Embracing Rest and Stillness

and how a year of wedding songs lightened her up The dress was of a shiny taffeta, a material clearly unsuitable for direct skin contact. The Aquafresh toothpaste color and the feel of the dress became one in my mind with the nausea and sense of foreboding; my stomach was upset and I had vomited earlier that day. Nevertheless, with the shade of my face approaching the green of the dress, I was about to play a concert. My white patent leather Mary Janes pinched my toes and I k

How deep listening in a Japanese garden restored my inner artist I am standing in the garden of Chion-In temple in Kyoto, Japan. Somewhere, just blocks away but in another world, noisy throngs of tourists are busy checking off their lists of historic sites. Here, I am surrounded by the gurgle of a gentle fountain, the owlish calls of Japanese crows, quiet footsteps on gravel. The path and the garden have been cultivated to invite mindfulness. The senses are engaged on every l

I was at a point of no return, or so I thought. My personal life was tied up in knots in more ways than I can even describe and my professional life felt like it had taken on a dangerous sort of momentum, like a reckless driver in a fast car without seatbelts. My response was to close my eyes and look neither left nor right. I figured I would see it through to whatever catastrophic end it might take.