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

A few years ago I published a book called Easter: 21 Stations, a collections of photographs I had taken of subways walls in the London Underground to a village in South Sudan. These images were paired with poems I had written to help readers prepare for the season of Lent. The book concluded with this…

Henry David Thoreau once observed how “this curious world is more wonderful than convenient.” Which is a helpful reminder that we can expect both wonder and inconvenience as the days, months, and years of our lives unfold. And this awareness then grants us the opportunity to decide on which we will focus and give our…

Maria Popova publishes a newsletter called The Marginalian and recently made the observation, “life is transient but possible.” Meaning, everything that we know or see before us will in time fade, break, or die, but nonetheless within life’s limits we can discover and celebrate wonder and love, laughter and joy. The “possible,” in other words,…

I came across an insightful quote by Kobe Bryant where he said, “You have to edit your life to identify what’s most important. When you do that exercise, things become clear rather quickly. ‘I wanna be the best. I wanna do this, do that.’ And if things in your life don’t line up with that, get…

I was in Vermont yesterday and the woman I was talking with mentioned how she loved hiking the logging trails behind her home and used frozen “beaver ponds” as a means to get from one part of the trail to another.  I loved that image. That in order to get from one part of our…

I came across a dance book with a wonderful title yesterday, Movement at the Still Point. It reminded me how many masters in their fields – from athletes to monks – point to the importance of finding time during the day to nurture a still point from which movement can emerge. Do you have a…