My friend Maria quoted from this poem in meditation class some months ago. Every so often I listen to a recording and to the sweet, wry, hopeful words of the poet, and I remind myself that it’s fine to just… let go.

As we know, life’s challenges can quickly overwhelm. A diagnosis. A disaster, natural or manmade. A death. A divorce. (Now I’m just getting tickled by how many “D’s” for disasters there are.) You get the picture.

“Maintain buoyancy” was a favorite expression of my friend Sharon’s father.

I’ve had several ecstatic, transformational, almost out-of-body experiences. They are rather hard to describe, and I don’t know what they are (if you do, please fill me in!).  But each has been intensely beautiful and powerful, and in each case I’ve felt like I was on a different plane of existence.

Do we speak enough about kindness? Do we value it sufficiently in all that it adds to our lives?

Metta meditation, or lovingkindness, is one of the 4 compassion practices known as the Brahma Viharas or Divine Abodes. Sometimes referred to as the two wings of the practice, mindfulness meditation cultivates our ability to clearly see what is, while metta meditation cultivates our capacity to be with what is — and to open our hearts.