Welcome to The Naked Nowletter! My community is for those seeking a deeper connection with their true essence and a more intimate relationship with themselves, others, and the unseen world. We explore authentic communication, connection, and what it means to get Naked in the Now. Each week, I share a personal story, enriching thoughts, and juicy practices—plus occasional links to articles that inspire presence and transformation.
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Peace, Unbidden: Waiting for the Next True Step
Published 7 months ago • 4 min read
Hello Kindred Spirit!
Jay made his way up to the tower of our casita here in Loreto Bay.
One step, pause. Another step, pause.
He had strained his calf playing pickleball a few days earlier and was only just able to walk again.
I sat down with my coffee facing east, sipping slowly, letting my thoughts swirl. I wish I could say I was perfectly at ease up there in the tower, but I wasn’t. A quiet restlessness had settled in me. It had been weeks since I’d written a newsletter, and though I kept telling myself it was because life had been full—with travel, family, small bodies, big feelings—the page remained stubbornly blank. I didn’t know what I wanted to say.
I had the sense that something was there, just beyond reach. But the harder I tried to name it, the more it slipped away. The world felt like a series of unresolvable paradoxes, and I found myself caught in a familiar cloud of unknowing.
So, I sat. Not doing anything, really—just setting the intention to meditate. I noticed a slight undercurrent of self-judgment, unusual for me, but there it was. I didn’t try to correct it, though it annoyed me.
As I sat, the sun began to rise above the horizon—quietly, unavoidably—until suddenly I was being blasted with light. At the time, I missed the metaphor. It would come back to me later.
Sitting with Paradox
The night before, we had our Quaker midweek meeting. We’ve been gathering once a week with these Friends for over twenty years. Each week, we choose a piece of writing—often a poem—and read it aloud together. We then reflect individually: what stands out? What moves us? What troubles us? Does this piece offer something useful for living?
The only guideline is simple: no one interrupts another while they are speaking.
It is not a poem that resolves anything. It is arresting and mystical, filled with paradox. Rather than choosing one side over another, it holds opposites simultaneously, pointing toward a sacred wholeness beyond categorization. Here, in part:
For I am the first, and the last I am the honored one, and the scorned. I am the whore and the holy one. I am the wife and the virgin. I am the mother, and the daughter, and every part of both…
For I am knowledge and ignorance. I am modesty and boldness. I am shameless, and I am ashamed. I am strength and I am fear. I am war and I am peace…
Hear me in softness, and learn me in roughness.
I am called truth.
The poem brought me to a kind of deep remembering.
Oh—that’s right. My highest aspiration is unconditional love.
My inner compass is calling me not to focus on upholding one righteous view over another, but to sit in the unknowing middle of it all, attentive to the sacred wholeness that exists nonetheless.
The Cloud of Unknowing
It is hard to sit patiently in unknowingness. It requires letting things be when another part is screaming, "Act now!”
And yet, up to now, I have been unclear where to step—on the page, or in the world.
When the Next Step Appears
The next morning, amid my own bout of doom‑scrolling, I came across an image that stopped me.
A group of Buddhist monastics was walking together—slowly, silently—on what they call a Walk for Peace. They are traveling 2,300 miles from Houston to Washington, DC. There are no signs, no slogans, no demands. Just bodies moving, step by mindful step.
It isn’t a protest. It isn’t commentary. Peace isn’t being demanded out there, but quietly invited in here.
When asked why they are walking, Bhikkhu Pannakara, spiritual leader of the Walk for Peace, said: “We walk not to protest, but to awaken the peace that already lives within each of us.”
This. This is what my being craves.
Stepping in tune with paradox. Not fighting what is. Resting—however imperfectly—in unknowingness. Allowing my next step to stay in time with now, where peace already exists, and where action, when it comes, arises from that peace.
As I read more about the walk, tears streamed down my face. One of the monks had been accidentally—and tragically—hit by a car during the first month of the journey. He lost his leg. He offered only forgiveness to the driver.
His companions will help him join them for the final stretch of the journey.
How Peace Walks
I think again of Jay on the stairs that morning. One step. A pause. Another step. Not forcing his body forward, but listening closely to what it could bear.
Perhaps this is how peace walks into the world—slowly, attentively, one honest step at a time.
And because peace also lives in the ordinary unfolding of our shared lives, here’s a bit of good news and what’s coming up.
Good News
I’m delighted to share that Naked in the Now: Juicy Practices for Getting Present now graces living rooms in New York! Mel chose it for her feature, Curated by Mel,Refresh and Renew:12 Mindful Upgrades for 2026, which appears in theJanuary Issue of New York LifestylesMagazine (page 20-21) along with a sweet reviewabout it “spilling over with actionable ways to dabble in meditation, daily rituals, and self-exploration,” and encouraging readers to reach for this “book of delights.”
Upcoming Events
Write by the Sea(In Person | Loreto Bay) Mondays in January 2026 at 2:00 pm
Write by Red Rock(In Person) Wednesday, February 4, 2026, at 12:30 pm
Las Vegas Writers Conference, April 23-26, 2026. Come see me! I’ll be teaching a couple of favorite workshops: Naked Writing and Sensory Awakening for Writers.
Welcome to The Naked Nowletter! My community is for those seeking a deeper connection with their true essence and a more intimate relationship with themselves, others, and the unseen world. We explore authentic communication, connection, and what it means to get Naked in the Now. Each week, I share a personal story, enriching thoughts, and juicy practices—plus occasional links to articles that inspire presence and transformation.
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...
In-person Write by Red Rock class: Wednesday, May 6, 2026, 12:30 pm at The Blue Diamond Library! I have been approved for another year to partner with the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District to offer a series of in-person free writing workshops at the Blue Diamond Library! These are open to the public, free and will happen on the first Wednesday of the month (excluding August) for the six months from 12:30 pm to 2 pm. The next session is tomorrow, May 6, 2026 at 12:30 pm, Blue Diamond...