Category: Healing

With love and respect for Dolly Parton and her costars in the film “9 to 5” I am a recovering workaholic. I’ve said that often in the last decade, sometimes almost as a joke. Now I’m not joking. Working hard is not a problem in itself, especially if that work aligns with my values and …

Lois and me at the No Kings protest, March 28, 2026 Once again I am grieving on Summer Solstice. On June 20, 1982—44 years ago—my mother died of metastatic breast cancer. Four weeks ago, Lois Thetford, one of my closest friends, died of an aggressive form of abdominal cancer. She was ill for just a …

On January 7, ICE agent Jonathan Ross murdered Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. Shock waves from those deadly, unprovoked gunshots shook our country, my heart, my home. The next night, I participated in my first steel pan class, offered in a local community center by the Seattle Steel Pan Project. The bright sounds and brilliant …

This fall, my wife Martha and I spent a month living in an apartment in Riverdale, a neighborhood in the North Bronx, New York, a few miles north of Washington Heights, where our younger son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter live. We tried out the possibility of moving to New York City to be closer to them. …

Imbolc, observed around February 1, is a time of new beginnings and initiation. Here in the US, we are undergoing a huge, painful initiation, living under a newly empowered oligarchy that is intent on destroying our democracy, the rule of law, and the institutions of civil society. It is easy to feel that we are …

Moreton Bay Fig Tree, Balboa Park, San Diego, CA   “Hatred and bitterness can never cure the disease of fear; only love can do that. Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illumines it.” —Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “Antidotes for Fear” from his book Strength …

Samhain is the gateway to the darkest three months of the year, in the physical world and the world of spirit. Between now and Winter Solstice, we notice and feel the days shorten and the nights lengthen. If we follow the rhythm of the seasons, we hunker down, stay warm, spend more time indoors. If …

I’m a night owl. In summer, I rarely see the sun rise. At Winter Solstice in the Pacific Northwest, it’s easy, even for me. Yesterday morning, just after eight, I sat looking east out of our living room windows. Four floor-to-ceiling panels of ten small panes each, with the original glass from when the house …

Forty-one years ago this past June, my mother died of metastatic breast cancer two days before her 67th birthday. She died between the births of our two sons; our older son was two and a half years old, and our younger son was conceived eight months later. As my mother was dying, I was acutely …

Sitting here in limbo Waiting for the dice to roll Yeah, now, sitting here in limbo Got some time to search my soul Well, they’re putting up a resistance But I know that my faith will lead me on —Jimmy Cliff, “Sitting in Limbo” on Another Cycle and The Harder They Come A week ago, …