Smarmy Love Songs

At the shop next to me, loosely translated, a singer whines, “Your love is air to me. How can I live without air.”

Smarmy right?

Like Paul McCartney asked, where would we be without smarmy love songs? They infiltrate our lives and remind us where we’d be without love. The smarmy romantic concept with all its heart break and drama can block us from seeing love for what it truly is: a feeling of belonging, the truest super power as J B Pritzker, Governor of Illinois, USA recently called it. It creates and sustains life. When you look at it like that, the smarmy love songs seem more than appropriate.

And it’s smarmy but true. Love is air, whether you are with your partner for 50 years or 50 years partner free, love breathed life into you. It created you and sustains you still. And, it is the thing that will vanquish evil, in my story anyway. As I finish my third fantasy novel: the trilogy of Eco Woman, she and I have decided that love is the super power that overcomes all darkness. It’s the thing that stands up when everyone else sits down. It out supers everything else.

So, what do you love? What do you love about your life, right now? Exactly as it is. The sun on the curtain that falls over the chair, the full pink moon? Or the flower blooming in a crack on the road? Or the child that pulls it up to smell it. What do you love about this moment? What’s it worth to you to notice the present moment as it flies into the next moment. And then the next, never to be repeated. What do you love so much you’d change things like a habit or even an addiction to preserve it. Do you love yourself or that person or that thing, like freedom, peace, independence, whatever, enough to change a thing?

It doesn’t have to be a big deal. It can be something small. Would you sit still and notice for 5 minutes every day to bring yourself peace? Or bring the world peace if every one started? Are you really just too busy? Revolutions, personal, political, international, all start in baby steps. They take time and consistence. James Balwin puts in nicely: “The world is held together by the love and the passion of a very few people, it really is.” Perseverance in small details overthrows years of bad habits, bad leaders, bad results. It can ignite the love that is all around us. So step up and stand up for what you love. And play that smarmy love song.

Holding Our Own

I nearly missed them as I cruised down one of the mural clad side streets in Tulum. But the second I saw their intertwined fingers my heart felt a longing akin to homesickness, a deep desire to connect. I took my hand from the bike’s handlebar and envisioned my own mother’s hand in mine. Had it been all those years since I’d held it? How long since I’d extended my hand to a child? Or reached for a lover’s? When did I become so separate, so busy, so independent that I couldn’t even remember?

Sure, I’d been “holding my own” for more than awhile. Yet in that moment I longed to reach with certainty for the hand of another. I exhaled, brushed it off and turned to see the mother and daughter, holding hands so easily, so comfortably, talking, as if that physical connection were the most normal thing in the world. And as if it would last forever.  

I slipped the lock through the wheel and around a pole and decided, yes. It would last forever. Mine had. I rubbed one hand over the other to feel the sensation: skin on skin, palm to palm, genuine loving touch. Before I turned to enter the bank, I closed my eyes and imagined my mother’s hand in mine. I felt the connection. Yes, I’d always have it. My heart quieted, the longing subsided and my shoulders softened as I felt the mother and daughter, even the son who might pull his hand from mine, too grown up. Yet still, we’re connected.

Always. And more so once we connect to the self.

If you’ve forgotten, if you’ve been “holding your own” for way too long, think about taking a break. Even an hour to get still and reconnect to you and the connection we have to each other. Yoga helps. It’s not the only way but it is a way that’s worked for humanity for thousands of years. And it’s a certain way to come back to you and your connection with the things you love.

Facing our Fears

“Why did we choose this path when there are so many easier that benefit everyone?” the text lit up my screen.

 So many other paths to take. And easier for everyone.

 “We pay for other’s bad choices,” it continued.

 But somehow, they were ours. Perhaps we didn’t pay attention or participate or vocalize our position. Perhaps we didn’t have the openness of mind to listen to opposing views. Perhaps we waited for someone better, wiser, older, smarter, richer, more prepared, more likeable, better looking. We always want a hero: superman or superwoman. When in reality it is our commonness that saves us. Our ability to see ourselves in others. Our ability to dig deep and find a common thread that ignites compassion and understanding.

 Nelson Mandela asked, “Who are you not to shine?” Who are you to not be afraid?

The world is a scarey place. Until we go out into it. Until we sit at a local café and talk to a neighbor like this not too late morning as I sip the cappuccino my proprietor friend gifted me for just coming out into the street after news reports that left people running for cover.

 It is calm here. I sit and write and listen to soft music playing on the neighbor’s radio. It’s Latino rhythm inspires immense gratitude for being a common woman who is uncommonly comfortable in this scarey corner of the world. Given the chance, could I do a better job? Yes. I believe I could. Like Moses, Ghandi, Mandela, my proprietor who sells coffee and dumplings to the pueblo, like you. We are the common people. But we are the people who face the fear each day and go out into it. Because that’s how we change the world.

 We’re not afraid to be kind, to step into our common space and open our minds to all that might be today.

 If you are feeling fearful, you are not alone. But perhaps hiding isn’t the way out. Perhaps being brave in your corner of the world means being kind. When you face your fear, you realize it’s the enemy. Not your neighbor, not the “other’s” but the fear of opening our eyes and our hearts to each other.

 If you are up for facing it, we have extending retreats available at Tribal Tulum from April onward. Join us and give yourself the time and space to create a new habit of showing up for you and being fearless and kind in the world. Contact me here on at tribaltulum.com for more information.

Is There Really Ever Stillness?

Can there be?

 No matter how quiet I am, there’s the blood rushing, the heart beating. Even the frozen river is moving below the surface. Now, there’s the latest movement before dawn, the garbage man or the ambulance rushing into the day. In the puddles the molecules are separating, bumping into each other, attaching or letting go. Even in death we deteriorate and decompose. And then, the journey of the spirit. Can we ever achieve stillness?

 Yet, it feels still as I write. Although a dog barks in the distance and I know he’s moving closer. Mine may join him soon. The rooster sporadically crows. I feel his wings flapping and the birds will join the call and flight. Yet it’s still. I’m still even with all the movement within and around me. This winter stillness may be merely an illusion to prepare for growth. But I feel it in my mind.

Sure, the letting go of motion, a construct in an overly productive culture that lets us believe we rest only to produce and grow again. But are you? As you sit in the warming sun or the freezing cold, are you preparing for something, preparing to grow? Or is it simply nothing at all. Is stillness something to help us find the moment, the perceived “still” allowing us to stop and be.

 Could that be the goal of winter? To let us stop and be? Preparing for nothing but that. Being.

Try it. Take a minute or more and feel into nothing more than your inner motion, the work of the inner body to keep you in the moment. With gratitude, hold onto it and then, resume the external motion. The internal motion never stopped, yet, perhaps notice how you’ve changed.

Winter is for stillness. Stillness is for being. In our winter issue of Paradise Found, we explore the concept of stillness. Some wonderful artists have shared their impressions in music, writing, photography and art. Have a look and see if this winter stillness resonates with you.

Paradise Found

They Say You Want a Resolution

We all want to change the world, right?

I’ve avoided New Year’s resolutions for ever. It seems like a setup. So before I begin a new year with an anxiety producing list of new things to do, I take a moment to notice what’s been working.

In 2025 I was  kinder to myself. I’ll practice that more because it’s changed my world.

Maybe you noticed or maybe you didn’t but I backed off social media. I was afraid my business would crumble. It may have. But it wasn’t from not posting. The economy crumbling helped. But through it, I worked things that kept me sane: family, friends, my animals, visiting natural places, real places. More time with the real meant less time with photos and images that weren’t always real and weren’t helping me move forward. So, I’ll continue with more direct contact, like this email, like a call or message or a visit when I can. I even sent some Christmas cards this year. Real cards! It’s a start.

I got into the whole buy local and boycott movement. I’ve not been to Sam’s, Walmart, Home Depot or Whole Foods for the year. I didn’t ever visit them much, I admit. It hasn’t been tough. But it feels good to say no. We’ve got local hardware and grocery stores I support instead.

I cancelled Amazon and Spotify accounts. You can manage without them. Trust me. People tell me the “om’s” I now play in class from Insight Timer are meditative and non-triggering. I funnelled those membership dollars into non-profits I love like World Central Kitchen and the Coastal Conservancy in Maine. I also donated to a politician I like. I ask people to buy my books on bookshop.org or at their local bookstore.

It’s empowering to stop supporting things and people that put me down. Ending what amounts to one more abusive relationship is another step toward taking care of me.

I broke routine, accepting challenges that frightened me. I knew I’d grow from them. Or not. But I tried.

I travelled more than usual. That was wonderful.

So, do I want to change the world? I am. Because the only thing I can really change is me.

Happy New Year.

Don’t forget. You can buy my books on bookshop.org or at your local bookstore.

Have a look at Bathsheba Monk and my e magazine Paradise Found. You can find it here: https://issuu.com/paradise.-found/docs/paradise_found_85e548238de327?fr=xKAE9_zMzMw It’s real artists with real impressions of the paradise we call earth. We’ve also got a substack that supports it.

Join us here in Mexico for a great retreat at Tribal Tulum this winter and spring. Our new retreat featuring traditional Mexican healing modalities will be transformational. First is in January. Let me know if you’re interested.

And…. I’m very excited to plan a few weekend retreats in Down East Maine with Salt and Oak Farm over the summer. Still in planning but the seed’s been planted so perhaps you will come down to practice in the wild.

You don’t have to be good.

Tulum had her first half marathon this year. In the still, early morning, the patter of feet on pavement called me to the window to witness, like you might for the first snow. Moon setting, sun rising, I watched the fast and the slow nearly able to taste years of running, winning often, high on endorphins and the “thrill of victory”.

 I watched some stop to catch their breath. Others passed, reminding me of the “agony of defeat”. Labored breaths reminded me how I’d believed that if I couldn’t win, I shouldn’t run. Loads of times I didn’t win. But I was in it to win. Through health, injuries and illness, I needed to win. That race reminded me, it was a recipe for losing.

 At some point you have to stop. No one “wins” all the time. There’s always someone faster, who’ll solve the puzzle sooner, who’s in a life pose differently than you, so you think it’s better and can’t compete. But if you continue doing the thing for love, smiling with gratitude because you can do the thing, you’ve won.

 I watched until the last people kept moving after others finished so far ahead of them they’d never meet. I cheered, shouting into the stillness and the pattering of feet. I saw their thrill at doing something you love for the doing. Nothing more. It reminded me that when you let go of the need to win, to be considered “good” you find the freedom to do what you love.

 Discover what you’ll do whether you win or not. The thing for which there is no “agony of defeat”, only a deep internal peace from doing what lights you up. I found yoga, writing and solitude through that agony of defeat. My body and spirit had been badly bruised, if not broken. These things made me feel ok, eventually, whole. Ten years into my yoga studio, on my 5th book and 22 years cancer free, it’s liberating to be me.

 For this new year and holiday season, I wish we all find what we do when there is no prize at the end. I hope we can all find the thing that makes us, us.

 If you need a hand, Tribal Tulum is here with yoga, inspiration and magic. We’re starting a new series of retreats highlighting traditional Mexican therapies and, of course, yoga and meditation. Join us.

 If you’ve found the thing and want inspire others, submit to Paradise Found, Winter edition. We’ll document what winter stillness is to us. Perhaps it’s the patter of feet on pavement in a race or the sun on newly fallen snow. Or presents you’ve placed under the tree as others sleep in anticipation.

 Happiest of Holiday seasons.

Be you. Be true.

Where Your Attention Goes, Energy Flows

It’s easy to focus on the what’s not going right. We’re wired that way from when we were primates: potential death at every corner. Sometimes I wonder if we aren’t back there. Look around. We are so afraid. The bummer is, the more you focus on that, the more it builds.

Like the other morning, the wind blew my hat off as I waved to a friend driving by. Annoyed and slightly embarrassed, I turned my bike to retreive it and my skirt got stuck in the chain. When I bent to release the skirt from the rusty chain (that Jose should have greased weeks ago) I watched a motorcyclist crush my chapeau. My favorite hat lay smashed in the road. And my friend? I could see him laughing in his rearview mirror, stopped at the traffic light. His beep hello had started the whole series of events. I hated him now. Favorite hat, favorite skirt, ruined. Angry energy built frenetically around me. What next?

 I stopped. Stood there; skirt in chain, crushed hat in the street. I took a deep breath, exhaled fully. I took another long inhale and long exhale and told myself, “It’s just a hat.”  And a skirt. And a friend. And an employee. As the list grew, I smiled, then laughed at the situation. I noticed the blue and pink morning glories climbing over the chain link fence on the overgrown lot next to me. Another deep breath and I noticed a small purple blue flower growing in the crack on the pavement just by my foot: lovely. A breeze wiped the sweat from my face and a car ran over my crushed hat but this time, the air lifted it and I watched it float and roll crookedly, nearly magically, to where I could almost reach it. I pulled the skirt from the chain leaving a small tear and told myself, “I’ll find a patch.” I lowered the kickstand as a young boy passing with his mom picked up my hat and handed it to me. “Gracias,” I told him. He and his mom smiled sympathetically. I punched out the flattened top. It still fit and regardless of the tire tread pattern on its weave, my nose appreciated the shade. I hiked the skirt and felt the warm sun on my calves as I mounted the bike to slowly pedal home.

 I can’t believe that even primitive man didn’t stop to smell some flowers along the way. I don’t believe that she didn’t smell the scent of a leaf before she stuffed it into her mouth or, once she had fire, didn’t enjoy the aroma of the food she had cooked wafting into her nostrils. Perhaps she picked a similar purply blue wild flower to garnish her plate. Appreciating the little things and being present for them makes life more bearable in the worst of times and more wonderful in the best.

This holiday season, give yourself the gift of present moment awareness. Happiest of Holidays.

Paradise Found in Autumn and Tall Pines

The tall pines echoed my calls for the dog and seemed to ask, “Why are you making so much noise?”

 It was a still late afternoon on my niece’s farm. The sunset colored the sky red, pink and orange and I’d walked to the tidal river behind the fields to witness the masterpiece that seems to happen just about every day around this hour. Although the hour moves earlier each day, the spectacle of the sun setting is no less grand. As it disappeared into the darkening sky, I said thank you to no one in particular and to everyone and everything. I turned to go, giving up on the dog who thought she was a deer, taking the wise coniferous advice. As I did, she appeared.

 Why is it that so often letting go is what let’s us receive?

 So let go of your schedule and take a moment. Sit for 15 or 20 minutes. Perhaps make a hot beverage and enjoy the world, the moment and our 2nd issue of Paradise found that celebrates Autumn.

https://issuu.com/paradise.-found/docs/paradise_found_85e548238de327?fr=xKAE9_zMzMw

Day of the Dead

I walked among the dead this morning, for no reason other than to be with my old friends. My eyes caressed the crosses representing their lives. They’d been dug into the side of the road that borders the sparkling water on the Caribbean Sea. Each had been fashioned crudely from short pieces of wood. But each held an orange paper flower, marigold like, delicately tied at the cross. There were many and I walked behind them, to not bother those they represented but to rather feel their presence.

It was bliss to feel them close, after having them be so far away for too long.

And we spoke. I explained how I missed them and how I still could hear their advice. I promised to light a candle and asked how they were. The answer came on the gentle rolling of the waves and their splashing against the rocks, the breeze on my face and the cry of the gull as the pelican dove for his fish.  

Paradise Found, Again

The ocean can be yours; why should you stop  
Beguiled by dreams of evanescent dew?
The secrets of the sun are yours, but you
Content yourself with motes trapped in beams.”

Excerpt from Sufi poem Conference of the Birds

It seems our collective energy has taken a nosedive toward ugly spirituality, horrible aesthetics, overconsumption and exhausting authoritarianism. It’s easy to think shadow is overtaking the light.

 But remember, you can’t have shadow without the light.

 So here I am, on a shady dock by an empty cenote. I’m enjoying the last hour of both our days watching minnows nibble my toes until I swim beneath palms and manglars laden with seeds and root pods. A flock of Carribbean blue jays chatters from above before floating to more productive feeding ground. A Tucan clucks and calls my attention as the caretaker tells me times up. They bring me into the light. And the shadow? Well, you can’t have shadow without the light. But as the light rises, shadow becomes indistinguishable and ceases to exist. 

 Therefor, the answer is magnify your light. Create like the divine creator. Call out what you see. Live with love and light in the Paradise we rediscover around us. Hear the Sufi Hoopoe bird who encouraged the Peacock, “do not content yourself with motes trapped in beams” when the “secrets of the sun are yours.”

Be a part of Paradise Found, edition 2, Autumn. We’d love to see your interpretation of Paradise in Autumn in painting, collage, writing, photography, video, music and recording. Send submissions to 2bmonk@gmail.com before Oct 15th, 2025 or anytime you have a piece of paradise to share. We can fit it into a season.

Paradise Found

What if we never left?

What if we just forgot?

That was the conversation Bathsheba Monk and I had on a long walk on a treelined ally in late spring. Neither of us could let the concept go. What if paradise was all around us and as a culture, we’d forgotten to notice the miracles happening every moment, every day. Were we too caught up in political upheaval, collapsing ecosystems or banal financial stress to notice that there is still a paradise to be found right in front of us?

We decided to create a space to share the things that make our world paradise in small and large ways. This first collection of photos, art, writing and recording is the result. We hope you enjoy it as you wander through late summer and into fall and that it inspires you to notice the paradise that is still ours.

https://issuu.com/paradise.-found/docs/volume_1_number_1

Stories we tell ourselves

There’s a story I’ve heard for so long it’s embedded in my inner critic. You know, the one who visits in those anxious moments before we hit send on a newsletter, invite a new friend to read our work or have a look at our art, submit that poem or essay to a magazine, start something new, share things near and dear to our hearts. It comes from a constant trickle of messages that have told me, “I’m not enough.” “I’m too weird.” ‘I don’t deserve to have that opinion, that creative burst, that job, that lifestyle.” Know what I’m talking about?

Yet, through all the amazing experiences that demanded I believe in myself and believe that I can and do make a difference: engineer, yogi, yoga teacher, cancer survivor, author, business woman, immigrant, friend, lover; through every adventure, there’s been a practice that’s allowed me to embrace it all with joy despite the not so subtle voices around me. That practice is Yoga and Writing.

 It’s what frees me of the external to hear my inner wisdom and set my story free. Try journaling after your yoga practice. See what wonderful messages come through. I’ll bet you can re-write a story you’ve been telling yourself. Because remember, you are that story, make it a great one.