Emotional Exhaustion

This winter, I slept eight or nine hours a night and still woke up exhausted. My eyelids fluttered closed as I put on eye makeup. By mid-morning, I could hardly keep my head up without the help of caffeine. For several months, my emotional exhaustion presented as physical exhaustion, because they were all rolled up…

Mindset

Do you believe this to be true? You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. What is it that causes some to thrive and others to fall behind? What is it that makes winners and losers? It might be said without overstatement that we are overly obsessed with winning and losing in today’s world. It…

One Day

I had written this poem for a meeting last fall of the Women in Interfaith Dialogue, hosted virtually by Prairiewoods. The topic for the day was “spiritual self-care and resilience.” ONE DAY Are these two words—one, day— a triangulation, a trajectory, to one point, to some later day, something we imagine, we hope, to be…

Patience

“Even as tiny drops fill the water jug, so the patient ones become filled with good, even though virtue may come slowly.” —Buddha, The Dhammapada Life can change in an instant, but change also sneaks in by tiny increments. When life changes suddenly, it has a profound emotional impact. While steady changes can have the…

Blessing for Spring

The Blessing of the Fleet is a Catholic tradition that began in Mediterranean fishing communities to usher forth a safe and abundant fishing season. Even now, the tradition persists, and boats line up along shores all over the world to receive the blessing at the start of a new season. As we find ourselves entering…

Imagination

“Imagination never pretends to know it all. It never demands or claims an absolute standpoint, but it always relishes and celebrates the fact that it is on the threshold where it cannot see everything. The kind of knowing that is in imagination is knowing through exploration.” —John O’Donohue, Walking in Wonder As we grow older,…

Wintering with Haiku

You’ve heard haiku talked about as a product of Japan. After 50 years of life related to Japan, I can attest that haiku is definitely important to them and has become very helpful to my life. To me the northern part of Japan is much like our land here in Iowa—much of it devoted to…

Imperfect Together

“Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.” ―Brené Brown A number of years ago, I kept an image journal during a period of personal deepening. It was an effort to break out of my typical word-based journaling, to maybe be less in my head and more in my feelings. I drew an image…