The very first pre-Christian Deity I served was Brigid, an Irish goddess. As a young musician with a military background, she was easy for me to relate to. “A musician AND a blacksmith? Sign me up! I want to make music and hit things too!” I still consider my time in service to her to…
Category: Lifestyle
Many years ago, I was introduced to the idea of selecting a single word for each calendar year to act as an intention, touchstone, and big-picture goal. The beauty of a single word intention is that the simplicity means multiple ways of connecting are possible. For example, my word for 2020 was “Manifest.” One of…
“To be hopeful is to have a form of emotional resilience. A hopeful person believes that although challenges, grief, and adversity occur in every life, somehow things will work out. They believe that they have the ability to figure out a path forward or respond in a way that makes adversity just another part of…
Our will – the function of the brain that makes us do things, even stuff we don’t really want to do, can best be viewed as a kind of mental muscle. We have a finite quantity of it when we start the day; using it causes our reserve of willpower to deplete. This is why…
The return of spring is so joyous here in Western Maryland. It seems like the dawn chorus of birds gets a little louder every day as the warm sunlight convinces more spring flowers to open. With grateful hearts, we welcome back the growing season. We begin dusting off our hiking shoes and gardening gloves; we…
I will never forget the first time I heard the music from the Pure Moods album in the early 90s. I was a tweeny and my parents brought home a copy of the CD. I clearly remember dancing around the living room while listening to it. I needed to move my body in order to…
The Marine Corps motto is ‘Semper Fidelis’ – Always Faithful. For those of us who served in the Corps, there’s another motto we heard regularly as well: ‘Semper Gumby.’ This amusing saying means ‘Always Flexible.’ I’ve been thinking about it a fair bit as the latest pendulum swing of the pandemic knocks over various events,…
Many years ago, I was introduced to the idea of selecting a single word for each calendar year to act as an intention, touchstone, and big-picture goal. The beauty of a single word intention is that the simplicity means multiple ways of connecting are possible. For example, my word for 2020 was ‘Manifest.’ An interesting…
Within the world of agriculture, there is a vital part of crop growing known as letting land “lie fallow.” To fallow a piece of earth is to leave it deliberately unsown – to let it rest. This time of rest allows more fertility to gather in the soil, guaranteeing a better crop later. It is…
When my spouse and I first got together, they hated winter. An early career spent outdoors in the worst of the weather caused a strong aversion to everything related to the months of the inward spiral. Seven years on, they’ve shifted their viewpoint to a grudging tolerance for the season and genuine enjoyment of some…