It turns out intercontinental relocation, even temporary, is like riding a bicycle: once you start the first movement, the next one is automatic, inexorable.

What will I find when my mind returns to my body? What arises when all else is still? At the most basic level: am I still here?

There is something about the low shy gently warming hazy winter sun that feels miraculous and intimate, in a way the full blast of the summer sun never does.

I am over half a century old. I haven’t always followed a straight path. There is a lot to process. But this processing feels like the rest I need: I am at peace.

No gender equality without a breakdown of the patriarchy. No racial justice without a dismantling of white supremacy. No environmental balance without learning how to live without cars and Amazon Prime.

The opposite of anxiety isn’t calm, it is trust.

We spend the majority of our time fighting our bodies: getting up before we are ready, rushing through work before we fully understand its consequences, paying only perfunctory attention to each other.

“Throughout your life, people will recognize that you are a capable person and ask you to do things with them and for them. You need to find a way to distinguish between your path and that of others.”

Why is this so hard, I wonder? I know this less frantic pace is the actual speed of my presence. Any faster, and what gets done is not connected, not deliberate, not real.

It is an act of love to put our bodies between more guns and more temples, to say, stop, enough is enough.

“Maybe human beings are not supposed to contain this level of cognitive dissonance.” I believe that’s true. We can’t.

Structural racism is everywhere, there is no escape.

Your feelings matter. Holding our feelings as feelings is the only way we can hold onto our humanity in this time of great pain.

Yogic philosophy sets Ahimsa, non-violence or non-injury, as one of the five self-restraints, things we don’t do so that we can be in right relationship with each other.

The work is not to lose ourselves.

I know that what we are seeing is not just a massive group of people pushing feelings and discomfort onto others in violence. But it is also that.

What will the seasons look like for my adult daughter when she grows up? What renewal is possible?

Turns out, doing nothing is really (really) hard.

I can’t say that I don’t feel the tug of youth-as-beauty. It is pervasive, almost automatic, and it takes mindfulness and presence to return to the present.

Yoga says, not “stay as you are,” but rather “when we truly are, we evolve.”