Tighe Foley, one of the four people appearing in my documentary film Facing Death . . . with open eyes, spoke about a pivotal moment when he switched from struggling to live with HIV to anticipating his death. “I was crossing the Bay Bridge,” he recalled. “It was just a beautiful day . . . […]
Eating affects the way we feel, how we function and how are bodies repair. This is especially important when we are under stress or coping with a significant loss. In my blog Grief Lessons, I described how I lost my appetite after my first husband left me in 1984. Loss of appetite is not an […]
As my parents moved into their “golden years” and closer to that ultimate life passage we call death, my mother often said that if she and my father lost their wits and assumed a vegetable like state they would drive off a cliff. It was a bit of a joke but also the only clear […]
A few weeks ago I was struggling with negative thoughts about my website designer. I say struggling because a) they were making me feel powerless and victimized and b) I was afraid these thoughts might be contributing to the problem. I believe in the power of intention — that thoughts have energy and can actually […]
After my dear friend Marianne died, my husband George and I spent a couple of months clearing out her apartment and storage lockers. It’s an interesting process sorting through the accumulation of a lifetime, a little like an archeological excavation. Marianne had been a private person and we discovered details of her life we had […]
As I began to write my blog this week, the story of the break-up of my first marriage, the subject of my last blog, came tumbling out. I knew I wanted to write about grief and this was certainly about grief so I just surrendered to the process. What came up were some interesting insights […]
Last week, I spent several days revising the follow-up emails to my complimentary grief guide, Essentials for Grieving Well. I had decided that people would be more likely to read the emails if they were shorter. So I broke up the original long emails into bite-sized bits. The email The Way of Breath spawned seven baby emails. That’s […]
About twenty of us were squeezed into the living room of a small Brooklyn apartment awaiting the counsel of Laurie Lamb, a New York trance medium. It was 1986 and my life was in shambles. I had moved back home from New Mexico following a failed marriage, and was currently sleeping on a therma-rest pad […]
Christmas, the winter holiday I’ve celebrated all my life, conjures up rich memories — the swirl of snow flakes in a Christmas tree lot; cold toes, flush faces and the mist of warm breathe; unpacking hand-made tree ornaments and disentangling knotted lights; the tantalizing aroma of baking turkey and pumpkin pie; colored lights dancing off […]
The movie, Cherry Blossoms is about life, death, love and the journey of spirit. It is also about Butoh. I now understand Butoh. Life, death, love, grief and Butoh — all the same. My dearly departed friend, Marianne, danced Butoh. Another friend, Sika, has just taken it up. I never understood the attraction. It seems […]
