The Mindful Postcard A monthly letter from me to you on life, writing, and yoga. I'll offer my thoughts, big and small, but always whatever is currently percolating. Unsubscribe at any time. Subscribe Beauty in the Breakdown The wild violets have finished blooming. The daffodils are nothing more than reclining green stalks and the cherry blossoms litter the ground in a pink-turning-brown snow. Spring often conjures the first blush, the initial excitement.But this is spring, too: the fading and maturing. The leaves that will nourish the trees all summer emerge and stretch into their fullness. It’s a shift to valuing substance over style. Eating Fruit Off the Ground I have a tendency to set ambitious goals for myself. When I’m well-rested and the sun is shining and life is flowing in a predictable routine, there’s no limit to what I think I can accomplish. Schedule that medical appointment I’ve been putting off? Definitely! Actually put away my laundry? Of course. Edit my whole book in a month? Easy-peasy. Meditation in Motion When I get woken up in the middle of the night, I sometimes think about how we are hurtling through space on a rock at 67,000 miles per hour. All praises be to gravity. It is an illusion that the world is still and we are the ones who move. The sun does not rise over the horizon - it is our planet turning towards the sun. I Regret Nothing I’ve always wanted to be an author. A few other ideas would come and go, but that was the one that stayed. Even if nothing else worked out, even if everything else worked out, I would be writing stories. In Praise of Forgetting Timehop greets me every morning with “you have memories to look back on today.” It's like seeing the cross-section of an archeological dig, all the ages of my life suddenly revealed in strict order. But chronology is only one way to measure a life. Timehop feels strange because the significant becomes all mixed up with the mundane. You Make Time For What Matters I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “you make time for what matters.” At first glance, it seems comforting. As if the universe really does fall into some kind of cosmic order. It might even be a kind of excuse, especially for other people.