Learning Courage

Learning Courage

At dinner with a friend the other night, we discussed some of the traits we were grateful to have acquired from our parents. Both of us had dads that took risks, dads that worked at the edge of their experience and skill, dads that harvested some spectacular failures...
More Misconceptions about Meditation

More Misconceptions about Meditation

Meditation is not something that takes you “away.” It does not remove you from your troubles, nor does it take your troubles away from you. It is not some amorphous, peaceful nirvana that you can wear as insulation against the unfolding of the world. Meditation will...
End your sugar addiction

End your sugar addiction

Sugar addiction is something that usually gets laughed off with a wink and smile. And yet, as Gary Taubes says in his latest book, The Case Against Sugar, if the increasing rates of diabetes were related to a pathogen instead of a lifestyle, we would be in the midst...
1000 Gifts: Gratitude and Appreciation

1000 Gifts: Gratitude and Appreciation

Even though Frosty the Snowman arrived before Halloween this year and the advertising machine is already full-bore into its message of “buy more-save more,” the holiday season – which actually invites an inward turn and a time of settling — is a perfect moment...
No Guarantees

No Guarantees

You see it in most advertising, whether it’s for wheels, clothes or computers: The Guarantee. It underlies the been-burned-before anxiety of the pre-nup agreement of a second marriage. That one foot just a half step out of all the way in. A fallback. A crisp...
Biological terrain, resistant starch, and gut flora

Biological terrain, resistant starch, and gut flora

As biochemistry evolves, we truly see that we are not separate from the “outer” environment, but rather profoundly connected with it. As science begins to explore the human biome, we see that our life unfolds in a symbiotic relationship with the bacterial world that...