Sally’s stories beckon to the pathway home
From Richard Owen Geer, director and author of Story Bridge: Some books give rules, others examples, but the best weave tales, for only […]
A wonderful add to work on conscious aging
from Carol Osborn, author of The Making of an Old Soul: Sally Fox’s spiritual memoir, Meeting the Muse After Midlife, is both intensely personal […]
Learn to see the both/and of life
From Margaret Seidler, author of Power Surge: Sally does an incredible job of conveying the emotions and reflections many of us feel […]
When crazy is sane (or a dog’s life)
Have you ever noticed that sometimes the craziest things we do turn out to be the most sane? Acquiring an animal can […]
Enjoying the dog days of summer (a pause)
The dog days of summer are here, but as our temperatures in the Northwest head toward 90 (remember, few of us have […]
How to Celebrate a Birthday with 72 Delights
Birthdays are a funny thing. When I was six, a birthday expanded my world. It meant more adventures, a later bedtime, and an allowance. But […]
Beyond Barbie (What would you say in your speech?)
When I was eight, the girls in my neighborhood loved playing with dolls. I didn’t. I preferred to explore the Connecticut woods […]
Let these quotes about the creative process inspire yours
While I know that reading about creativity isn’t the same as making something (and reading about writing isn’t the same as writing), […]
The one tool you need most when you want to create
We’re all creative—and can express our creative spark in endless ways. Yet when it comes to expressing ourselves we’re often handicapped by […]
When things feel out of control—try this
Growth. Time. Change and the idea of flow in nature. When I make a work I often take it to the edge […]
Freedom’s Not Just Another Word
On the Fourth of July in the United States we celebrate freedom. That is if anyone stops to think about it. Our […]
Gretchen Staebler: Walking your mother home
Gretchen Staebler is an award-winning author and family caregiver ally in the Pacific Northwest who wrote a moving memoir about returning to […]
Priscilla Long: Creating at Any Age
Priscilla Long is a well-known Seattle-based writer of science, poetry, creative nonfiction, fiction, and history, who, in anticipation of turning 80, decided […]
To bless the cyber space between us
What if you had a friend with whom you spent a sizeable portion of your life, yet you treated the relationship like […]
Here Comes the Sun (a solstice pause)
On the Summer Solstice, the longest day in the year, as the sun reached its highest point in the sky, I took […]
The Gift of the Ordinary
Grief knocked again—or, more accurately, knocked me off my feet and left me wailing. You’d think after writing about grief, I’d know […]
Are you “too sensitive?”
Did anyone ever tell you, “You’re being too sensitive” when you were growing up? Maybe they wanted to help you by offering […]
Nine Lessons from Grief’s Playbook
First off, thanks to everyone who sent words of condolence and compassion for my sister’s death—which I shared last week. I loved […]
Wordless
Words are beautiful but sometimes need to waitLest they be out of place.The world must be experienced before it can be described. I tread […]
Dana Lynne Andersen: The power of transformative arts
Dana Lynne Andersen is a multimedia artist, writer, playwright, and teacher who has taught and exhibited on three continents. She is the founder […]
Letting the tulips sing
Can flowers sing? No way to prove this but recently they sang to me. Finding new colors I recently returned from visiting […]
Suzanne Anderson: The transformational path of grief
When her beloved husband took his life, and with it her life as she knew it, Suzanne Anderson faced a choice: would […]
Friendship in a Post-Pandemic world
Did friendship change during the pandemic? It’s hard to say. But I know what changed for me: I don’t take it for […]
Diana Place—Creating a new story in the 3rd Act of life
HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE INTERVIEW Diana’s journey from AOL exec to social entrepreneur. How we can get hooked to institutions that aren’t good […]
To practice receiving
A dear friend living in the shadows of cancer, With death on the horizon, Sat with me and said, “Throughout my life, […]
Nine Reasons NOT to Write a Book* (*unless you must)
1. Writing a book takes time—more than you can imagine. Whoever purports: “You can write a book in ten days” (or two […]
Bringing light into dark
Monday morning, my husband asked me to read a heavily researched article about a small pack of men who had been systematically […]
Blank is Beautiful
I learned the joy in blankness as I played with my new favorite toy—a “Buddha Board.” The device lets you channel your […]
Tiny beautiful acts—a 100-day creative challenge
Could devoting yourself to tiny acts of beauty, gratitude, or creation for 100 days change your life? It did for Suleika Jaouad, […]
Six questions to expand the creative you
Does your creative spirit ever feel tamped down or just-around-the-corner-but-out-of-reach? When that happens to me, I have two approaches to rediscovering my […]
Debbie Weiss: Love, loss. and starting over after 50
When Debbie Weiss lost her husband of 30 years before she was 50, she learned life lessons that she has shared through […]
How to be embodied in a world that’s increasingly not—eight simple steps
The signs of disembodiment are everywhere. Our 24-7 culture seems better suited to constantly-turned-on robots than to humans who do better when […]
Dropping “should” for “I prefer”
Yesterday, I faced a blank blog post without an idea of what to write. No ideas. It was too late in the […]
Six Easy Ways to Improve Your Storytelling
Last week, during an informal presentation I gave on storytelling, a man asked me a fabulous question: ”I can tell that you’re […]
We Don’t Need to Know Before We Go
One of the cool things about artists is that they often start their pieces (and I’m defining artist in the broadest possible […]
Lois Holzman-the art of becoming through play and performance
Dr. Lois Holzman is a performance activist who helps people and communities worldwide to discover new hope and possibilities for who they […]
Isidra Mencos: Sex, salsa and a great story
Isidra Mencos is a writer, writing coach, and author of the stunning new memoir Promenade of Desire: A Barcelona Memoir. We talk […]
Message from the Matrix: “You are not creative”
In the movie The Matrix, the hero faces a choice. The blue pill or the red pill. Stay with the known world […]
Give your brain a break—extend your mind
Where does the mind live? In our brains? Our bodies? The environment? Each other? Some mix? Or, as philosophers Andy Clark and […]
Look at the past—bring in the light. Happy 2023
2023 is here. Happy New Year. The light is returning—a good time to reflect on the year that was and, as we […]
Embracing darkness/celebrating light
We’re on countdown to the winter solstice next week—the darkest time of the year. I have mild seasonal affective disorder (SAD), and […]
Stop the delivery mania: An Open letter to Santa
I don’t want to seem ungrateful, Santa, and I hope all is well at the North Pole. I know this year’s supply […]
Planting hope
This week I planted daffodils. There’s nothing remarkable about this, although some might question why I waited to dig holes in the […]
Stepping back from the precipice of stress
I blew off a meeting this week, a short talk I was to give, and my mistake left me humbled. As awful […]
The art of waiting
Waiting. We do a lot of it. Waiting in traffic, in the checkout, or for that blankity-blank Amazon delivery. Sometimes there’s a […]
How to let go before the elections
If, like me, you’re prone to even a little anxiety, the days prior to the midterm elections in the United States can be […]
Finding magic in my pencil
There are many ways to get to know someone, even someone we haven’t met, and this week I’ve been playing with one […]
Should I say, “thank you” to “Alexa?”
Are chatbots making human interaction transactional during a time when human civility is increasingly endangered? I put the idea to the test […]
Alex Doman, Sound and brain health entrepreneur
Alex Doman is an entrepreneur, bestselling author, psychoacoustic music producer, and TEDx speaker with more than twenty-five years’ experience in neurotechnology. His […]
Lessons from the Harvest
I love fall with its colors, coolness, beauty, and the poignancy of knowing that winter is coming and the rains will start. […]
Cracking the code on living longer
What if there were a remedy available that could extend your life by more than seven years? And be even better for […]
Today. This Day. Right Now.
Today as I sat quietly, sort of meditating, preparing to take my husband to physical therapy, five words came to me: Today. […]
Setting Myself on Fire, or the Power of Moments
Some events in our life stand out like none others–so disorienting that they challenge us to know where we are and maybe […]
If you hang in there, things will (probably) work out
Lesson number two from my time in Italy: Things may not work out the way you wanted or expected, but hang in […]
The art of nothing-ing
September is here, school bells have rung, and I’m here with my first blog since leaving for Italy. I missed you even […]
Margo Weinstein: author, adventurer, Mom
Margo Weinstein is a traveler, intrepid adventurer, class-action lawyer, and single mom. Educated at Yale College and Northwestern University School of Law, […]
Finding human in a transactional world
I stood at the parking meter, fuming. I had just scored a parking place near the Seattle hospital where I planned to […]
Are we crazy?
I’ve had it. Another shooting. And children, for god’s sake. .Let’s call this for what it is. Insanity. We talk about mental […]
Dr. Juliet Bruce Finding Sanctuary in Story
Juliet Bruce, PhD uses myth, storytelling, and expressive arts to help those struggling with hardship, trauma, and the challenges of living in […]
Creating “normal”
Years ago, you wouldn’t have heard me craving “normal.” Picturing myself as creative, I’d have called normal too dull, predictable, and routine. […]
Living in Limbo-Land
y husband has Covid, and I may be next. I’m officially in limbo (call it quarantined). Overnight, life changed. I canceled plans and […]
Sing the Song that Wants to Come Through You
Last week, a friend thanked me profusely for a two-word expression I shared with her seven years ago: “both/and.” The words helped […]
Heat wave
As the heat inched past 100 Our Northwest hubris We don’t need air conditioning, We can sit under trees Melted away. I couldn’t […]
MMMMMMMMM your way to calm
Given the stresses of daily life combined with growing uncertainty about our global future, I’ve been collecting remedies and techniques to use […]
The past is never past
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” William Faulkner Faulkner’s words were written to describe how the history […]
Balance continuity and change
In these times of turbulence and rapid change, when areas like the environment, voting rights, and immigration demand immediate, constructive action, why […]
A gem of joy in the news
Sometimes in the murky waters called the news, one finds a gem. I did last week when I read a story announcing […]
Anxious in America
Hopefully, the pandemic is receding and so, too, is the spike in national (and global) anxiety it provoked. I suspect, though, that […]
How to say no, nicely
For some of us, the pandemic brought a guilty pleasure. We were released from the burden of having to say no […]
Create the tension for change
When we work in a problem-solving mode, we remain limited. Our energy stays focused on the problem, instead of what we want. […]
To gain perspective, turn upside down
The tragedy of George Floyd invited many of us to wake up, to see the world as it is and not what […]
Seven keys to deep learning from The Octopus Teacher
I finally watched My Octopus Teacher, the much-celebrated Netflix documentary that chronicles the year film-maker Craig Foster spent swimming with a wild, […]
Find rhythm in a pause
I’ve been loving my spring walks athrough our woodlands. They help me to pause when I’m wound up or feel […]
Playing as an ensemble
April is an exciting month for me as I get ready to watch the great performances that will be taking place over […]
Are you feeling exhausted?
A second pandemic is sweeping the nation. I don’t know how contagious it is, but I know it’s spreading. Exhaustion. You recognize […]
Do you know these (mostly) new words?
Words create worlds. Words in turn have lives of their own. I used to think that the words in the dictionary had […]