Writing has been my window-flung wide open to this magnificent, chaotic existence-my way of interpreting everything within my grasp.

At some point each day (well, most days) I unroll my mat and practice for an hour. I sit in meditation for a while. This can be five minutes or twenty minutes, but the daily practice - simply showing up for it - is centering.

I don't know why this is, but I really believe that things don't happen when we're trying to will them into being. They don't happen when we're waiting for the phone to ring, or the email to pop up in our in box. They don't happen when we're gripping too tightly. They happen - if they happen at all - when we've fully let go of the results. And, perhaps, when we're ready.

Michael Lowenthal has written a big-hearted and wise book about familial love in all its richness and complexity.

My son is now fourteen, and from the moment he was born, I understood that forevermore my heart would be walking around outside my body.

In a creative journey, it is essential, no matter how far one runs, to examine that which is closest to home.

All there is to do, right at this very moment, is to breathe in, breathe out, and kiss the joy as it flies.