The Mindful Minute has a NEW NAME and NEW LOOK! After 8 years, I have updated the name to more accurately reflect the content offered here. Welcome to Our Mindful Nature! “Back when humans lived in communal caves and tribal encampments, we told stories about the stars. When we started sailing, we used these same pinpricks of light to estimate our own location. When we began planting, we relied on the constellations and the Sun to plant and sustain crops. Yet today, most modern humans have lost this deep connection to the cosmos that was once central to our daily lives.” ~Sarah Scoles Today’s ..read more

​​The Mindful Minute has a NEW NAME and NEW LOOK! After 8 years, I have updated the name to more accurately reflect the content offered here. Welcome to Our Mindful Nature! Today, we are kicking off a month of astronomical-inspired meditations and interviews in honor of next week’s total solar eclipse.  A solar eclipse happens when, at just the right moment, the moon passes between the sun and Earth blocking the sun’s light. On April 8, 2024, 13 states will experience a total solar eclipse, for many others we will witness a partial solar eclipse. In honor of this, I am sharing a medita ..read more

The Mindful Minute has a NEW NAME and NEW LOOK! After 8 years, I have updated the name to more accurately reflect the content offered here. Welcome to Our Mindful Nature! How many episodes can I devote to birds, you ask? Well, I haven’t found a limit yet…! Today on Our Mindful Nature, we are talking about two of my favorite things - Oracle cards and Birds!  Dr. Chanti Tacoronte-Perez is joining us to introduce a new somatic oracle deck titled Birdsong.  Dr. Chanti is a Cuban-American artist-author, ritualist, and non-clinical depth psychologist. She believes that images speak a p ..read more

The Mindful Minute has a NEW NAME and NEW LOOK! After 8 years, I have updated the name to more accurately reflect the content offered here. Welcome to Our Mindful Nature! This is a special bonus episode of Our Mindful Nature. Last week, we kicked off the spring season with an exploration of migration, and the episode along with the guided meditation were filled with the sounds and images of migration as recorded by nature field recordist Nick McMahan.  Today, I’m joined by Nick to give you a bit of our behind-the-scenes planning and brainstorming about the sounds of spring. Nick shares ..read more

The Mindful Minute has a NEW NAME and NEW LOOK! After 8 years, I have updated the name to more accurately reflect the content offered here. Welcome to Our Mindful Nature! One of the markers of spring is the migratory movement of so many species towards their breeding grounds - salmon, Monarch butterflies, and so many different species of birds.  In this special Spring Equinox episode, I want to delve into 3 specific migrations as reflection points for our own contemplative journey this spring. Within these 3 examples of migration, we will explore:  Time In daily, seasonal and gen ..read more

Friends, you might have noticed something BIG today as you clicked ‘play’ on this episode… The Mindful Minute has a NEW name!!! After 8 years of sharing recordings of Monday night meditation class on this podcast; I felt it was time to shift, to level up, to adjust in response to the times we find ourselves in… As a meditation teacher, when I share what I do, I very often hear 1 of 2 comments: I want to meditate but I just don’t have enough time I tried meditation once but I think too much And so, this podcast was originally built on the premise of responding to those two statements. My ..read more

Why is a meditation podcast chatting with a cookbook author, you ask? It’s a great question. I have been paying a lot of attention to the practices in my day that support my well-being the most because I continue to hear from listeners (and experience myself) that we are doing our meditation practices and yet, we are still struggling. We still feel stress, anxiety or fear.  And so, while this podcast will always honor meditation first and foremost, I want to also honor the other pieces that support our well-being. I was reminded recently that every culture: Eats Sings Dances Creates art ..read more

In today’s meditation practice, we listen to the sounds of melting snow.  Now, I don’t know about you, but it never really occurred to me that melting snow makes a sound. It does. It produces a smooth, slow gurgle. No drips, just a near constant murmur that reminds us that change is happening in every moment. The daffodils are pushing up, the hyacinth will bloom soon. The literal and metaphorical arrival of spring is imminent. It is time to think about what will plant during this ripe time. Huge thank you to Gordon Hempton, sound artist and acoustic ecologist, for the use of this sounds ..read more

This month, we have explored the season of winter as a way into our meditation practice. We have looked at winter in our external landscapes, as well as our internal landscapes. We've listened to the sounds of winter, we've talked about wolves and our animal nature, and today, we're going to dive a little bit more into the creativity of winter. I was deeply inspired by a recent essay written and illustrated by Candace Rardon titled, ‘Like A Garden in Winter’. Candace is an author, illustrator, visual storyteller, and creator of Dandelion Seeds (one of my favorite publications on Substack). Sh ..read more

Today’s episode is a special meditation-only episode, just for your practice!  In this 10-minute meditation, we go on a journey through the winter woods. First, through a snowy pine forest with the wind washing over us, clearing away any lingering tension or worry. Then, we find ourselves atop a frozen lake. Don’t worry - it is steady and safe; so we sit in the middle of this frozen lake and we listen as it expands. Then the scene changes, dream-like, and we find ourselves settled in front of a campfire. The wind is faint; the campfire is warm, and again, we listen to the sounds of trans ..read more