Hello Kindred Spirit! I took care in getting ready for my event at Village Books. It would be my third year returning to the iconic bookstore in Fairhaven, Bellingham, WA. I loved sharing my book, Naked in the Now: Juicy Practices for Getting Present, and teaching my Naked Writing workshop. I have been leading versions of Naked Writing, also called Write Now Mind, since before COVID. I saw over and over again how it had a way of making a group of strangers feel connection with one another....

Hello Kindred Spirit! Last week, somewhere on a long stretch of highway, my husband and I shifted our “long-road” listening preference. Instead of a novel—something with plot, escape, a story to disappear into—we chose Christopher Wallis’s Near Enemies of the Truth. And somewhere around hour three, I realized the choice itself was the point. A novel would have carried us away. The teaching kept doing the opposite—it kept bringing us back. Back to the road, the car, the actual moment we were...

Hello Kindred Spirit! Nobody wants advice. Not really. At least, that’s what my four-year-old granddaughter reminded me. Last weekend, June was saying goodbye to her mother, who was leaving for a five-day business trip. As the door closed, June ran to the bedroom in tears. After a little while, I went in and sat beside her. “What are you feeling?” I asked. “Sad,” she said. “Mommy’s gone and I want to snuggle with her.” Of course she did. I told her I understood. And then—because I am a...