My family is in Poland, so in August I traveled from Wellfleet to Cracow and then to my hometown of Gliwice to visit them and reconnect with old friends. Families […]
Metaphysics
METAPHYSICS
The Song and Stillness of Taizé
An ecumenical tradition from France is celebrated quietly in Wellfleet
During a Taizé service at the United Methodist Church in Wellfleet, Tony Pastucci, a retired Catholic priest, serves as the cantor, his sonorous voice weaving through the simple, chant-like songs […]
GOOD FIGHT
In Provincetown, the Patriotism of Monuments and Freedom
How the virus of extremism denies the everyday truth of what we share
It’s not unusual, on a walk in Provincetown, to be reminded of townspeople’s military service. There’s the Civil War Monument in the cemetery, the World War I Doughboy statue in […]
HARD QUESTIONS
Existence and Nonexistence
A Four-Year-Old Considers Death and Rebirth
Around his fourth birthday, my son, Noah, started asking probing questions about life and death. It began innocently enough. He wanted to know if he would become a baby again. […]
SURFING
The Complex Stuff of Simplicity
Boards, suits, straps, wax, and other things surfers need to ‘be in the moment’
Surfing exemplifies simplicity: a human, on a board, riding a wave. There is a presence and purity to it. When you are surfing, everything falls away and the only thing […]
BODY/MIND
Please Enjoy the Ride
Here’s your ticket to a year’s worth of adventures on Outer Cape Cod
Welcome, dear reader: here is your very own free ticket to the adventures ahead — the year 2022. All that’s required of you is to strap in, pay attention, and […]
WONDER LAND
By Any Other Name
The gifts of gratitude
Attention is a form of prayer. —Simone Weil The season of gratitude is upon us. It’s plugged from every pulpit, platform, card, and commercial. It breathes down our necks as […]
BODY/MIND
To Prepare for the Holidays, Just Lie Down
Starting with the simplicity of a single pose, yoga’s explorations of quiet
In just four weeks, we’ll be celebrating the winter solstice, the shortest day and longest night of the year. Pre-pandemic, this time of year always felt frenetic. We were all […]
WONDER LAND
The Year of the Rat
Why do we assign such menacing imagery to this critter?
CAMBRIDGE — Two days ago, while I sat on my bed talking on the phone, a rat scrambled across my bedcovers and slipped down between the mattress and the wall. […]
BODY/MIND
Remixing the Basics
When the source of pain is hiding in old routines, it’s time to get out of the groove
After 15 years of both classical and new-age yoga training, I still find my home practice beginning the same way. Somewhere in the first five minutes: tabletop, on hands and […]
WONDER LAND
The Swan
What does it mean to try to breathe inner peace into others?
I’d just left Chinatown after reclining in a chair for hours inside a state-of-the-art dental school. Each white cubicle featured an oversized nature photo, and all the while I’d been […]
SAVASANA
Wednesdays With Janis
Sometimes a student is the best teacher
It was in some ways not an unusual invitation, from one yoga teacher to another: “I have a really special client that I’d like you to meet,” my colleague wrote. […]
UP A CREEK
Occupy August
Troubleshooting the peak season, with guided meditations
August. The balmy bliss of sandy sheets. This month requires a certain je ne sais quoi when waiting to get a spot off Ocean View Drive with a pack of […]
IMPROVISATION
Finding the Balance
To come to an agreement with death, I had to make a new agreement with life
One day in June, my wife and I left our cottage to walk straight out the mouth of the Herring River in Eastham. Low tide had exposed acres of sand […]
METAPHYSICS: PERSONAL HISTORY
Ending Where You Began
A journey without travel: irony and contradictions
…I am waiting to get some intimations of immortality by recollecting my early childhood and I am waiting for the green mornings to come again youth’s dumb green fields come […]
