I spent Wednesday at the TED conference in Long Beach listening to inspiring, creative talks about ‘doing’ good in the world. The theme of most of these presentations is ‘connection’, multiple ways of showing that we share – via biology (genes), emotions, losses, loves, ecology – our humanity, that the universe is like one beating heart with its great diversity masking this unity at times. TED is about showing this unity in diversity at every level of existence – brain and body with their trillions of cells, technology with its exponential change, and human diversity – color, sex, religion, cultural diversity yet common shared experiences of birth, family, community, work, love, and death.

I spent four days in D.C. at the inaugural activities last week. Overall everybody was extremely excited and full of enthusiasm, lots of smiling happy faces, lots of kindness prevailing in the air. But there were crowds and long lines to get into events; despite being full of enthusiastic people energized by Obama there was still waiting, waiting, and waiting in really cold weather. These were the conditions that set the stage for a pervasive amount of ‘line cutting’.

A few years ago I had an epiphany of sorts in which I experienced a radical shift in consciousness, an increased insight into our ‘changing nature’. I realize that such dramatic jumps in awareness are rare among the thousands and thousands of mini-jumps we experience everyday. But it also became clear that in every increase in conscious awareness is a new challenge of ‘letting go’ to some attachment – some idea we might be clinging to ever so subtly or hanging onto with every ounce of strength. Inevitably change occurs and our awareness merely glimpses it.

My husband stopped in our hometown today in Indiana for a few days to visit his mom. She’s 86 and still hard at work running their family business, a roller skating rink. My husband and his 11 brothers and sisters grew up skating and working ‘the rink’ (DJs, skate guards, ticket takers, snack bar, skate rentals, coaches, instructors, etc.). Their childhood was quite different from the one our three children in southern California experienced with soccer, dance, summer camps, family vacations, and lots of time traveling and hanging out. In fact, it was quite different than the one I experienced as a child on the other side of that town in Indiana, with two sisters, dance, girl scouts, camp, summer jobs, etc.

It takes so much energy to feel the pain and suffering of our children, much more so than our own.

New Years Day is just another of the multitude of new beginnings in life.

There is a tendency among some Christians to hold the dogma of their religion so tightly that its relevance is lost to non-believers.

A few years back I discovered that meditation or contemplative practices done in a group setting are quite different than practices done alone. At the time, I was reading Steven Strogatz book ‘Sync’ about the science of synchronicity (the phenomenon of naturally arising sync in nature) and saw that the group experience was a syncing of individual transformative experiences.

I love Thanksgiving, and family meals in general, but I’ve discovered that the pre-meal moment reserved in many homes for prayer is an awkward time for me. Raised by Christian parents, prayer was a habit prior to every meal – rote in nature. Since I left religion many years ago, I’ve always wanted an alternative to this pre-meal routine but had not yet succeeded in finding it.