Our culture doesn’t know what to do with grief, loss, and failure. The culture says these things are bad and if we experience them, we are less than. I wonder how we got to this perception? People are quick to comfort when someone is experiencing the pain of grief, too quick to offer pablum. It…

A few years ago, we had the St. Patrick’s day snowstorm that left over two feet of snow. This March, we are experiencing record breaking warm temperatures. A local golf course opened last weekend, a full nineteen days earlier than ever before. We are having weather that is suitable for high summer. August in March.…

I’m having a secret love affair. She lives down the road. I don’t know what her name is, but I call her “sweetie.” Sweetie is my neighbor’s yellow lab. I see her several times a week when I am walking or running. She greets me with what seems like a happy recognition, “oh, it’s you!…

In How to Train a Wild Elephant, Jan Chozen Bays suggests an exercise: notice the color blue as you move through the world. Of course, you could pick any color. I tried this mindfulness exercise one day walking from my office in downtown Burlington to the University of Vermont. It’s a mile long walk up…

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