a daily blog on well-being and how to feel better by Mark Barger Elliott…

“The instructions are in the living,” writes Mark Nepo. “Things we’re drawn to are merely the pieces of God unbreaking back together.” A journey, in other words, is not a destination. A game is not a result. Many wisdom teachers have suggested it is in the living that life is revealed and not in our…

As we approach a time of Thanksgiving, I would like to thank you for joining me as readers as I have attempted to watch daily for what Joan Didion called a “shimmer,” and sought to convey the gift each day presented. The word miracle comes from the Latin miraculum, which can be translated as “an…

“I will always have fears,” writes educator Parker Palmer, “but I need not be my fears, for I have other places within myself from which to speak and act.” We all face challenging moments in our lives and during those times need to pay attention to the parts of ourselves that are courageous, brave, and…

I was reminded yesterday how the word enthusiasm comes from the Greek en (one with) and theos (the divine). Which nudges us to the insight a source of energy in our lives is our concept and understanding of the divine. And the more we are in “one with,” and in alignment with, “theos” the more…

I read this morning how a great Zen teacher once asked an initiate to sit by a stream until he heard all the water had to teach him. After days of attempting distinguish every subtle sound, a small monkey happened by, and, in one bound of joy, jumped and splashed in the stream. The initiate…

I read this morning naturalist Kevin Scribner’s description of how salmon make their way upstream by continually exploring paths that are blocked until they find one where the current is strongest. Evolution has taught them an unimpeded rush of water means there is no obstacle there, so they enter that opening, though it is the…