To travel means, ultimately, nothing more than coming back home a different person from the one who left.            Pico Iyer I grew up on a cul-de-sac (see above), defined as a blind alley closed at one end.  As a street design when I was a kid, it was glorious.  As...Read More

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” – Pablo Picasso (Spanish cubist painter, 1881-1973) A middle school teacher posed a simple question to his class: “Who can sing?” Not a single hand went up. “Who can draw?” Again, not a single hand.  His students  declared their lack...Read More

“Amazing Grace.  How sweet the sound.  Grace is a sound….it’s  some kind of surrender”.  Bono I sometimes struggle with letting events play out-  i.e surrendering.   I can be averse to fully accepting reality and the twists and turns of life.  As a person who wants to be at ease in the world, I’ve had to ...Read More

You must do the things you think you cannot do. Eleanor Roosevelt The term “hack” originated circa 1300 from Hackney, a borough of London, where horses were raised that were flashy and trotted with a high step but were high strung. They were not thoroughbreds or good for show or work but rather raised for...Read More

Right now, the growth edge I’m working on is learning to become less reactive to everything: unplanned events, weather, traffic, difficult people, politics, taxes, insects, all of it. I just returned from hosting a Wellness Week at Playa Avellana, Costa Rica, where I spent hours watching surfers in the Pacific. Their agility astonished me ‑they...Read More

The best thing one can do when it is raining is let it rain. ― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow “Parent the Child you Have” is a slogan used in parenting but has application for all aspects of life.  To accept what is, not what we hoped for.   Our distress gets turned up when We want what we...Read More

The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure.  Joseph Campbell We all seem to be floating in this strange place, desperate to see other people, or to be alone, to meet a significant other or to stem the crush of incoming sick people.  This...Read More

Despite the good cheer that they bring, holidays can and do often dial up stress.  As we move through a holiday season unlike any we have ever seen, here are three pointers for managing it: Agency You get to decide how you want to lead yourself, how you want to show up.  You can take...Read More

  Well-being is realized by small steps but is truly no small thing. – Zeno Founder of Stoic Philosophy (334 BC-262 BC) I’ve been taking Robert Sapolsky’s biology course on YouTube on how stress impacts health.  Here is a fun fact to help us frame the holidays during a pandemic: Naked Mole Rats live in...Read More

A fresh look at Abraham Maslow’s ‘hierarchy of needs’ offers wise guidance in these tumultuous times.  It turns out that the pyramid of needs(below) was only created after Maslow’s death. He never imagined a ladder of needs that one climbs, but rather that our basic food, safety and belonging needs (and can we add strong WiFi?)...Read More