There is a difference between knowing something and knowing it in your bones. One is knowledge. It’s something you’ve been taught, something you’ve read, or something you can repeat back with confidence. It lives mostly in the mind and often comes with explanation and logic. The other is something entirely different. It’s lived. It’s felt. It’s embodied in a way that doesn’t require proof or validation. When you know something in your bones, there is no debate and no second-g

The other morning, I was awakened by a murder of ravens —yes, that’s actually what a group of ravens is called. And that name seemed appropriate in the moment. There were 20… maybe 30 of them, shrieking and swooping through our front yard, their energy loud and chaotic enough to pull me out of sleep. As I looked closer, my husband and I realized what was happening. They were circling a large owl perched high in one of our pine trees. My heart sank. I love owls. There is somet

What does it actually mean to be open-hearted? It’s a phrase we hear often. It sounds beautiful, soft, even aspirational. But in my experience, being open-hearted is not always gentle or easy. Sometimes it’s messy. A writer I love, Sarah Blondin (you can read her Substack here: Sarah Blondin ), reminded me of a teaching from Lao Tzu about a glass of muddy water. The question he asked in the Dao was: Who can make the muddy water clear? Most of us assume the answer is to leave