Building relationships that just get better — I always wanted to find someone I could love forever, but it doesn’t happen that easily. It took me roughly half my life to get there and to understand how to build on it, with a few disasters and sad mis-matches along the way. Undaunted though — I’d got to…

An exploration of spiritual certainty. — During a conversation with a Quaker friend recently, we discussed the difference between silence for Buddhists and silence for Quakers. It’s been asserted to me many times before that there is a distinct difference, as she did. In all my experiences of both kinds of meetings, I’ve never noticed any…

Debunking a phrase I used to cling onto — There are a few cliché phrases I once embraced enthusiastically. They feature in some of my earliest books, and I wanted everyone to wake up to them as I had. I felt more alive than anything I’d previously experienced, flushed with that first inspirational moment of waking up. I was…

A poem about mindfulness. Draw breath my friend. Draw a long single breath. Linger in this moment with me, being all that you are and yet nothing, simply a collection of cells, elements molecules, DNA ladders, arranged to create you, a living breathing creature of the planet. Take time to…

Using mindfulness as a guidance system. As a writer and mindfulness teacher, I combine these skills almost completely. I do not always write about mindfulness, though it does lay philosophically at the heart of all my poetry and memoir writing. I use it to enable myself to write better and…

Their interchangeable nature. — Poetry and mindfulness are an inseparable pairing, for me that is. They form the basis of my contemplative life, sitting watching sunsets and water ebbing and flowing. Mindfulness is about paring back one’s thoughts and mental activities to what is necessary. It is a minimalism of the mind. It puts…

Mindfulness is the way forwards in this context too. — Like so many of my articles nowadays, this one also arises from something that happened to me, and that left me deeply reflective. All experiences are challenges to learn and grow from, but some take considerable unpicking to achieve that first. In this case, I made what I thought was…

What does that mean, how does it manifest? — People have told me that I am a strong individual for most of my life, especially astrologers and mystics. They see something in me that I didn’t see in myself until I stopped and thought about what strong means. We often do not recognise our own strength because from the…

A wonderful opportunity for us all to connect. —