Every so often—in every teacher’s life—there appears a student whose dedication and progress confirm what we’re trying to do in the classroom, reminding us that our work really works. Hilda was a case in point. A psychologist in her mid-sixties, with an antiquated top knot and bifocals clipped to a chain around her neck, Hilda looked like a maiden aunt…
Imagine if you identified yourself as an oxygen atom. All your life you’ve somehow known oxygen is your identity. Even when you combine with another oxygen atom to form O2, you have no confusion because you and your kin are the oxygen that animals breathe to live. But there’s another kid on the block that is even more abundant than…
The poems here—roughly “scenes” in which two elderly women read the news, a young woman considers the wonderfully temporary nature of her body, and an elephant meditates on the trauma of bearing witness—reflect my longstanding fascination with voice. Although I’ve been performing poems for twenty years, I’d never studied voice directly until I attended the Garrison Institute’s “Voice on the…
Nonduality is a concept most commonly associated with the religious traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism, but Episcopal priest Cynthia Bourgeault has written extensively about it from a Christian perspective. We spoke with her recently to discuss her approach to nonduality, the difference between belief and experience, and Christian practices that can help people cultivate an experiential understanding of nonduality. Where can we…
Noticing a lack of of access to yoga, mindfulness, and other holistic forms of self-care in their Baltimore neighborhood, brothers Ali and Atman Smith and Andres Gonzalez started the Holistic Life Foundation (HLF) in 2001 with a mission to bring these kinds of practices to people in underserved communities. In an upcoming retreat at the Garrison Institute, “People Who Care for…
The below is an edited excerpt from Brach’s Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha. A traditional folk tale tells the story of a man who becomes so frightened by his own shadow that he tries to run away from it. He believes that if only he could leave it behind, he would then be happy.…
Hope Martin and David Rome are co-leading an upcoming retreat at the Garrison institute entitled “Embodied Listening: Uncovering Our Bodies’ Natural Wisdom,” on December 2 – 4. No matter how we feel about it, we’ve all gone through a lot this election and continue to as we watch the aftermath. It might be hard to know how to handle our feelings, or what…
Composer, singer, filmmaker, choreographer, and director Meredith Monk recently led a workshop at the Garrison Institute entitled “Voice as Practice: Instrument of the Heart.” We caught up with her before the workshop to discuss art as a spiritual practice and the pervasive sense of busyness that so many of us seem to feel these days. Monk was in New Mexico when we…