It’s good to be back! Two Fridays ago, on Valentine’s Day, I participated in an act of bhakti, or devotion, with some members of my yoga community. We made garlands of flowers with needle and thread, and we dressed the large figure of Ganesha who adorns our studio alter with the “jewelry.” It was a beautiful night, a commemoration of love and spirit. For me, it was also a reminder that love is everywhere, all the time, if only we open up our…

In When Things Fall Apart, Pema Chodron writes that “Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.” I realized the truth of her words this past week. Something important—a lesson I keep thinking I’m finished with—returned to me. And without wishing to enfold the story in neat endnotes, I can say that I think I may finally have learned what I needed to know. A big chunk of it, anyway. There’s more to this: lessons in healing,…

I got a reminder this week, issued by a friend who knows what it’s like to survive loss, to live for the present. This is a message that I’ve received before, and it’s an intention I’ve tried to act on already. But with intentions this important, it doesn’t hurt to get a reminder every now and then. It’s so easy to reason that we’ll do X, Y, and Z once circumstances line up in the “right” way. When the timing is just so….