Well, friends - this was the week - the one where spring SPRINGS assertively, launching you straight into let’s-do-all-the-things season, winter inertia suddenly forgotten completely as all the things that awaited nicer weather got done a-waiting.

One small salvation for me: a weekend of yoga classes and bread deliveries and various farm errands meant several hours in the car, sitting (a small luxury), simply taking in the view, listening to my audiobook (the un-soothing Midnight in Chernobyl, if you must know), and watching as the landscape turned ever-more technicolor shades.

When I wasn’t sitting in my private viewing gallery, I was: repotting tomatoes and clearing the wreckage from the blown-down coop and picking up a new rooster and cleaning the garage of winter detritus and baking and bulk-prepping dog food and checking on the sheep and visiting with neighbors and laying out garden beds and making another run into town for supplies and…

In lieu of a long post, I’m leaving you here with some snapshots and a 21-minute yoga nidra. After a very full weekend, what I really need is a nap. Maybe you do, too.

Below: 21-minute yoga nidra for finding stillness in springtime.

A note about audio content: I love Substack best for its long-form written-word posts, such a rarity these days on the internet, and usually listen in other places. If that’s you, too, you can also find some of my recordings on Bandcamp, Insight Timer, and YouTube.

At some point last year, I fell into an all-too-easy habit of letting my phone join in morning walks with Junior Pup. It started innocently enough, helpfully even. Experience enhancing. The Merlin app to identify bird calls; Seek for unknown plants; the camera to snap quick photos. But slowly, inevitably, the Distraction Creep began. Answering a quick text. Drafting an e-mail. Why not make a class playlist and do a quick Babbel lesson while we’re at it? Might as well catch up on the news before getting home.

If you’ve ever walked with an off-leash dog on a country road while distracted, you know that they are excellent at noticing that your attention has been diverted. One minute you’re composing a letter to your member of congress - the next your pal is a quarter mile away chasing a groundhog or, better yet, rolling in skunk poop.

Saturday, with an empty battery and a full mind, I left the phone at home and undertook the novel task of just walking. Instead of trying to capture a photo, I looked. Instead of trying in vain to make a sound recording, I listened to the gorgeous music of the thawing countryside.

Phones are garbage at discernment. In particular, I’ve noticed that every time I try and make a sound recording, no matter what sounds I’m trying to capture, the main thing I catch is the two-miles-away freeway which, even though lightly trafficked, has an unmistakable roar. Sure, the problem could be solved with better technology, but I have a suspicion that a giant bag of recording equipment and an enthusiastic 2-year-old lab might be a tricky combination.

Humans, on the other hand, are fabulous at what science calls “auditory selective attention” and frustrated partners the world over call selective listening. The good news is that we can choose what we tune out - and to what we tune in. Put the phone down on a walk and take a listen for a moment and you may notice that you can pick up small, distinct sounds: the rustling of leaves, the trickle of a small stream, individual bird calls. Once you try it, it’s a fun game:

What’s the farthest sound you can hear? What about the closest? Lowest? Highest? Fastest? Slowest? How many different sounds can you pick out?

Maybe you can’t get out of the house today, or your mobility is limited. You can still play - either by simply opening a window, or by putting on headphones and choosing any piece of music at all.

My favorite music of all, this week, has been the sudden, joyful chorus of wood frogs waking up from their long winter’s nap, signaling, unmistakably, the arrival of the season of stirring and rising sap and song.

Take a walk, go to your window, put on a piece of music you love. What do you hear?

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Years ago, my undergraduate college department, a small and niche liberal arts program within a giant public university, published a regular newsletter featuring updates from alumni. It felt bit like a flex, a “who’s who among our brilliant and iconoclastic grads.” I remember picking a up a copy during an early- 00’s visit to my thesis advisor, and, among the [names entirely fictional] “Joe Smith achieved tenure at Yale” and “Marlena Powell has translated the Iliad into fourteen languages” finding one entry that stood out: “Anne Richardson is living a life.” The entry was shocking in its refusal to play the achievement-orientation game; doubly so because the department actually published it. More than twenty years later, it still periodically pops into my head.

In April, I left my “secure” government position and began to pick my way along the precarious-yet-rewarding path of building a life less connected to job titles. Some of what I’ve spent more time doing - tending the various hairy and feathered farm animals, weeding and mulching (with less attention than might have been ideal) the garden, baking bread, doing the laundry, fall into what might be described these days as “homesteading” territory. And while this home-based work could easily, joyfully and abundantly fill every spare moment of my day, I also continue (thanks in no small part to a partner who may be the last unicorn and has not taken my lack of structured employment as a sign that I’m now the Sole Household Chore Doer) to do other things that I enjoy for money: teach yoga, coach, bake bread. However you define this new state of affairs, I’m busier than I’ve ever been - and perhaps busier than I would, strictly speaking, like to be.

Still, well-intentioned friends and acquaintances persist in asking questions like “How many paying clients do you have?” and “Have you thought about building a commercial kitchen and doing the bread full-time?” and “How many people are usually in your yoga classes?” All questions intended to convey interest, I hope, but which have the insidious affect of making me feel like I am still, somehow, not doing enough, am failing to take advantage of my unplanned sabbatical to hustle harder. I haven’t burst onto the scene with an inspiring “former 9-to-5er builds multi-million-dollar business in under six months by posting clever Substack notes” story. My story of growth and transformation was and continues to be slower, quieter, less linear, and definitely further removed from clear-cut financial gains.

In December, after lots of fraught internal (and external) dialogue, I did something that felt like a little bit of a concession: I accepted a part-time job, a “real” job. The kind you log into and then position yourself in front of a computer screen for several hours Producing Deliverables, and then someone cuts you a check for the number of hours you worked. I took the job because it was in my field, because a friend had forwarded it to me, because I wanted (for reasons I’m still working to fully explore) to remain “professionally relevant”, and because, in full disclosure, I wanted a little trickle of reliable income. (This is also a somewhat exaggerated, cynical take - I do have values-aligned reasons for doing the work, but for the moment let’s leave those outside this conversation.)

My dad responded to my job news by immediately (and literally!) bursting into song, absolutely delighted at this achievement (have I mentioned that I hadn’t applied to any other jobs - hadn’t been looking?) As I mentioned the new job in passing to others, I heard things like, “You must be so relieved to have found work!” and “It’s got to feel good to structure your days, huh?” And, well…no. I’m not relieved because I wasn’t panicked; my days didn’t lack structure before because when you have animals and outside commitments, they can’t.

A couple things have become startlingly apparent as these conversations happen on repeat.

First: We are so entrenched in our current, trade-life-for-cash-for-life model that it can be impossible to imagine anything different. Those who know me well know that over-enthusiasm and over-commitment - Mr. Toad with his many passions - are a far greater risk than idleness. It is work for me to sit still. But many with “real jobs” genuinely have a difficult time imagining what someone who doesn’t plug in to one for 8-12 hours a day does with her time.

Second: I, too, am entrenched in this model, even having attempted to step outside of it. I know this because otherwise, it would be far easier to shrug off the “what exactly do you do around here” types of questions as so much noise. Instead, I still feel compelled to answer with an exhaustive list of household, farm, and business-development tasks, the part-time job, classes and clients, bake days and plans-in-the-works for an expanded line of farm products. And while most of this is genuinely fun and inspiring to me - and may even be more traditionally “profitable” some day - the fact that this long justification feels necessary says something about my social conditioning.

In What is “women’s work” anyway?, my friend Laura asks two questions that have stuck with me: “How can we have a language for something our culture doesn’t value, look for, and name? and “Where in your life have you done “invisible work” that held things together?” The fact is, our capitalist system, whether you’re a true believer or a skeptic, tells us that if something is valuable, the market will reward it. Ergo, work less valued by the market - the kind of work I’ve spent the last many months doing, the kind that many women do, invisibly, for their entire lives, must not be valuable. This is, of course, false. We are starting to see, with startling clarity, what happens when only the mysterious hand of the market - and the more mysterious hands of the oligarchs atop it - are allowed to shape where we invest our time, our selves, our souls.

As Grant Martsolf notes in his piece “I’m a proud Luddite”, Around 1800, nearly 90 percent of family economies were what we would call “corporate families,” meaning families that produced economic goods within the home. Of Luddites, he continues, “…they understood that the mechanical loom, combined with the factory system, would eviscerate their home-based economic life—a system they valued deeply.” The suggestion here: industrialization and mechanization have corrupted the idea of work for women and men, endlessly prioritizing production over craftsmanship and separating work from life. This severance is hailed as an advancement - our fun can finally be liberated from our labor! - but I’ve met very few people who seem satisfied with the bargain.

While I’m not quite enough of a Luddite to have taken a hammer to my iPhone - some days, the temptation is very strong - I do think there’s something to the idea that we all - not just women - have suffered from the separation of work and home life. I’m not proposing that women should be home, tending to “women’s work”, while men go out, make widgets, and pull levers. What I’m asking, instead, is: what if we all learned to re-value the “invisible” work that knits our societies together? Maybe all of us - not just women - need to be far less invested in our day jobs and far more invested in our families, farmsteads, and communities. What would that even look like? Can we remember? Can we imagine?

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It’s January, and if you’ve been following these yoga and meditation posts for the last several months, our light thematics have brought us to the crown chakra - Sahasrara - center of our connection to higher consciousness, our point of transcending individual limitations as our sense of self expands to touch all that is above, around, and beyond us. I’ve been thinking a lot, lately, abut the attachments that each of us have to our titles and roles…to the external boundaries through which we identify. What would it look like, practically speaking, to dissolve some of these attachments? What might it feel like? What might we build together?

Below, a 20-minute yoga nidra for expanding your sense of “I am.”

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As of 10:03 am in my time zone, it will officially be winter. It’s never made a lot of sense to me that the date when daylight begins once again to lengthen marks the first day of the chilly season - shouldn’t it be the middle? - but I’m a yoga teacher, Jim, not a calendarist.

The dark and quiet of these winter days gently nudges us to draw our focus inward, gathering nourishment and enjoying rest. In yoga nidra, we relax the body and the conscious mind, entering the dreamlike space between waking and sleeping. The practice included here is an invitation to take a “long winter’s nap”, enjoying some seasonal imagery while planting a seed of intention for the months ahead.

In keeping with my desire and intention, if not my learned inclination, to honor the darker, slower season by resting and doing less, this will be my last post of the year. (You’ll probably find me in Notes and comments, however, as I allow myself the luxury on catching up on other people’s abundant and beautiful writing!)

I hope the remainder of 2025 finds you safe, warm, and well. Brighter days are ahead - that’s not wishful thinking; it’s just astronomy.

How are you celebrating the (gradual) return of sunlight? What does your intuition tell you is most important right now as you gather energy and resources for the coming year?

Do these yoga practices, meditations, recipes, and reflections help you feel more Well Rooted?

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Below: a 27-minute yoga nidra for intuition and rest at the winter solstice. Enjoy when you have the opportunity to close your eyes and relax completely - and not in seasonal traffic!

Over these last three months, you’ve heard a lot from me - three times a week, every week. That’s a lot of inbox real estate!

I staked out this little corner of internet with the intention of bringing some of the same yoga practices, guided meditations, and recipes that my coaching clients receive from me to more people - and, to be fully transparent, as a way to ensure personal accountability for actually building out that library.

Along the way, I’ve found great joy in casting off the tiny little text boxes of those other online spaces in favor of more expansive expression. If you hang out on the Well Rooted Being page these days, you’re likely to see some (maybe) surprising odds and ends: photos from the farm, reflections on body image and teenage angst, little love notes to my corner of West Virginia. I am amazed and grateful that y’all have stuck with me as I continue to find my voice and share my story on this platform.

I have a few changes planned for December, but before we get there I’d love to take a moment - in keeping with this week’s throat chakra theme - to give you an opportunity to do the talking! I’d genuinely love to know what you find valuable here - and how often you’d prefer to receive these emails. You can let me know via the poll below - or simply leave a comment!

In the event you need to clear your throat in advance of Thanksgiving dinner, this week’s meditation practice is a 13-minute yoga nidra for the throat chakra:

A couple years ago I made pear butter from scratch for the first time. My neighbor’s trees were laden, so I persuaded some friends who were visiting from the city to help me pick and then went home to process the bounty. I quickly learned why fruit buttering is traditionally done outdoors - all that molten sugar really loves to stick to a stove. But it was absolutely worth it, the late-fall flavor still holding out in a few remnants tucked into the back of my pantry, sense memory in a jar.

This August, at a retreat, a new friend, “C”, showed up with a few home-canned offerings of her own: soup, sauerkraut, and most memorably, her family’s proprietary apple butter made “the old-fashioned way”, cooked into a rich concentrate and flavored with cinnamon oil. It was the perfect accompaniment to buckwheat pancakes at breakfast the next morning. C watched the non-Appalachians with a critical eye. “You need to put more on there,” she said more than once. “There’s no point being stingy.” And she was right, in so many ways. When someone spends hours picking fall’s fruit and then hours more over a fire and then still more hours canning the stuff, and then freely offers it, that act of generosity deserves to be received with gratitude and joy, honoring the effort through heartfelt appreciation. I dare you to try putting a gratuitous amount of really good apple butter on homemade buckwheat cakes and not feel at least a teeny bit hopeful about the state of the world.

Then, a few weeks back, I got an email from C inviting me to come help out with the community apple buttering. This time, I got to take a turn stirring a giant pot with a wooden paddles over an open wood fire among a group of strangers who, if they were surprised to see a random newcomer in yoga pants - I was coming straight from class, and yes, I absolutely stuck out like a sore thumb - didn’t show it.

If you haven’t had the pleasure of cooking apple butter the old-fashioned way, let me tell you: it’s actual work. The thick, bubbling puree has to be kept moving at all times to prevent burning; if something burns, there’s really no saving the batch. Someone has to be on hand to watch the fire, making sure it’s not too hot and not too cold. You fall into a bit of a meditative rhythm, stirring. Eventually someone taps you on the shoulder and takes over. Apple buttering on a large scale isn’t a solo operation. Eventually, little spoonfuls are tested on a plate to ensure enough liquid has cooked out - in the days before refrigeration, a hastily-prepared batch of apple butter cooked for too little time would quickly go bad, ruining all that effort and all those apples. You take your time. You take turns. You give elbow grease and heart.

In an unplanned turn of events, I’m writing the last bit of this post in candlelight: the power is out at the house, and the already dark and quiet late-fall landscape has found another dimension of stillness. Sure, a tether to my phone’s hotspot and a fully-charged laptop mean I haven’t exactly traveled back to pre-electric Appalachia, but I’m still, in a small way, again transported to an earlier - but not yet bygone, at least in these parts - era. One where time is measured in the space between harvest and pint jar, community connection by the folks who show up to stir the pot and tend the fire, and loving generosity by the sweet spoonful.

Yoga nidra for the heart chakra:

Five years ago, when I started working for the Natural Resources Conservation Service, one of my first assignments was a short USDA blog post on a University of Texas Rio Grande Valley cover crop project. It was my first introduction to sunn hemp, a resilient plant happy to grow in a variety of climates and soil types, and I was smitten.

This summer, looking around at three acres of what used to be lawn (when we bought our property, it was entirely well-manicured grass), I realized that one carefully-placed nursery pot at a time wasn’t going to do the trick if I wanted to really start to do the big work of setting the welcome mat out for bees and butterflies, rebuilding the soil, and transforming the monocrop landscape into something a lot more interesting.

So, for the first time as a home gardener, I put into practice on my own acreage what I’d learned in theory and planted some cover crops, starting with sunn hemp. A few things about this particular plant that amaze me:

• It grows like a “weed.” A good thing, in this case: once raked into the soil and given a couple of weeks, my new crop took off like a rocket, rapidly shooting up one, two, and then six feet (under the right conditions it can grow up to NINE feet tall!)

• It fixes nitrogen in the soil. I am not a soil scientist, and it took me a while to catch on to what was happening when “nitrogen fixing” was referenced. I thought what was happening was that these plants just keep already-existing nitrogen in place, ensuring it doesn’t run off in a rainstorm. What’s actually happening is far more interesting. I’ll let Texas A&M explain it: “bacteria [in legume roots] can take nitrogen gas from the air in the soil and transform it into ammonia (NH₃) that converts to ammonium (NH₄) which can be used by the plant. This ammonium is the same form as in ammonium nitrate (34-0-0) and ammonium sulfate (21-0-0) fertilizer.” Neat, right? Once growing season is over, you terminate the crop and leave it in place to decompose, returning its stored nitrogen to the soil for the next crop to use.

• Its cheerful and long-lasting flowers attract pollinators. Although it seems that honeybees aren’t heavy enough to do the work of pollinating sunn hemp, they visit anyway, gathering pollen and nectar. On a random August afternoon this summer, I observed not just our farm honeybees, but several species of native bee, happily enjoying the free buffet.

• Unbelievable biomass: Once I started clearing the plot this fall, things got really interesting. Above ground, I was pulling up huge amounts of plant material - enough to compete with my constant supply of downed limbs along the driveway (the one place we have big trees) as dead hedge building material. Below ground, although sunn hemp is supposed to grow a deep, strong taproot, I found that my crop hadn’t quite had the fortitude to bust through the heavy clay and had instead sent out a fine, mesh-like network of lateral roots. What had been a fortress, a forest, of yellow and green all summer gave way easily with just a light tug. As metaphors go, this feels like part inspiration and part cautionary tale: I’ll bet we all know someone who seems to have it all together, radiating enthusiasm, who could perhaps use just a little more support once you look under the surface.

In keeping with our solar plexus theme this week, I nominate sunn hemp as a source of inspiration. I considered making this a post about the braggadocios nature of my new favorite legume, all big look-at-me energy. In reality, though, all that swagger is well-earned and well-used: this is a strong, tall, confident, and sunny plant that contribes endlessly and effortlessly to the ecosystem around it. It’s also absolutely attuned to its place in the order of things, ready to release and rest at the end of the season, knowing that even the most energetic of us must eventually accept periods of stillness and quiet.

Below: a five-minute meditation for the solar plexus.

In March, well into the changes in the federal workforce brought about by the new administration, my friend called me and staged a rescue.

“I’m going home to Belize for my sister’s birthday” she said. “You should come.”

This wasn’t a casual “hey, it would be nice to hang out for a few days.” It felt more like a “look, if you don’t get your sad backside down to the land of sunshine, I will not be held responsible for your mental health crisis.”

There was no point in arguing. Work was getting weird and awful, just about every part of what I loved about my job being systematically disassembled. I was feeling burnt out and hopeless; I had enough leave accrued, and no excuses. I packed the essentials, turned on my out-of-office, and got on the plane.

That first morning, I got up early and snuck some coffee from the not-yet-open breakfast area (if there are Belizean early risers, I didn’t meet any during my trip.) I settled into a lounge chair to take in a glorious ocean sunrise. A friendly little dock cat presented itself for skritches. And then, for the next five days, I didn’t make a single decision - I just got in the car and let myself be shown around an array of beauty spots. Tobacco Caye. St. Herman’s Blue Hole. Altun Ha. Just as memorably, some low-key meals in tucked-away corners, some “secret” swim spots. My friend also sent me home with useful, if unexpected, advice: “never primal scream in your car”, she said, “it just keeps all that energy in there with you. Find the biggest body of water you can, stick your head in it, and scream there. The water can handle it.”

By the time I got back to West Virginia my perspective had shifted completely. The world was bigger, sunnier, more fluid and generous than the current US political situation. Although I’d still like to talk to someone about that strange coffee situation.

Sometimes, when things aren’t going all that well, we absolutely require someone else to check in and make sure we’re ok (there’s even a Beatles song about that, if I recall.) This is the wisdom of sacral chakra work - recognizing the art of receiving, of leaning deeply into the support of others, as essential, perhaps even a precursor, to our ability to experience pleasure, have meaningful experiences, make new things. It’s not an accident that this is the chakra connected to the water element, the waters within us just as able to move, to flow, and to hold big emotion, as the waters around us.

The little dock cat remembered for me: there’s very little in the world that can’t be made better by sitting in the company of a friend, listening to the water and looking at the sunshine.

Below: audio version of this post, and a yoga nidra for the sacral chakra.

Audio version of this post:

10-minute yoga nidra:

This post is a brief one - a bookmark, really. Just a midweek check-in to urge you to take a look at the big, wide world around you. Not the one that lives in your phone, but the one right outside your front door.

After a rough start to the week, I heeded the warning signs of my nervous system and took much better care of myself on Tuesday. Essential for me: pen to paper, feet to mat, water and coffee before any kind of electronic interaction.

A drive up to one of West Virginia’s oldest small towns to meet with a new friend - a fellow former fed and serial entrepreneur with big ideas and aspirations for her community - provided new fall scenery and filled me with hope: a public garden with figs, Brussels sprouts, tomatoes, and grape vines where last year there was a neglected patch of lawn; a beautiful library giving out free toy microphones to delighted kids; a bustling coffee shop with a highly-charismatic Great Dane - apparently one of the regulars. My world immediately grew smaller as I could just about feel my roots deepening, expanding. The drive back was full of farm stands bursting with pumpkins, dappled autumn light, a favorite new album turned up loud.

If you haven’t tried the curative project of looking out into your local community to see what good you can find, I highly recommend it. The most recent activity on my community Facebook page (out here, that’s about as close as you’re going to get to a bulletin board, the biggest reason I’m still on that platform) includes an offer of free eggs; a photo of a hot cocoa special at the local grill; an ad for a holiday-themed bonfire; a resource event with food giveaways and information about other assistance. People are - despite all headline evidence to the contrary - leaning in to building social networks, helping their neighbors, celebrating seasonal joy and bounty. I’ll bet there’s not one of us who can’t find a similar example, just past their doorstep. But in the words of Levar Burton, you don’t have to take my word for it - find a place, any place, and have a look around.

Continuing this week’s rootedness theme, below you’ll find a brief 6-minute meditation to reinforce feelings of grounding and stability - another quick tool for your emotional first-aid kit. Sometimes a quick look inward is useful preparation for looking outward.

Below: a 6-minute meditation (audio recording) for grounding and stability and the audio version of this post.

Meditation:

Post audio:

I was an eighteen-year-old college student in 1999 when Keanu Reeves appeared in The Matrix and made questioning the nature of your reality seem cool and not just stuff for stoned Philosophy 101 students. Hard as it is to imagine, Facebook wouldn’t be launched for another five years; it would be eleven before Instagram appeared on the scene. We were still living mostly in the “real” world, with occasional visits to AOL chatrooms for novelty and what felt, at the time, like another opportunity to connect. The idea of a technologically-manufactured reality indistinguishable from Real Life seemed pretty far-out: a fun idea to play with during late-night dorm room conversations, but way more unlikely than the threat of all the world’s computers shutting down at midnight on December 31st.

In the twenty-six years since, it has slowly, and then much more rapidly, become more difficult to distinguish between “real” and “virtual.” As technology advances, it is becoming increasingly skilled at semi-autonomously presenting words and images that seem familiar, real. In turn, many of us find ourselves becoming skeptical about even things that we’re pretty sure do exist. How can we be certain? What metric can we use to test whether something is fact or fiction?

Even on this platform, I’ve noticed that we’re routinely giving each other the side-eye, scrutinizing posts for em-dashes, repetitive phrasing, suspiciously-sophisticated prose, vague statements. An account that frequently appears on my feed has 935 subscribers – that’s 910 more than I have – and just one post. A bot, or just someone who’s highly skilled at the Notes algorithm? It’s getting harder to tell. Hey, new Substack bestie: please choose five photos with motorcycles in them. This summer, at a retreat, one of my participants texted a photo of the sunrise to her teenage son. He texted back: “Is that AI?” Our laughter was less amused than anxious.

I’ll spare you the tour of ideas about reality from Plato’s Cave through HBO’s Westworld, instead turning to the children’s classic “The Velveteen Rabbit”, which I think gets the formula for figuring out what is real just about right:

“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day […]
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

This understanding – that a person or thing’s reality is determined by the interplay between that being and the attention, or love, directed to it, is consistent with an explanation of reality given in the Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 13 Verse 26 (Stephen Mitchell translation):

“Whatever exists […], animate or inanimate, has come into existence from the union of field [body] and Knower.”

As a thought experiment: what would it be like if everything in the world is or has the potential to be, real?

Sunsets. Stuffed animals. Software programs: Real.

Those Sims you locked in their house before removing all the windows and doors: Real.

The AI-generated video of you doing something…let’s just say, silly: Real.

The person (or stuffed rabbit) in front of you? All I can say is, you’d better love them until their ears fall off.

If there were no sandbox in which to test behavior outside of “real”, if every video game and novel story-line and flight of politically-inflamed rhetoric was real, how might we behave? What if we truly believed that reality is determined by what we pay attention to? What might we notice more? What might we choose to withdraw our attention from?

Let’s practice believing that the world is real by noticing it.

You may be familiar with a “five things I can see” grounding exercise, intended to help connect you to the present moment. The idea is simple, asking the participant to look around and identify five things they can see, four they can touch, three they can hear, two they can smell, one they can taste.

Today’s practice is a variation of this. We’ll focus just on five things we can see, touch, hear, smell, or taste, and spend some time meditating on their qualities – their “realness.” You can keep your eyes open for this one – it’s even fine to do this while driving!

Look around you. What is one thing you see? Say to yourself: “I see a [fill in the blank], and it is real.” Make some observations about this object or item. What color is it? Is it interacting with anything else in its environment? What or who is it used by, and for what purpose? What feelings does looking at this thing bring up for you? What thoughts arise in connection with this thing? What do you appreciate about this object or item?

What about something you can touch? Say to yourself: “I am touching [fill in the blank], and it is real.” Make some observations about this object or item. What is its texture? How does it feel under your hand or fingers? What is its purpose? What feelings does the sensation of touching this object bring up for you? What thoughts arise in connection with it? What do you appreciate about it?

Let’s turn our attention to something you can hear. Say to yourself: “I hear [fill in the blank], and it is real.” If you don’t hear anything, it could just be “I hear silence”, but see if you can hear something. Make some observations about the sound. What is its quality – faint? Loud? High? Low? What is it connected to? Are there other sounds around it? What feelings does this sound, or lack of sound, bring up for you? What thoughts arise in connection with this sound? What do you appreciate about it?

Now, how about something you can smell? Or, it could be the memory, or even the absence of, a smell. Say to yourself: “I smell [fill in the blank]”, and it is real.” Is the odor faint, pungent? What is it connected to? What feelings or memories does it bring up for you? What do you appreciate – or dislike – about this smell?”

Finally, let’s try something you can taste. It could be food in front of you, or the lingering taste of something you ate, or even the memory of a taste. Say: “I can taste [fill in the blank], and it is real.” Is the taste sharp, sweet, bitter? What is it connected to? What feelings does it bring up for you? What thoughts? What do you appreciate, or dislike, about this taste?”

Finally, simply look at the world around you. Say to yourself: “the world is around me, and it is real.” What thoughts, feelings, and emotions arise when you devote this kind of attention to what is in front of you? Is it easy, or hard? Boring? Exciting? What do you love about what you see, hear, taste, touch, and smell? What brings up more difficult feelings?

Simply notice.

Now take a nice deep inhale, and a long exhale. This concludes our practice for today.

Below: 6-minute meditation recording and audio version of this post.

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Meditation:

I’ve wondered, occasionally, how to square the popularity of ideas like Law of Attraction and manifestation with the yogic yama, or ethical restraint, of aparigraha – non-grasping or non-attachment. Is it possible to believe in our power to shape our reality - while also accepting that things might not work out exactly the way we envisioned, letting go easily of what we do not need, what is not ours to have?

I posed this question to the teacher Hari-Kirtana das in a workshop one weekend and he was, predictably, precise and unsparing in his answer. “The prosperity gospel is bullshit,” he said. “If we’re living in alignment with our dharma, we will be provided exactly as much as is good for us – no more, no less.” In an era where it often feels like all of us - even in mindfulness circles - are continuously expected to want more, I appreciated the clarity and simplicity of this response.

And yet – it is also demonstrably true that we find what we seek. This isn’t woo-woo stuff: this is what is known in psychology as the selective attention mechanism, often explained as “Red Car Theory.” When we spend time thinking about something, we tell our brain to pay attention to that thing, and we start to find instances of it in the world. Then confirmation bias takes over and we find even more of that same thing.

And yet. In the words of the Yiddish proverb - Der Mensch tracht, un Gott lacht. Man plans, and God laughs.

While some elements of my current life could probably have been predicted by a close observer – my husband and I spent the better part of our first decade together ping-ponging back and forth between DC and Arizona, for example, seeking out the elusive balance between “career” and “quality of life” and spending every possible weekend in remote AirBnBs, making a shift to the country all but inevitable – it took the chaos-driven reality of paying Big City rent during a global pandemic to finally make the tipping point, and ultimate decision to move to West Virginia, clear.

When I went back to grad school for Natural Resources Policy and Administration in 2019, I still had a back-of-mind vision of working somewhere in public land management. Instead, I find myself applying conservation principles on our little homestead, giddily shopping for seeds to do double-duty as cover crops and pollinator forage, moving sheep manure into the garden, dipping water out of the goldfish pond for the greenhouse plants.

When I signed up for yoga teacher training, I had a vision of sneaking some light stretching breaks into big corporate retreats, never dreaming for a second that my path would lead me far away from discussions about Continuous Process Improvement and KPIs and into more esoteric waters.

Despite all these big and little differences, taking steps that I believed led me toward a desired outcome led me, in every case, toward an even more desirable outcome. It doesn’t really matter that the exact contours of the final destination look a little different than I’d expected – in each case, looking toward an imagined future, and then taking steps, led tangibly to a real future I am delighted to inhabit.

It is in this spirit that I offer you the “Talking to My Future Self” meditation below. I’ve encountered versions of this practice in leadership retreats, coaching programs, and yoga workshops, and find it to be a useful opportunity for both self-reflection and creative thinking. Know that it’s possible to visualize, in stunning detail, the life you imagine for yourself, and that this imagining makes this future more likely. And: If the future turns out to look a little different? You’re allowed to share in the cosmic amusement for a moment before reaching a foot forward and taking your next step.

Below: audio version of this post + 6-minute guided meditation

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Meditation:

To live in the country is to develop a very different relationship with the idea of “free time.” The pace at which brush piles accrete, seeds need starting, weeds need pulling, small and large repairs raise their urgent hands for attention, means that “boredom” is not really a thing. There is always something to be done. To live in the country is to learn the art of making peace with the unfinished and chaotic, at least if you ever want to sit down for five minutes and take in that beautiful view that drew you out here in the first place.

Out here in our patch of West Virginia, fall is in full swing. The leaves are turning and dropping to the forest floor, the various plant menaces that make yardwork treacherous (we have it all: poison ivy, Virginia creeper, poison oak, poison sumac) are finally starting to die back, and the garden snakes are getting sleepy. The unwanted plant life (I don’t like to say “weeds”) in the garden - although, to be fair, I just let the Queen Anne’s Lace do its thing this year - is slowing its frantic growth. It is Clean Up Season.

This morning, with an hour or two of “free time” on my hands, I announced to my husband that I’d be going down to our lower acre to disassemble a dead hedge that two years ago seemed like a great way to artfully store assorted downed limbs and debris, but is now a little saggy and uninspiring, more field mouse motel and less rustic architecture. Ever vigilant for ways that I might be saved a little labor, he asked: “What’s your goal, other than reclaiming the garden stakes? Should we wait until we rent that wood chipper we keep talking about?”

I was set back for a moment. The goal? I hadn’t really thought about it, except that I knew I’d been procrastinating on more than one project, and was aiming to start somewhere that felt good. There’s nothing like throwing around tree branches on a cool day to make you feel like you’re Getting A Thing Done. From a project management perspective, there were a million other places I could have started for better ROI, but I wanted to tackle the dead hedge just to get my hands busy, my heart rate up…and maybe, as an excuse to hang out with the sheep for a little bit (those creatures know how to take things easy.)

The question was a lovely, if unexpected, prompt to pause and reflect; to embrace the fact that not all household tasks need to be optimally productive. Sometimes the goal really is just to go outside and enjoy the crisp air and the quiet companionship of the farm animals.

Today’s meditation is a little like that: just an opportunity to check in with yourself for a few moments, irrespective of what else might be happening in our day. We’ll practice interoception - the sense that allows us to notice what is going on within our own bodies - as we take note of the heartbeat and the breath.

This is a great practice to take off the mat, cushion, or chair and into your day - taking an intentional moment, here and there amid life’s many projects, to stop and listen to what your body is telling you. Maybe it’s telling you that you need a snack…or a nap…or to call a friend. Maybe, it’s just telling you that you need to throw some sticks around and take a few deep breaths of crisp, cool air on a beautiful fall day.

Below: audio version of this post + 8-minute guided meditation

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Meditation:

On January 28^th, I – along with thousands of my federal colleagues – received the now-infamous “Fork in the Road” email, an invitation to quit our jobs or take part in a “renewed focus on serving the American people”. OPM’s FAQs, still available online as of this writing, glibly invited us to use the offered seven months of paid administrative leave however we liked: “You are most welcome to stay at home and relax or to travel to your dream destination. Whatever you would like.”

Like many, I opened this missive with a mixture of disbelief, dread, and then a growing sense of rebellion – no way was I leaving an almost two-decade career or abandoning my public service mission that easily.

In the weeks that followed, my bulletin board filled with political cartoons and inspiring quotations, most prominently a “Hold the Line” sketch featuring a tantrum-throwing chief executive facing off against a row of resolute federal workers.

By March, I had been reassigned from remote work to a temporary spot in a local NRCS field office twenty minutes from my house. I was grateful that at least my new colleagues were supportive, and that my commute was short.

Amid rumblings of office consolidations, closures, and re-locations, the work I had come to love was also changing. A new political appointee – let’s call him Chester – was put in charge of re-aligning certain conservation programs with the current administration’s priorities, and our office was enlisted to help analyze spending, assess compliance, and re-write statements of work. Something deep in my intuition told me that the situation would not be sustainable for me for very long.

By late March, three things happened in quick succession that threw sharp and direct daylight on choices in front of me.

The first was that my dad came home from a visit to his sister with a thumb drive full of photos I’d never seen before, including several of my grandfather.

Grandpa Sam, born to a Jewish family in Eastern Europe in 1907, emigrated to the United States, attended medical school in Germany, and was married to my grandmother by 1938 – the same year that Kristallnacht announced, in one violent night, that the pogroms my grandfather’s family had fled during the early years of the 20^th century were not yet over.

In 1940, remarkably, Grandpa returned to Europe as an enlisted American officer, serving as a battlefield surgeon throughout the war. The photo below was taken in Europe, near a concentration camp, sometime in 1944.

Back in the present day, the second thing happened: another invitation to resign arrived, giving USDA employees until April 8^th to decide whether to stay the course or choose a different path. By this time, things were feeling even worse. Our staff had begun to meet frequently with “Chester”, who in his efforts to bring us into the fold compared our work ethic and skills favorably against those of our colleagues elsewhere in the Department. More than once, I found myself in a meeting saying out loud: “I just have to put a hand up and take exception to your characterization of my peers.” It began to feel like, whatever my performance record, it was only a matter of time before I said something that got me fired. I had already made my decision, in my gut if not in writing, by the time the third thing happened.

The third thing: a colleague found and distributed an interesting photo. In the photo (below, edited for anonymity because this post is not about them - and because they haven’t told me their side of the story), three young American men stand together in the woods, cosplaying German soldiers during World War II. Their uniforms fit well and comfortably. In the middle, a relaxed and smiling Chester in an SS uniform drapes both arms around his friends.

Suddenly, crisply, in two photos – so similar and so different – an inflection point.

On one side of the curve: biding my time; trying to do my job; prioritizing what security remained; playing nicely in the sandbox with someone who, best case scenario, drew the “bad guy” straw in the woods one day and then was taken by surprise as someone snapped a photo. Or worst case: someone showing everyone exactly who he was, who he admired, with whom in history he empathized.

On the other: drawing inspiration from the courage of my grandfather, who in one of history’s darkest moments chose danger, uncertainty, and crystal-clear purpose over personal comfort.

My official last day of federal service was yesterday, September 30^th, after five months of administrative leave that began April 22^nd. I haven’t been called to any actual battlefields, thank God. But I have, in the most unexpected of ways, begun a journey to what I suppose you could call my dream destination. In my garden, seeds that I scattered in early spring and then neglected are beginning to sprout, late-season greens and nasturtium blossoms. And I, too, have been feeling the stirrings of things that have long lay dormant – the urge to create, the drive to chart my own path, the foundation of a larger, richer partnership with my husband as we build our peaceful little farmstead, the need to dig down, to root deeply into the soil of this place, to intertwine those roots with the community around me.

Sometimes, the universe taps you gently on the shoulder and passes you a note. It’s worth developing your intuition for these moments – it helps make life’s choices and transitions clearer and easier, alerting you to the need for change before things get really exciting.

Sometimes, the universe takes you by the shoulders and gives you a good shake, asks are you awake right now? Are you paying attention? Are you listening?

What comes next is only now, and slowly, coming into focus.

Still so much to do, and be, and learn, but:

I am here. I am paying attention. I am listening.

Below: A 7-minute guided meditation for intuition

Fall is here, friends. This year I felt, maybe more than ever, the definitive turn from summer’s chaos and activity to the stiller, quieter season that is drawing in. Perhaps, like me, you are feeling some relief at the shorter days and cooler evenings, the longer hours before sunrise and after sunset to be indoors, cozy and still. Or maybe, you are feeling yourself even more drawn to energetic expression, to activism - this being both vata season and a politically raucous one. In either case, this might be a good time - although there’s no bad time, really - to embrace practices that ground, root, and center us. Today, I invite you to find a quiet spot for just twelve minutes to enjoy a brief yoga nidra to welcome fall. Whether you use that calm to guide yourself into a less-active season, or to refresh yourself for activity ahead, is yours to decide.

Below: audio version of this post + a 12-minute yoga nidra

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Yoga nidra:

My husband and I were sitting at dinner with a friend and catching up on our day-to-day…weather, pets, school, kids, farm life, weather. This question was meant lightly, casually, and that’s how I answered it:

“Great! I’m teaching five classes a week and really enjoying the rhythm and variety of what I offer and who shows up.”

Of course, the answer is always a little more complicated than the one you’re inclined to give on a sunny day over a basket of chips. Other things I might have said:

My life these days is beginning to resolve into a cohesive and unified picture that includes teaching, coaching, writing, baking, and tending to furry and feathered farm animals. Yoga is about finding union - this is one of the ways the yoga is going.

Some days, I deeply resent the self-imposed “rule” to do twelve sun salutations. I almost always do them anyway, because I value the strength and resilience the movement builds in my body and the consistent practice builds in my mind. That’s another way the yoga is going.

I worry about my parents, who aren’t as young as they used to be, and my friends who live in difficult places, and try to remember to drop bread and eggs off with the neighbors. This, too, is how the yoga is going.

Last weekend, I attended an excellent three-day, 20-hour Mindfulness and Meditation workshop let by the wonderful teacher Tara Casagrande. What I perhaps foolishly expected to be a gentle and restful mini-retreat became much more challenging as twelve self-aware and empathetic humans spent time in their heads and then talked about it. Feelings were hurt and then soothed; deep anxieties and stresses were unearthed and explored. It was a deeply moving experience, but not one I’d necessarily recommend to the unprepared. Meditation isn’t always an immediate shortcut to ease and tranquility, and even then - maybe even more so then - it’s essential. That’s another way the yoga is going.

At our workshop, we were challenged to put together a five-minute guided meditation of any kind. While I am often drawn to vivid imagery or meditation that is “for” something - I’ve mentioned both metta and “just like me” in previous posts - last weekend it felt important to allow mind and body space, after all the emotional heavy lifting, to just be. My meditation was a short body and breath-awareness practice, which I have expanded below. You may find it helpful on a day when external stimuli are very present and noisy, or any day when some rest is called for.

I hope you enjoy - and I hope your yoga is going well.

Below: audio version of this post + 12-minute guided breath and body-awareness meditation

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Meditation:

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Those following the news may be aware that our nation’s capitol is, for lack of a better description, under military occupation. Or, viewed through the looking glass, between 2000-2300 National Guard troops have been deployed to Washington DC as part of a “DC Safe and Beautiful” mission. Whether your news source is Fox or Mother Jones, however, the deployment is at best an unusual action for unusual times - or much worse, emblematic of a sprint toward authoritarianism. While it’s not unheard of, even in progressive Europe, for members of the military to support local law enforcement - in France, the National Gendarmerie, part of the French Armed Forces, handles part of national policing - in the United States both tradition and the legislation including the Posse Comitatus Act make it unusual - and usually unlawful - to use the military in this way.

Last weekend, my husband and I were in DC for a concert on the Wharf, a once quiet area that has, over the last decade, become a high-rent living, shopping, and entertainment district. Amid the cheerful, festive late-summer crowd, several very young National Guardsmen stood, shoulders hunched, eyes downcast. My heart lurched a little. I didn’t feel fear (I accept that my demographics may have made this easier) - I felt pity. This can’t have been what these young men thought they were signing up for. I was also transported back to what I myself thought and felt in my 20s - a time when many of us are trying, with many stumbles along the way, to figure out who we are in the world. 40-something me is not always overwhelmed with pride at the choices made by 20-something me. I hope the people around her viewed her with compassion. I try to.

I mentioned this to a DC-resident friend, who was appalled. In a few choice words, he asked if I’d also have felt empathy for Hitler Youth in 1930s Germany, and why it was ok to exonerate these young men from the repercussions of their actions. He then yelled “GO HOME!” several times at the uniformed kids. They looked everywhere but at us.

It’s important to be very clear here - of course not. Of course I don’t sympathize with literal Nazis, even young ones. Sometimes, good and evil are pretty easy to parse. And yet. I do feel a tug of pity for any person who is pulled, either through accident, force, in search of identity or through social conditioning, into roles and actions that they don’t fully understand, by people far more powerful than they are. History’s worst “bad guys” had plenty of eager and informed henchmen to assist them, but they also had plenty of frightened, confused, or trapped-feeling conscripts. This doesn’t mean these individuals shouldn’t have known better, and thereby shouldn’t have done better. It just means that I strongly believe that it is all of our responsibility to try as hard as we can to help those around us feel that they are safe, seen, heard - and have choices. To know that if they choose a different path than the one they’re on, they’ll have a place to land, to belong.

If you’ve read this far and are still with me - but maybe wondering what the heck this all has to do with mindfulness - here’s the connection, in the form of a meditation practice.

In “Just Like Me” meditation (popularized by Jack Kornfield among other teachers), we gaze directly into another person’s eyes (very daunting!) and then repeat to ourselves a series of phrases that acknowledge that the person across from us is “Just Like Me.” This person is another human…just like me. This person has been joyful, just like me. This person has fears and hopes, just like me.” Here’s one guided recording.

I suggest starting a few steps easier, making this an imaginary practice. First, call to mind someone you love - just like in metta meditation - and repeat these phrases (or play the recording above) with them in mind. If that feels accessible, you can try widening the circle - maybe calling to mind someone you find truly difficult to hold with compassion, and try, just try, experimenting what it feels like to imagine them as a person just like you. You can use the recording below for a slightly more abstract version of this exercise, if it feels daunting to try this with people you know!

You don’t have to be immediately flooded with empathy and compassion for all beings - but maybe just noticed how this practice feels. What does it bring up for you? What is easy, and what is difficult? Who is it intuitive and automatic to include in your circle of compassion- and where does this project stretch the boundaries of your imagination and goodwill? Over time, you may notice that this answer changes. That, too, is worth noticing.

Below: audio version of this post + 5-minute guided “just like me” meditation

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Meditation:

Most of us have at least one person for whom we have complicated feelings - sometimes a family member, or a colleague, or a community member, or someone in the political arena. As you practice, you may find it easier to feel kindness toward those who may present challenges for you. You may find it easier to feel kindness for yourself. You may notice the walls between “me” and “them” start to dissolve.

Questions I continuously ask myself:

Who do I find it easy to love? What qualities in them, and in me, make this so simple?
Where do I experience challenges in finding kindness and empathy? What qualities in that person, or in me, cause this disconnect?
How can I keep my heart tender and open in a prickly and bruising world?

Audio version of this post:

4-minute metta meditation: