There are so many reasons to feel overwhelmed, and even hopeless, these days. For those who don't believe in an all-knowing, benevolent higher power that has a plan for it all, where are we to look for hope?
We ourselves must walk the path
Guatama Buddha's great teaching was how to become free from the cravings, fears, and ego-filled pride that keeps us all miserable. He offered a clear path for how to achieve this enlightened state. But he also said that no one can save us but ourselves. "We ourselves must walk the path," is the translation often given.
So maybe you're not aiming for nirvana, but the same is true for any kind of healing and self-actualization that you strive to do.
I Had Postpartum Psychosis
My Upcoming TEDx Talk
I'll be giving a TEDx talk at TEDx PCC, in Portland, OR, on April 19th!
The theme of the event is Collective Genius.
Tickets will be available February 19th at tedxpcc.com.
How to Make Things Beautiful
A Choice in the Making
For 20th century French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre, we humans have the power to determine who we are. Every moment, we are creating ourselves through our choices, both in actions we take and in the meaning that we ascribe to those actions. And no matter our circumstances, we are always free to choose differently—to choose new ideas, beliefs, thoughts, and actions.
The Confidence to Consider
I had a text exchange recently with a friend who was grew up with a conservative Christian upbringing, but has since left the church and stopped believing. She was reluctant to watch a video that her uncle gifted to her, (likely in a passive-aggressive attempt to bring her back into the fold), which ostensibly made a case for everything from the Biblical great flood to the Christian resurrection, based on archeological artifacts and other kinds of data.
"I struggle with that sort of thing," she said. "Like: what if that evidence was in any way legit or convincing? I'm not sure I could be convinced to revisit my conclusions at this point."
The Sorry State of Describing Motherhood
I'm reading What Mothers Do by Naomi Stadlen and reflecting on her point that motherhood and mothering is now described in language more so than ever before--in books and online rather than through nonverbal communication in multigenerational families, as it was in years past--and yet there is such a lack of both words and stories that communicate the activities of mothering.
No Birth Plan Ever Survives Contact with the Enemy
As soon as I learned what an episiotomy was, I knew I didn't want one. For the uninitiated, an episiotomy is a procedure done to help make room for a baby during delivery, by making an incision in the perineum, the tissue between the vagina and the anus. Yeah, that's why I didn't want one. In fact, when I filled out the intake form on my childbirth class, I wrote it down as one of my biggest fears. But, in the immortal words of Mick Jagger, you can’t always get what you want.
The Wisdom of the Fire, or Why Philosophy Won’t Make You Happy
Philosophy, the “love of wisdom,” can help us to live better, happier, and more fulfilling lives. As someone with a Ph.D. in philosophy, who has been reading and teaching philosophical texts on better living for over a decade, I have always wholeheartedly believed this claim—that is, until I went on a ten-day silent meditation retreat.
The Politics of Bathroom Changing Tables
The world is better because this poem by e.e. cummings exists
i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing breathing any–lifted from the no of all nothing–human merely being doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
e.e. cummings
