seemingly I opened the letter and felt a giddiness and excitement that I knew she would not understand. I shared the news with her, and she was happy with her accomplishment and feeding off of my energy. Suddenly something that was too impossible to even dream of years before was about to be reality. I discovered that this part of my identity was still alive.  But it felt lighter. The anger had gone but the passion had remained.

Chloe had participated in Read for the House which is a fundraiser for the Ronald McDonald House. She was one of the top fundraisers in her school, which meant she got to go to the …. Eagles Locker Room!!! And she got to bring one adult with her. There was no question who that was going to be!

If you have been following me for a few years and haven’t known me for a long time, you might not understand why I would be so excited about this. Let’s take a trip back fourteen years to a previous iteration.

I was at the inaugural Eagles game at Lincoln Financial Field with my dad and some of his friends. I grew up with football in the house but no interest at all. But I guess my dad had an extra ticket and I tagged along. It was fun. They lost (something I got used to experiencing). And somehow I was hooked.

This was a period of time in my life where I didn’t work on Sundays so I could watch the games. I screamed at the tv (or at the field on the many occasions that I went to a game) when things did not go well. I carried the frustration and anger of a loss with me for days. I was there when they beat the Cowboys 44-6. I was there when they beat the Falcons to go to the Super Bowl (let’s not talk about what happened next though, okay?). The Eagles pep band was at our wedding. Serious fan.

When Michael Vick became the quarterback, I stopped watching. I began to lose interest in football in general. I soon had my Sundays back. And I no longer had this source of intense and angry energy. Pretty quickly, I could feel the space this created in my life. I have not been to a game since Chloe was born seven years ago and I don’t think I’ve watched a full game in at least a couple of years. It feels like a lifetime ago.

And yet, when I opened that letter and saw that we were going to the Eagles locker room, the excitement was still there.

The locker room of the team that had been such a big part of my life. I could not find a single name on a locker that I knew and I realized that I did not even know who the quarterback was. This would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. Despite this, it felt like an honor to be there.

When we took our seats and looked at the program, I got an even bigger surprise – we were going to get to go onto the field. My excitement rose all over again. A short while later I was standing on the very field where some of my favorites had played – McNabb, Westbrook, Akers, and of course, Dawkins. This was a powerful moment for me.

In all of the years that I was an avid fan, the possibility of going to the locker room or onto the field never even crossed my mind. It would have felt like an impossible dream.

In all of the passion (and anger) that I had in those years, there was still some distance from it. There was the collective energy of being in the stadium (and looking back, a lot of the draw was probably about being part of a larger community).  Even being there, there was some sense of detachment. The stands were as close as I ever thought I would get.

And then, I walked away from the anger. I let it go. I gave myself space from what had been a deep part of my identity. And years later, completely detached from the anger, I found my way back to the passion and onto the field.

Chloe wants to go to a game now, to see the field in action, and to create the context for this incredible experience. We’ll go, and I’m curious to know how it will feel for me then.

What I do know though is that even without the anger, I still bleed green.

This, my friends, is how you can hold onto the passion, let go of the anger, and manifest even the most seemingly impossible dreams.

I slip the mala from my wrist and begin moving my fingers from bead to bead.

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu.

I think of those sharing this space with me and hold them in my heart.

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu.

My eye catches the plants growing in the middle of the love of this community.

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu.

I hear the sound of a little girl beeping her plastic horn.

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu.

I feel my breath.

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu.

I feel the connection between those conversing around me.

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu.

I marvel at this experience of meditation with eyes open to the world around me.

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu.

I recognize the need to keep my eyes wide open to the world, always.

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu.

I wish more people could find the courage to open their eyes.

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhanvantu.

I let the world soften for this moment.

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu.

I feel gratitude for my hands.

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu.

I feel gratitude for the tears that have found their way out in recent days.

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu.

I give myself permission for my practice to be what it needs to be in the moment.

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu.

I think of my sweet girl and the hope that lives within the love in her heart.

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu.

I wonder if my coffee will stay warm (truth, because the mind wanders).

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu.

I feel connection to all of those around me, in this room and to the far reaches of our planet.

Lokah Samastah Sukihno Bhavantu.

The sun shines through the windows and fills my soul with light.

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu.

I feel safe in this place.

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu.

The wood, the coffee, the conversation grounds me.

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu.

I am reminded that home is in the heart and we carry it with us wherever we go.

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu.

We must keep our eyes on the big picture, on the future that is built from the now.

Lokah Samstah Sukhino Bhavantu.

When we feel the connection and feed the connection we grow the connection.

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu.

May all beings be happy and free.

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu.

All beings all beings all beings.

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu.

May my thoughts words and actions in some small way contribute.

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu.

May my life be a contribution.

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu.

To the happiness and freedom for all.

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu.

For all for all for all.

OM Shanti Shanti Shanti.

Shift.
Control.
Option.
Command.

Powerful words.

How do we shift our perspective, release control, be open to options, and take command of our energy?

These are questions that many of us are probably asking ourselves right now, and for good reason.

It is crucial, especially in times of upheaval like we’re living through right now, to recognize the importance of shifting our perspective. When we get too stuck in seeing things the way we have become accustomed too, it can be easy to lose sight of the bigger picture.

When we raise our voices, take to the streets, call and email and fax, and still feel like things are getting worse not better, we can come to question what we can actually control, what our actions actually amount to, if anything, and that can drain us quickly.

Moments like these can lead us to think outside the box (or sometimes within, like those who got messages to their Senators by sending pizza delivery with a note), and this can be empowering because we get to explore beyond our preconceived limits.

We have the power to take command of our energy, and if we want to continue to have the energy for the battles ahead, of which there will be many, we must.

Now for the how.

Before we can shift our perspective, we must know where we stand. We must have awareness of where we are gathering our information (is it from our Facebook feed or reputable news sources?). We must have awareness of what we value and how those values impact how we see the world. We must have awareness of what is underlying the beliefs that run counter to our own (fear, misinformation, racism and misogyny that are embedded in the DNA of our country). We must have awareness of what has come before and what we desire for our collective future.

Once we have this awareness, we can see from higher ground. We can view the situation from a broader perspective, and this can help us to recognize and acknowledge that in some ways this is not about the individual battles we are fighting on so many fronts. It is about learning how to sustain this work over time.

In order to release control, we must recognize where we have control. We have control over the words we choose, the actions we take, the behaviors we model for our children. We have control over how we spend our time, our energy, our money. We have control over what we choose to value, what we choose to learn, and what we choose to teach.

When we start to recognize the ways that we do have control, the emails and phone calls and faxes that are dismissed as inauthentic matter less because we realize that we cannot control those who are already controlled by the forces of money, greed, and power. Speaking as a Pennsylvanian, I am not going to change Senator Toomey’s mind. That may not mean I stop calling his office, and it may not give me more respect for him, but it does make me realize that if I release control where it cannot be gained, I will have more energy to focus elsewhere.

We have the option to be courageous or complicit. We have the option to go to the protest or not, to make the phone calls or not, to create the art that inspires or not, to offer our gifts of healing modalities or not – and we have all of these options. No matter what the choices look like, we are choosing to be courageous when we stand up for our values and for others. We are choosing to be courageous when we take a break from social media because it is wearing us down instead of filling us up. We are choosing to be courageous when we talk to other people about the issues that matter most to us. We are choosing to be courageous when we do not look the other way in the face of injustice. We have the option.

We take command of our energy by recognizing what we need. This will look different for all of us, and that is good because we need all of us and the unique gifts that we offer. We find our strengths and we offer them to the fight. We understand what drains us and while we may not avoid those actions completely, those will not be at the forefront of how we show up in this. We rest. We nourish ourselves. We treat our bodies as sacred. We go within and learn to trust our intuition. We lean on one another. That is one of the incredible things of this moment – there are so many of us that we can afford to take a breath, to sit this day out, to go to yoga or have a massage or simply zone out in front of a movie for a little while. The work is not going to go away anytime soon, so let’s take good care of ourselves.

Shift.
Control.
Option.
Command.

Are you ready to prepare yourself for what’s next?

Sometimes I find myself flipping through old notebooks, either in search of something, looking to see if there are pages I can rip out and recycle (because I’m always moving towards more simplicity), or because I’m procrastinating writing something new.

As I was doing this the other morning, I came across a passage that felt really important to me right now. I am hearing many people talk about how they are supposed to be shopping for other people and there is this desire to be shopping for themselves.

This tells me a couple of things.

It tells me, as I have long suspected, that we have things backwards about giving. Giving is not meant to be done from a place of ‘supposed to’ or stress. Giving is meant to be done with a full heart. This is why I sometimes get my holiday shopping done all in one day and why sometimes it takes longer. I search for the gift that feels perfect for the person, that makes me feel like I have found something that they would stumble upon and want to buy for themselves.

Which leads me to the second thing – so many of us do not feel we are deserving. We put others first pretty much all of the time, and we do this even now as we are shopping. We discover something that we love, that feels like a natural extension of ourselves, that we could convince ourselves might make a good gift for someone else but really, if we’re honest, it’s what we wish for. And we feel like we can’t buy it or even ask for it.

Which brings me to what I wrote back in the April…

I will not live in a place of lack when it comes to things that make me feel alive. It is not about buying for the sake of buying so much as it is about filling my life with sacredness. Yes, oh yes, that.

When you find something that makes you feel alive and whole and sacred, whether it is a physical object or an experience or a person or a place or an idea, tell yourself that you are worthy of having it because you are!

It is as simple as that. Start treating yourself like you are deserving of not simply living life to serve and take care of others but to feel alive, to embrace this time that you have.

And if that means buying yourself something this holiday season, so be it!

P.S. Last weekend, I bought myself a wand. There’s a big story there, and one that I’ll be telling when the time is right.

My mom handed me a box with a rubber band wrapped around it.

“Look what I found,” she said.

I opened it, and tucked neatly between the folds of an old paper towel was a wishbone.

“I wanted you to have it,” she told me.

***

When I was growing up we would celebrate Thanksgiving (and my Pappap’s birthday) with my mom’s parents. Pappap and I would always share the wishbone. I can’t say for certain, because my memory is not that good, but something tells me he knew a special way to hold it so I always got the bigger piece.

He always wanted my wishes to come true.

***

I remember being young and wrapped up in a green and black crocheted blanket, held in his arms looking up at the big bright moon. That same moon still shines, and that makes him feel close to me even now.

***

Life is full of wishes, of dreams, of desires. Alongside all of that magic come the things we cannot control – the endings, the fear, the uncertainty.

For now, I hold the wishbone in my hand and know that even when things turn dark, I will always find my way to the next wish, I will always search for that hopeful light of the moon, and I will always feel held by those I love and who have loved me.

And I wish the same for you.

I walked into the bead store and told her I broke the thread on another one.

“You’re pulling too hard,” she told me.

“I don’t know my own strength,” I said.

“You teach breathing, right?” she asked.

“Yes…” I said with a growing understanding.

“You have to give the beads space to breathe!”

And in that moment, I saw the interconnectedness between all that I do.

Perhaps you have heard, because it has been said so many times by so many people, that how we do one thing is how we do everything.

I was knotting beads with some of the thickest silk cord and snapping it because I was pulling so hard. I was trying so hard to make these pieces “perfect” that I forgot what matters most – space to breathe.

The same applies on the yoga mat. You can try so hard to come into each pose “perfectly” (which is usually some false notion of perfection and not related to what is best for your body, your being), but if you can’t breathe, or if you find yourself working so hard that you are holding your breath, you have lost sight of the sacredness of the practice.

When I try to write, when I force myself to sit down and type when the ideas are not ready to be released to the page or the screen, it feels like a struggle. Because I am not allowing the ideas to have space to breathe.

Space to breathe. That is the practice. That is Sacred Becoming.

It really can be that simple. It can be a mantra meditation practice. It can be one sweet deep inhale and exhale before your morning lemon water or coffee. It can be a closing of the eyes midday when you need to refresh and revitalize yourself.

There are so many ways to come into your breath, into your being, and to give yourself the space you deserve.

We walked along the beach in the fog, feeling the waves crash against our legs, looking out to the ocean, gray as it reflected the stormy sky.

When we turned around to walk back the way we came, we could barely see in front of ourselves. The storm was coming from the South and we had not seen how close it crept while our backs were turned.

A tightening came over me, and he asked me to slow down my pace because apparently I had begun to walk rather quickly. I did this because I did not know what we were walking into, because the thick fog clouded my vision, and without my vision the unknown brought me fear.

When a storm approaches, whether internal or external, our view shrinks and we can see only what is right in front of us. Have you ever driven through a massive rainstorm and not even been certain of the inches in front of you?

Time slows. The rest of the world melts away. You are forced to be present, and that perhaps means being present to fear, to a sense of having no control, to anxiety deep within your belly (I always feel this when a storm is coming, maybe you do too), to what matters in this moment.

And so I slowed.

I slowed my movement.

I slowed my breath.

I slowed the storm within me.

I walked on, knowing that all we can ever do is remain still and allow the storm to wash over us, or to walk into head first, and trust that we will find the other side.

***

The next day we came back to the ocean, sun blazing hot in the sky, water now a brilliant blue.

The storm had cleared.

It always does.

Almost a year ago, I posted this on my personal Instagram account and someone on Facebook asked me to share more about the number 108.

Until then, all I really knew about 108 was that it is a sacred number in many traditions and that a mala typically contains 108 beads. I have been working on a writing project that involves the number 108 because I was drawn there intuitively and I have been creating malas so I decided to dig a bit deeper into the meaning of the number.

As I began to explore and have conversations with people, more and more kept coming up that had me fascinated so I thought I would share some of what I have learned with you. If you know more about 108 than what I share here, please feel free to share in the comments.

I also found myself resisting writing this post because I did not want to just share what I found in other places. Finally, I feel like the words have found their way to the page so I can share more personally about the meaning of 108 for me.

108 offers a connection to the Universe, to some force greater than I feel I have the capacity to fully comprehend.

An article on humanityhealing.net (and supported elsewhere), shares the following information about the number 108 in relation to the sun, moon, and Earth:

“The distance between the Earth and Sun is 108 times the diameter of the Sun. The diameter of the Sun is 108 times the diameter of the Earth. The distance between the Earth and Moon is 108 times the diameter of the Moon.” I would add that it is important to note that these numbers are approximations and if you seek out the numbers and do the math you will come up with figures ranging from 107-111, but that’s still pretty close and I find it fascinating.

To me, this exemplifies the complexity of the Universe, and also the patterns that exist in a world well beyond what we can understand. In this regard, 108 is a reminder to me of all that is unseen and yet holds powerful sway over us. We plan our days by the light of the sun, our cycles align with the pull of the moon. There is no escaping this brilliant connection between our human lives and the vast Universe.

The number 108 shows up in many ancient texts, and is the diameter of one of the circles of Stonehenge, and to me this forges a connection between the past, the present, and the future.

With the number finding its way into various cultures in different parts of the world and through different periods of time, there seems to be a message coming from our ancestors that there is something important about this number. Perhaps we will never know what, but we can continue to honor it, to meditate with it, to explore what it means for ourselves.

I have found that in moments of doubt, I see the number 108 in some form (often 1:08 or 10:08 on a clock) and I feel an immediate ease and sense of trust in the path I am traveling.

In gematria which is part of the Jewish tradition in which I was raised, the letters of the word chai (life) add up to 18, so in seeing 108 I also see 18, the number symbolic of this precious gift of life.

When I practice Jappa meditation (meditation where one repeats a mantra), I have fallen into the practice of using a mala to repeat the mantra 108 times. This feels sacred to me for the reasons mentioned above and because it gives me enough time with the mantra to really feel a connection to the energy of the words I am chanting, to help me find focus in that moment of meditation, not the moments that come before or after my meditation.

Whether you feel a resonance with the number 108 or not, I hope this has helped you to understand why it has become part of my practices and why you will continue to see me reference, through my poems, through the Sacred Becoming Malas, and perhaps in new ways in the future as I deepen my journey of understanding those things that feel sacred to me.