My Blog
My posts are personal reflections on being mindful, inspired and curious.
A Tipping Point
“The secret of a full life is to live and relate to others as if they might not be there tomorrow, as if you might not be there...
French Etiquette
Traveling in a group is NOT easy for me as a tour guide, and sometimes for my clients for various reasons which includes not being...
A New Year’s Blessing
" ...because everything here seems to need us..." - Rainer Maria Rilke As I write this rain is falling, and I watch the almost silent...
A Lost Art
"To send a letter is a good way to go somewhere, without moving anything but your heart." Phyllis Grissim-Theroux - The other day I...
Going South
“As soon as we leave the urban condition behind us, we confront newness and the profoundly unfamiliar. “ Rem Koolhaas As I drove...
Keeping it Real
“Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It’s about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to...
The Good Life
The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the...
Paradise Lost
“We will not save what we do not love.” Thomas Berry - A few weeks ago I received an email from a friend who signed off, “ Miss you...
The Gift
We are each other’s, harvest. We are each other’s business. We are each other’s magnitude and bond. Gwendolyn Brooks - During the...
Ars Poetica
“In the very end, civilizations perish because they listen to their politicians and not their poets.” Jonas Mekas - It is hard to...
Plenty: A Photo Essay
Gascony is never more beautiful than in October. The grapes have been harvested. Corn and sunflower stubble fill vast fields, and...
Everyday Magic
"Rituals are the formula by which harmony is restored." Terry Tempest Williams - As a sea of autumn clouds began to slowly gather over...
The Mundane As Art
“Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing.” Camille Pissarro - Perry Taylor’s...
Black and White
‘“Surely the day will come when color means nothing more than the skin tone, when religion is seen uniquely as a way to speak one's...
A House in Auvers
“What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?” Vincent Van Gogh Today is Mother’s Day in France, and I’ve been...
The Better Angels…
"Sometimes from sorrow, for no reason, you sing. For no reason, you accept the way of being lost, cutting loose from all else and...
Refuge in Gascony
How swiftly the strained honey of afternoon light flows into darkness. And the closed bud shrugs off its special mystery in order to...
The Balancing Act
I choose to close the door today on hate, and violence. On deliberate "misunderstandings", and on a closed mind. These things tempt me...
The Journey
Letters swallow themselves in seconds. Notes friends tied to the doorknob, transparent scarlet paper sizzle like moth wings, marry the...
An Inside Story
“Sometimes you will come face to face with the sudden and shocking realization that you are completely crazy. Your mind is a...
The Route of Beauty
"I travel a lot; I hate having my life disrupted by routine." Caskie Stinnett For some inexplicable reason I have always been...
A Photo Essay with Music
Pont au Change “It is not everyday the world arranges itself into a poem.” Wallace Stevens The comedian George Carlin said,...
Circle of Compassion
A human being is part of the whole called by us, Universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience our self, our thoughts, and...
The Secrets of Gascony
“I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.” Susan Sontag On an unseasonably warm Sunday morning I took a drive through the...
A Change of Heart
“The deep and active care for the planet comes through experiences of beauty.” Charles Eisenstein My excitement is always palpable as...
Between Heaven and Earth
Each of us arrives on the doorstep of spiritual practice from different paths. When I first encountered Buddhism in the 1970s, I was...
The Bewildered Heart
“Happiness is one of the only things we can give without having.” A Basque Proverb “My world, my Earth is a ruin. A planet spoiled by...
Paris Postcards
“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” ― Anton Chekhov We are all familiar with the...
Appreciation of opposites
A feel of warmth in this place. In winter air a scent of harvest. No prayer is needed, When by sudden grace attended. Naturally, we...
Sunday in the Gers with Sue
The time will come when, with elation, you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror, and each will smile at...
midsummer day’s dream
It’s ripe, the melon by our sink. Yellow, bee-bitten, soft, it perfumes the house too sweetly. At five I wake, the air mournful in its...
tango
Rules for Happiness Something to do. Someone to love. Something to hope for. Immanuel Kant What is it that we can’t make, make it stay...
Tour de Provence
I stood in the Provençal light my eyes hungry, the landscape beautiful. I couldn't get enough of the dappled sunshine to quench my...
the journey
Above the mountains the geese turn into the light again painting their black silhouettes on an open sky. Sometimes everything has to...
diminuendo
"Beethoven tells you what it’s like to be Beethoven and Mozart tells you what it’s like to be human. Bach tells you what it’s like to...
awakening
The Buddha once asked a student, “If a person is struck by an arrow, is it painful?” The student replied, “It is.” The Buddha then...
French Country Adventures
66 Chemin du Nouet Lieu dit Aux Arbeils
32800 Ayzieu
+33 633 328 961
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