Sometimes the beginning is the hardest part of any task. Check out what Huffington Post suggests to help you begin, and maintain, your meditation practice! "1. Make a Contract with Yourself There's this funny thing about the brain. It wants to appear consistent to itself, and really dislikes things that make you look contradictory or [...]
October has been a month of ups and downs: Mercury in retrograde affected all sorts of communication and perhaps contributed to the logy feeling I carried with me to the hospital this week. Prior to this week, I’d always been completely present and engaged during my visits, and I always left with an uplifted spirit [...]
"A 2005 breakthrough study published in Neuroreport found meditation increased the thickness of the brain's prefrontal cortex. Normally, as the brain ages the cortex thins and the brain shrinks. The prefrontal cortex is associated with attention, higher thought and planning. Researchers at Harvard Medical School in Boston took MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) brain scans of 20 experienced meditators [...]
“Read, read, read. Read everything – trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.” ― William Faulkner “And by the way, [...]
A term for mental training reaches the height of trendiness, and like yoga before it, may be leaving its mark. "As Soren Gordhamer patiently quieted a packed Wisdom 2.0 event in San Francisco in September for a guided meditation, a few in the communal meeting space known as the Hub couldn’t resist thumbing another message or two [...]
“The brighter your light, the darker your shadow.” Carl Jung If this is true, my light must be piercingly bright, because one of my darkest shadows is murderous rage. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why I write murder mysteries, especially as I continue to deepen my spiritual practice. Why do I love watching [...]
Even science can agree with our consensus; the benefits of meditation are undeniable. "Researchers at the University of Massachusetts have documented changes in the brains of novice practitioners who took an introductory eight-week class and meditated as little as 15 minutes a day. Sroka said the techniques can become second nature. In times of stress, [...]
When I arrived last Thursday at Garrison Institute for a four-day Contemplative Care retreat and learned that there would be 108 participants, I gulped that number in and took a stroll outside to soak in the beauty and quiet before they all arrived. As I watched them stream in, I exclaimed out loud, out of [...]
This past weekend I attended the Garrison Retreat with New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care. It was a rich and heart-opening experience that I will write more about soon! Until then, enjoy some of the scenery I was lucky enough to see and photograph!
I was once nominated for an Oscar! Well, not a Hollywood Oscar, but a Food Oscar. And to be totally transparent, I wasn’t actually nominated, the cookbook, 3 Bowls, that I co-authored with Zen monk Seppo Ed Farrey, was nominated. And it was Seppo’s amazing recipes that qualified our book to be nominated for the James Beard Foundation [...]
