When I was twelve years old, I experienced a near drowning at a public swimming pool. I’d been to the pool many times, but since I’d never had swimming lessons, I always stayed in the shallow end. One bright and sunny day, my best friend convinced me that he could...

In our modern world, where stress and anxiety often feel like constant companions, RAIN meditation stands out as a simple yet powerful tool for cultivating emotional resilience. Developed by Michele McDonald and popularized by Tara Brach, RAIN is an acronym...

Years ago, my daughter heard that remote Pollet’s Cove, Nova Scotia, was the summertime home of a herd of semi-wild horses, and she’s dreamt ever since of paying them a visit. This year, with her about to launch into high school and a new chapter of independence, I...

One day I was walking in a meadow and saw a great blue heron just about thirty feet away. It suddenly poked its head down into the grass and came up with a large snake with at least three feet of its body still dangling from the heron’s mouth. The snake’s body was...

The 2009 Copenhagen Accord failed to become a robust international agreement to reduce greenhouse gases because negotiations fell apart. After that fiasco, the prevailing view was that international agreement to reduce greenhouse gases was a pipe dream. There were so...

Twenty years ago, my partner and I decided to quit our jobs, leave our country, and check into a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Kathmandu. We were determined to get enlightened, whatever that meant. I’d been active in the poetry community back home—getting published,...