Falling Gently Podcast

Oh cosmic birther of all Radiance and vibration Soften the ground of our being And carve out a space within us where your presence can abide. Fill us with your creativity So that we may be empowered to bear the fruit of your mission. Let each of our actions bear fruit in accordance with our desire. Endow us with the wisdom to produce and share What each being needs to grow and flourish. Untie the...

A pastor was walking down a country road He came along a beautiful farm It’s fence was straight, beyond it the orchard was well tended He saw rows of vegetables, neatly trimmed and growing strong Before long he saw a beautiful farmhouse with a well and shade trees And then a freshly painted barn, with contented animals milling about As he continued, he saw a farmer in the field and called out to h...

I came to meditation the long way I tried for years, but really couldn’t pull off a daily sit on the regular Meditation often felt like just one more thing to do Worse, it felt like one more thing to beat myself up for not doing And do we not all have more than enough things to do And far too many things we beat ourselves up about? So my relationship with meditation was fraught At some point, mayb...

In the beginning There was hydrogen and gravity Gravity gathered hydrogen Building heat Forging stars Within those stars Gravity + hydrogen became kinetic energy became fusion Creating the elements First helium, then carbon, then oxygen… Eventually all of the material world And all of the invisible energetic forces In all of the permutations of the universe From giant stars to a baby porcupine All...

I keep expecting to spontaneously combust Like, any moment now It feels like it might be a relief The density of this season’s financial and housing stress Exacerbated by what feels to be a consistent stream of schedule, requirement and rule changes Moreso than just in regular life It’s unsustainable It’s taken every skill, every practice, every tool I have And very often lately that has not been...

Have you ever sat, face up, in a rainstorm? Felt the drops land on your skin? Sometimes they are soft and warm, often they’ve got a little heft Now, imagine if you were a 3 gram flower Not sitting out in the rain by choice Getting hit in the face relentlessly for hours or days That can be hard on a little flower Sometimes it knocks her right to the ground Sometimes the flower will rise again when...

I’ve got to tell you, I really thought I was in the goo stage Things have been so unclear for so long I was certain I was tucked in a chrysalis Soon to emerge I was wrong I didn’t realize it at the time But I was still in the March, march, march Munch, munch, munch Stage There’s a moment when a caterpillar can go no further It’s been marching and munching, and it’s juicy and full But it can’t take...

I almost got scammed on facebook marketplace today I was so excited something was selling, I almost didn’t notice the red flags Luckily, I did a quick search on the scenario And learned it was a very common technique Selling your stuff is hard on many levels. Several times in the hours since reporting the buyer I wished things were different And then i remembered what a trap that can be Wanting to...

Today is my 32nd post. Thank you for being here. Writing each day has been grounding and clarifying. Being read is tender and reassuring. I’ve done a full month with no attention to performance Just expression And I haven’t known how to respond to the pledges readers have offered Thank you. Though I appreciate it, I put off thinking about it Partly from fear, partly from shame, partly from hope, p...

The traditional Japanese art of Kintsugi- Repairing pottery by mending it with gold- Highlights the repair, doesn’t try to disguise it Embracing history, imperfection, as valuable, beautiful I got my daughter a kintsugi bowl after her first breakup ‘Things break, they change, and that’s ok’ Adversity can make us stronger and add to our beauty, certainly our uniqueness It’s a physical representatio...

Dynamic Opposition: One system moving in two directions simultaneously. It’s what makes stretching feel so good Root to Rise in yoga Feeling the feet pressing into the earth and the crown rising It has all kinds of purpose and impact It promotes growth, balance, stability, aliveness We do it every day without thinking about it I’m trying to let that be my guide as I meet my opposing emotional forc...

If you’re not familiar with Joanna Macy, it’s my privilege to introduce you She passed July 19th, but left a profoundly rich legacy and body of work She was a deep ecologist, a student of Buddhism, a translator of poetry And one of the most effective environmental and social activists in modern history The Work that Reconnects, an anchor of her legacy Is a group process used for decades to meet ou...

In the book The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ Channeled by a pastor named Levi from Ohio in 1908 The wise men stayed They didn’t travel all that way to drop off gold and essential oils They stayed and acted as a resource to Jesus’ family When He came of age, they took Jesus to their respective countries What we know of as the lost years In this story, when Jesus returns to Jerusalem, he goes...

Scientists estimate we notice about 100 ads per day Even though we are exposed to between 4,000 and 10,000 And that’s not even counting the news The average human takes 16,000 to 22,000 breaths per day So, somewhere between every other breath and every four breaths We’re receiving a message our culture has conspicuously placed in our path Usually inviting us to buy something, or want something, or...

Life is full of poles and paradoxes Wisdom works within and around them all The pole shift that brings the most clarity, the most relief Is moving from the head to the pelvis As my origin of experience I love Philip Shepherd’s work Deeply He once told me: Don’t be aware of the pelvic bowl Be aware from the pelvic bowl At the time it seemed unattainable But over the years, I could orient that way S...

When my kids were little We did a little meditation at night Breathing in ingredients: milk, flour, sugar Holding to mix Breathing out cookies It was sweet I wanted them to know That our breath is our signature in the world What we take in and what we do with it How we process what we receive And how having been in our care transforms it And sends it out to the world It was simplistic, and flawed...

The paradigm I imagined as I grew and navigated the world Was that I was developing myself through school and life, family and society To become a fully formed adult Who would then navigate the world Trying to reach that adult’s goals While protecting myself from the hardships and challenges That seemed like a constant onslaught There was a near constant feeling of defending myself Trying to prove...

We’re all doing our best to live our lives as well as we can And that means something different to each of us But certain things are universal That smile in your heart when you truly feel seen and enjoyed The lifting of your cheeks when you make someone giggle The expansion of your being when you witness a stunning moment in nature In the structures of culture Money often equals success A life wel...

When we were traveling My kids would often ask how we would make our way in the next foreign town “We’ll ask for help!” I’d say cheerfully And we were often amazed at the kindness of locals Receiving unexpected gifts has me realizing While I’m happy to ask for help on the streets of Frankfurt or Rome I’m hesitant to ask for it where I truly need it I feel less-than, an imposition, shame, like I’m...

We know interdependence as a fact of life That we need the trees to breathe The bees need flowers, and the flowers need bees And none of us could eat without pollinators It’s a complex web And we know it And we marvel at it But does it sink in? Every breath, we take in 25 sextillion molecules 25,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 That’s more molecules than there are grains of sand on the beaches of the w...