Zen Moments

“The natural state of the human mind is calm and clear…” I was in my mid-fifties when I met my soul mate. It’s not that I never wanted to get married, the problem was that I never met anyone I wanted to marry or if I did, she didn’t want to marry me. Anyway, I [...]

“Why hadn’t he asked me to marry him?” The time and the place were perfect. We’d been together for just over a year. We were deeply in love. We were sitting in a fabulous restaurant after a magical evening listening to the Prague String Quartet. (Bach – my favourite.)  We’d had a box (!) in [...]

“I hugged him every time he asked the question – 21 times – my innocent little boy…” A Father and Son sit together in the garden – a touching reminder of the need for patience as our parents get older… A short (5 minute) Greek film made in 2007. Directed by Constantin Pilavios. Some versions on [...]

“It is through this creative process that we love and are loved…” I want to write about the great and powerful thing that listening is. And how we forget it. And how we don’t listen to our children, or those we love. And least of all – which is so important, too – to those [...]

“More than anything else, attention is the act of connection.” The reward for attention is always healing. It may begin as the healing of a particular pain – the lost lover, the sickly child, the shattered dream. But what is healed, finally, is the pain that underlies all pain: the pain that we are all, [...]

“The music takes me away…” As with many of us, music provides a wonderful means of escape for me. No matter what mood I’m in, I can always find a song that helps “accentuate the positive” or “eliminate the negative.”  I can sing golden oldies, gospel songs, show tunes, pop hits or something I just [...]