in order to minimize the suffering. But to a large extent the virus is determining the reality. 

Four years ago, Mendocino County

Conquering the Writing Blues Summit

I'm stoked to be part of this! My interview runs on May 6, but the Summit itself starts on April 25, so be sure to tune in to hear writing advice from writers, editors, and other publishing pros. Registration is now open -- check it out!

Today's writing

It took a global pandemic to realize what a fucking shitshow my house can be sometimes. In the Old Life we weren’t constantly overlapping, jockeying for our slice of less than 900 square feet. When things were Normal it wasn’t this perennial togetherness, all five of us occupying the place all the damn time. Two adults, one four-year-old, two batshit dogs – it’s too much. I’ve always known it, but now I know it by rough firsthand experience.

Crossing Utah, 2012

Four years ago

Smoke

This morning in my house, a candle percolates to my left while my husband vapes just a few feet away. Don't worry -- it's that six-foot social distance. Steam rises from both our coffee cups. We handily ignore the coming storm.

Jack Kornfield on mindfulness

And this is the more mysterious, vast dimension: that mindfulness is not just to pay better attention when you're eating your broccoli or driving or speaking with someone, but it's opening beyond the small sense of self that we take ourselves to be to the vastness of mystery itself.

From this dharma talk.

The question of today

What is the impossible question my life asks of me?

Great dharma talk from Marc Lesser of the San Francisco Zen Center. Recorded at home in Mill Valley, with coyotes and grandson in the background.

More from Kim Allen

Let me not revive the past, or on the future build my hopes, for the past has been left behind and the future has not been reached. Instead let me see with insight each presently arisen state. Let me know that and be sure of it -- invincibly, unshakably. So the past has been left behind and the future has not been reached. There's just this moment -- the moment when we hear what's going on in our heart. We can respond to people around us in a way that's kind, clear, wise, peaceful, gentle. And maybe if we do so we'll hear this voice of the hermit thrush on these lovely spring days that we're enjoying. 

46

When things feel very uncertain, it can be very skillful to bring the mind into this very moment and just focus on getting from here to the next moment, do it well. And what does well mean? ... Things that are in line with what we're developing ourselves, what we've valuing. - Kim Allen, Insight Meditation South Bay

Today is my birthday. I've already heard from Bangkok, New York, France, Seattle, Berlin. I'm not, of course, trying to imply a guaranteed rosy future from things that are happening right now ... but nonetheless, I would still suggest that we don't really know and that there is tremendous potential. And one of the best things we can do is simply to do this moment well. 

Jack Kornfield on fear

The NY Times does it again.

Three years ago, my pre-birthday

Over the bridge.

The Zeit -- right when it opened.

The Gold Club for lunch.

So happy and impressed with ourselves.

Adam takes the best pics of me. Ever.

My middle-of-the-night friend

Rolling Stone on John Prine

Why had I not discovered Prine earlier? He's phenomenal. Just as I hadn't discovered early mornings, meditation, or the benefit of long walks. And some other saltier things I won't mention here.

Ven Viranani, dharma talk from last year

The wise, being fully alive, rejoice in heedfulness and delight abiding in this ability. ... Know freedom from all limitation, which is liberation, true security. May it be so for all of us.

Nadia Bolz-Weber on Jesus

And the thing that really cooked people’s noodles wasn’t the question “is Jesus like God” it was “what if God is like Jesus”.  What if God is not who we thought?  What if the most reliable way to know God is not through religion, not through a reward and punishment program, but through a person. What if the most reliable way to know God is to look at how God chose to reveal God’s self in Jesus?  

Marilyn's texts

12 years and six days ago

John Prine, "All the Best"

I wish you love - and happiness
I guess I wish - you all the best
I wish you don't - do like I do
And never fall in love with someone like you
Cause if you fell - just like I did
You'd probably walk around the block like a little kid
But kids don't know - they can only guess
How hard it is - to wish you happiness

I guess that love - is like a Christmas card
You decorate a tree - you throw it in the yard
It decays and dies - and the snowmen melt
Well, I once knew love - I knew how love felt
Yeah I knew love - love knew me
And when I walked - love walked with me
And I got no hate - and I got no pride
Well, I got so much love that I cannot hide
Yeah, I got so much love that I cannot hide

Say you drive a Chevy - say you drive a Ford
Say you drive around the town 'till you just get bored
Then you change you mind - for something else to do
And your heart gets bored with your mind and it changes you
Well it's a doggone shame - and it's an awful mess
I wish you love - I wish you happiness
I wish you love - I wish you happiness
I guess I wish - you all the best

Nadia Bolz-Weber on Maundy Thursday

"Mary removed the cork stopper from the jar she carried, and perfume filled the room, infusing it with a sad beauty. She loved him.  She loved Jesus enough to cook for him, laugh with him, tease him, cry with him, and now, anoint his feet for him with the perfume she bought knowing he’d be killed soon. See, she’d seen death take Lazarus and she knew it was also coming for the one who raised him. Everyone got really quiet as she reached for the feet of her friend, covered them with perfume, and wiped them with her unbound hair."

More here. 

RIP John Prine

When I get to heaven
I'm gonna take that wristwatch off my arm
What're you gonna do
Once you've bought the farm?

Geez, it's been 20 years

12 years of marriage

Portland, 2011.

Berkeley, 2020.

Berkeley, 2018.

Prague, 2008.

Sunday afternoon

Listening to Tracy Chapman, "The Promise", and she breaks my heart as always. I remember swaying with Adam to that one at her concert at The Catalyst in Santa Cruz, before we'd gotten married or even lived together.

Tomorrow is our 12th anniversary. Man have we been through the shit ... but we are still here, still kicking, still loving, still bantering. Thank God.

Nadia Bolz-Weber, "Sunday Prayers"

Sunday Prayers

April 5th, 2020

Aka Palm Sunday

Dear God,

Some of us are exhausted by a constant stream of bad news.

Some of us are exhausted from the effort of trying to not freak out.

Some of us are exhausted by not knowing how we will pay rent.

Some of us are exhausted from the effort of trying to entertain and educate and feed and love children who are stuck at home.

Some of us are exhausted by the 13 hour shifts in a hospital we no longer recognize, working a job we are afraid might kill us.

Some of us showed up to this pandemic with pre-existing physical and mental health conditions that were already exhausting. 

Some of us are exhausted by loneliness.

Some of us are exhausted by waiting so long for a new season of Succession.

And some of us are exhausted by the effort of trying to make this all ok for everyone else.

Life is so strained and tender right now.

I know that not a single one of us is promised another day, God.

But I guess I am asking for the strength for just the one we are in. 

Give us today our daily strength. 

Strength for today, and if you could spare it, bright hope for tomorrow.

AMEN.

Ain't easy

Fuck, being a parent is hard right now. You're tripping that balance between being honest and not putting your emotions on your kids. Is any one of us doing it the right way? So long as we're doing it the right way for us and our loved ones, who's to complain?

But really, what the fuck am I saying? We can all complain. That's life. Every book I see of Bazzy's makes me think about the places where I bought it: New York, Sausalito, San Francisco, and on and on. All these fucking places that are off limits. And to think: we're the lucky ones. We're in our bunker, safe. For now.

Watching Baz

He upends a glider and climbs all over it. "I'm a penguin," he says, and slides down the chair's back to the hardwood floor.

I love being a parent, especially in these moments when he's walking the edge of being irritating but instead winds up being super cute. He means the world to me.

Sometimes I miss old friends

To contact or not to contact? That is the question ...