The way you look at someone–and smile–will affect them in ways you may never know. Some of us take a lot of trouble with our appearance–to present the best possible countenance to the rest of the world. We gaze in the mirror and refine our looks with gadgets and beauty products, preening and posing until…Continue Reading “Through Your Eyes”
It’s Sunday. A good day to express gratitude if you take a traditional approach to these things. Actually, I take time every day to be grateful. It is part of my spiritual practice. I have a lot to be grateful for this week. For one, I started a new job at the beginning of the…Continue Reading “A flat tire changed me”
A recent New York Times article celebrating the 40th anniversary of the three days of Peace, Love and Music in Bethel, New York, in 1969 surprisingly drew a lot of nasty comments http://tinyurl.com/mkeatu. Most of the negative criticism and “get-over-it-already” attitude appeared to be the opinions of those aging baby boomers who didn’t attend. They…Continue Reading “Another Woodstock Relic”
In the final days of my cat, Natasha’s life, was human comfort or feline comfort my priority? Already a spectral presence, frighteningly thin, weak, and silent, my dying cat took up residence under the bed exactly far enough from either side that she could not be reached. I lay on the floor, my arm outstretched…Continue Reading “Whose Suffering Is It Anyway?”
Yosemite is practically in my backyard since I moved west in 2004; so yesterday, with no advance planning at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, my friend and I drove the 2 1/2 hours to get there, and I saw Yosemite for the first time in my 57 years. Years of exposure to Ansel Adams’ stunning…Continue Reading “When is nature not theatrical enough?”
My niece witnessed an older woman in the supermarket checkout line deliberately turning a magazine to hide the cover photo of President-elect Obama. The woman who flipped the magazine around said nothing to explain her strange behavior. Was it a silent protest against a Democrat winning the election? An African-American? I found this story very…Continue Reading “How hate manifests when we’re afraid”
I just received a forwarded email from a friend on the East Coast. It’s a series of photos showing all of the “fun” employee-oriented perks at Google headquarters: “decompression capsules,” slides that take you from one floor to another, pool tables and video games, massage chairs, a cozy library, only 4-6 people per work area…Continue Reading “How to nourish creativity: Google knows how”
Money is not good or evil. Like everything in life, it is both, and how you perceive it is personal. What is money exactly? We don’t even see it anymore. We swipe a plastic card and somewhere in cyberspace funds are moved electronically from one bank account to another representing someone giving monetary value to…Continue Reading “Pursuit of Prosperity: What are you worth?”
Sometimes you look at the seven tiles you’ve got, and all you can think of making from them is a two letter word. That’s it, that’s all you’ve got this round. Other times you can take all seven letters, miraculously arrange them to form a big, fat juicy word with a “Q” or a “Z”…Continue Reading “Scrabble is like life”