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.

The Rebound

 The moment when you come out of a posture you’ve held for awhile and feel the shift. It’s sometimes a grand sensation. It’s sometimes nothing. Most often it’s in between.

 When life gives you long holds, periods of time when you’re doing the same thing, and then it changes, how do you shift? Sometimes the change is gradual. Sometimes it’s dramatic. But there’s generally a shift. Within the shift is often a message, if we stop to listen. That’s the big if. When was the last time you had a life change and took even a moment to notice and ask, “what was the message?” “What did I release?” “What can I release?”

 Long periods in a pose, a situation, a groove or a rut eventually end. That ending is an opportunity to evaluate what that situation held for you or taught you. Everything ends. Sometimes that’s a great relief. Sometimes it’s a huge sadness. And sometimes we barely notice. But if we pause, there’s always a subtle shift in perspective that we can gain from the rebound and observing it. That’s the way we learn. We respect the pose and it’s gift, regardless if we’re coming out of a groove or a rut.

Late summer can feel reboundish.  It’s the earth’s gift, if we take it. Those poignant moments when the light shifts that one degree lower on the horizon. The colors shift almost imperceptibly. The nights shorten and early summers blooms begin to fade.

This season invites us to rebound from early summer’s fury as we appreciate cooler mornings, longer nights, gifts of nature and the gentle turning of the globe. Not just for harvest. But to observe of what it might bring. We lay in the rebound aware, feeling the tingle and the posture we’ve just left behind. Can we notice how we’ve changed? What we’ve learned? What that experience felt like? Rebounding, taking the time to be in the moment, allows us to drink it in, feel the subtle shifts deeply and allow ourselves to move onto the next posture and season with a sense of openness and purpose.  

The Sadness Meridian

Mine was obviously out of balance the last week. Perhaps most of this year.

 Know what I’m talking about?

 The energetic channel for sadness is the lung/large intestine meridian pair, mostly the lung: the interface between you and the outside world. It resides in the upper body and finds balance through the breath. Of course. Postures that open the chest and arms help release blocks there. Even forward folds with a focus on expanding the back of your ribs, relaxing the neck and shoulders, can help open this channel. Makes sense, right? The breath is our first and last interaction with the outside world. And it’s easy to shorten it when things don’t feel so great. Sadness and grief knock the air from your happy existence. They take the joy away. It’s the excuse to not go anywhere, let go of healthy habits and blend moodily into a backdrop of ennui and self-absorption. It’s all about me. The world is a wasteland. It can become a trap as sadness makes it easier to say, “I’m too sad about it all to do anything.”

 That’s not where joy, change or bliss reside.

 They live in the moment when we start again, the moment of balance in our lung meridian that brings confidence and clarity, even, deep inhales and exhales. Despite the pain and grief, if we stay a little longer with our feel good habits we can let go of what doesn’t feel so good. Staying longer means sitting with whatever it is and consciously letting go – on and off the mat. Letting business as usual, like the negativity and hopelessness associated with sadness, take the back seat.

 That’s when I give myself permission to seek those things that make my life blissful. “Been writing,” I answer when someone asks where I've been. Long  moments in supported yoga poses help me fully let go. Or methodically moving through a familiar flow, no thinking, just moving, frees me. I bike to the beach, soaked in seaweed but still magnificent if you lift your gaze toward the horizon and open your heart and lungs. Looking upward, standing tall lets you see that the sun still sparkles on the waves. The world has not crumbled. There is still loads to love and to save. I retreat to the woods to find peace even if I cry as I breathe in the green. Or I simply bike for a favorite coffee, steaming hot, a friendly face serving me. I breathe in humanity rushing by. Perhaps I smile at one or two. I connect. With people. With nature. With the world.

 Connection helps us find us again.

 Ask yourself, what postures bring you joy? How can you open your chest and lead with the breath into the day. Most often, it’s small daily miracles that bring us back and allow us to exhale. A deep sigh is medicine. Repeating it, focusing on the breath we may find sadness passing, or at least diminishing. In its place enters gratitude and a deep appreciation that life is a miracle. So, inhale deeply. Sigh it out slowly. Let sadness and grief leave the body to replace them with gratitude and the energy to be the change we need in the world. Try it and tell me how it goes.

When Practice Doesn't Make Perfect

They say practice makes perfect. I’m not so sure.

 Yeah, this time was smoother. But that’s ‘cause the vet came to the house. And yes, I’ve done this before. But perfect? They say it’s painless, like falling asleep. That’s for the patient. I’m wide awake and it hurts like hell.

 Uma was a dog I’d found a home for in what seems another lifetime. Born on Tulum beach, I brought her to my friend as a puppy with her brother. They were adorable. But they’d only take Uma. She lived with them for 2 or 3 years, in this lovely boutique hotel called Playa Selva. It started as camping but the owner married a Swiss woman and she helped him build actual buildings, put in electricity and create a sanctuary for people who wanted to hear the waves and walk the beach while having a bed and a hammock, not only the latter.

 Eventually, schools, violence and a search for higher standards led them back to Europe. She convinced me I could improve my standards too - with a job. I managed her hotel for 2 plus years. Part of the job was managing Uma. At least I saw it that way. So when I managed Playa Selva, I gave Uma security, health, comfort and love. But, used to being with a family, she hated being alone. Every night she tunneled out of the nice corral we built her and I’d come to work in the morning to find her cozy home empty.

 She’d run to meet me, lean dark body a streak of black against the cream colored sand as she nearly flew over the small rise in the dune to find me making coffee in the communal kitchen. We’d walk the beach, meet the guests and she’d follow me through my day. Until at night once again, we’d try the security thing. I’d sit with her for awhile as my own dogs waited at home and I’d ask her to wait for me ‘til morning. She found it impossible.

 One morning as I hugged her good morning, a screaming man came over the dune, blocked my office door holding a spear fishing harpoon over his head and screamed, “I’m going to kill you and your dog if she ever comes to my hotel again.” Uma hid behind me, a petulant and obviously guilty child. Surprising myself, I stood, told him he’d do no such thing and demanded he leave the property. More surprising, he obeyed, similarly petulant and guilty.

 I knew Uma was a bully and picked fights with small dogs or dogs as pretty as she but not as strong. His was a lovely Dalmation and I was sure Uma beat her up. I patted her head and her brown eyes told me, “not that badly.”

 She had a boyfriend called Jimmy who’d come and play about every day around 5 pm. They’d play like crazy. Between bouts, she’d run to me breathless, covered in his slimy saliva and sweat as if to say, “This is the best,” before she ran back for a chest butt.

 One time guests at the neighbor’s camp site who’s owner had never married a Swiss woman, were grilling chicken for a party. Stoned and playing drums as they turned the prize birds over, Uma decided to take one and run. She came through the property as I was meeting a new guest, bird in mouth, with a dreadlocked, skinny guy running after her. Uma was fast. But as she stopped to enjoy her feast, the hippie caught her, ripped the bird from her mouth and ran back to throw it back on the grill.

 This was her kleptomaniac phase. The next time it was provolone cheese from another resident of the camp. He swore Uma had stolen it. I defended her and told him to search. He never found it. A week later, I dug it up, transplanting a beach lily. Life went on and for a while, we routinely found buried treasures.

 Then everything changed. The beach became “nicer”. People wanted the properties, often without paying. Visitors wanted more. So did the owners. Suddenly cool guests, clean rooms and clean water weren’t enough. The former chill vibe became daily calls asking for more and more. I was renting my own places, teaching yoga all over the beach, missing my own dogs, my cats and my life. Something had to go.

 It was Playa Selva. “I’m leaving and I’m taking your dog,” made it three dogs at my house. When I moved in with Alex – a relationship “that never should have happened” or perhaps it was meant to be -  there were four dogs. Uma had a gang.

 But, we were in town, a huge adjustment. Small consolation was an immense garden and down the road was the jungle where now it’s a maze of oversized condos and luxury hotels. For six years I made it work. And when I left Alex, the hardest thing to leave was Uma and my other rescue, Deco. By that time we were two. I had escorted the other three as they moved to the other side. Like I said, I’ve been practicing. And that’s not to mention the ones before I moved to Mexico.

 I tried taking them when I moved out. But small spaces aren’t their best. So I made a deal. They’d stay in Alex’s amazing garden with room to run and dig and chase birds and I’d visit. It seemed fair. Until his relationship didn’t like me coming and going. They took my key and my dogs. The cruelty never stopped stinging. I hadn’t seen Uma for over a year when Alex needed help and asked me to feed them. “It’s only once a day now,” he instructed, “and here’s how we do it.” Anything to see her again. I spent a wonderfully happy week visiting them every day. Then it stopped. He came back. I wasn’t needed.

 A few months later, on the full moon, Uma visited my dreams. The next day I asked Alex, “Can I come visit Uma?” He’d been meaning to tell me she was fading. “She’s old,” he reminded me. “So are we,” I reminded him.

 She hobbled out to see me. So skinny, so weak. So fast. But she gave me that dog hug, rubbing her head into my belly as I sat and scratched behind her ears. She still loved me. I so loved her. I told Alex I’d take care of everything. He’d known I would. Yesterday, he let me in again and as Uma got comfortable on the blanket I’d given her a decade ago, I sat next to her. She put her head on my knee. I stroked her quietly as the Doctor put the needles in and Uma left.

 They say practice makes perfect. I don’t feel it’s perfect at all. 

All Endings are Beginnings….

Summer is my favorite season.  The whirligig of high summer energy leaves me hot and exhausted, pushing me to get things done. But with all that heat, there is surrender. Some days you just cannot. It’s as if my body, in tune with the earth, knows that the intense power of July is short lived. I need to ride it’s wave into the full season.

When August comes around, my energy stabilizes, cools down. I’m in the curl of summer’s wave and enjoying it. The peak growing season transitions imperceptively to harvest.  Colors blend green into yellow.  Seeds and pods bear fruit and nuts and vegetables. It’s a time of abundance and generosity, celebration and sharing.  The sun bears down with healing warmth, tempered by the now cooling air.  

It’s the extravagant part of the cycle of life. The energetic bright yang gives way to the dark reclusive yin.  An ending turning toward harvest and hibernation to insure a new beginning.  

The traditional Chinese and Taoist culture celebrate a 5th season within the summer season. Late summer, August 5 through the fall Equinox, September 21, is dedicated to singing and feasting on the fruits of our labor.  Bathsheba Monk and I invite you to sing and feast your senses with us. Please welcome and join our inaugural issue of Paradise Found: an on-line celebration of the miracle of life and it’s seasons using all media—stories, poems, pictures, video and audio.

Our first issue will acknowledge late summer and document this 5th season’s yang as it transitions to fall and winter’s yin: yellow, sweet, abundant, singing.  The last hurrah before the rains and snow come. Send your ideas, your stories, your art and observations for submission to 2bmonk@gmail.com by July 30.

In the subject line please include “Paradise Found Submission.” No submittal fee required. Just a willingness to remember that we have not been cast from Paradise.  We've simply forgotten how it’s right in front of us. Let's remember again by sharing our ideas on the miracle that is life: Paradise Found. 

Into the Day

The crow called me from bed the past few mornings, screaming “Into the day. Into the day.”

 So I followed his advice. I slipped my feet from the bed to the cool floor and saw the moon setting as the sun rose from the other window. He called again and I climbed the stairs to the rooftop. A masterpiece of color surrounded me as the moon faded into the rising sun, shades of red pink and orange extending into the blue sky of dawn. A flurry of birds flew overhead; grakles, chatting lively. I touched the leaf of the palm tree that reaches for the sun a little higher each morning. The small hornets nest growing just inside began to buzz as the miniaturely fierce insects awakened too. I don’t dare touch them but there is a bird who will. Not the crow. Some other fearless creature looking for sustenance amidst the sting.

 Regardless, if I’m careful, we can all share the space. There is so much. Space all around, regardless if my neighbor’s are building more, higher, bigger. There is space to put my feet into grass, no matter how small the patch, to stick my nose into a flower, regardless with whom I share it, to lift my gaze and find the moon sinking into the dawn of this new day that my friend the crow has called me to witness. I’ll leave unsalted peanuts and an unpaired earring on my altar to invite him to stay next time he calls to remind me, “It’s not paradise lost. You’ve just forgotten to notice the masterpiece that is life.”

 Take the time to hear the crow’s call and follow it. That cry leads to a renewed sense of magic in the everyday. Because, everyday is magic.

Let’s preserve it and document the magic and beauty all around us. We can share it through photos, essays, drawings and paintings. Launching in October, I’ll be compiling expressions of the beauty in the everyday with my dear friend Bathsheba Monk, CEO Blue Heron Bookworks. We’ll call it Paradise Found and the 5 yearly issues will help us take that first step in coming home to our magnificence: awareness that it’s right in front of us. Contact me for details on submissions. It’s going to be stellar.

If you can’t wait and you’re feeling less than inspired, we can help with yoga, meditation and present moment awareness. These practices cultivate a sense of connectedness to all living beings that lifts your gaze toward the magic that is today. To help, I’m hosting long weekend retreats all June at Tribal Tulum with Ricardo Castro. I’m offering a disconnect month or two at my casita in the Mayan village. And if you dare to plan ahead, save the date for our Yoga and Writing retreat October 29th to November 3rd, 2025. All great ways to settle into the miracle that is you.

Waiting for Eggs

I’m sitting at my friends’ kitchen table with coffee watching the foggy morning moistly move forward. I think she’s oversleeping but I’m not sure what to do about it. I made noise, made coffee and I wait for sounds of her in the house. It’s not that different with her husband not here. It’s been a month since he died. So crazy how in a minute he’s gone.

She’s got photos of him everywhere. I like it. I still hear his voice in the morning of our mornings together. “Eggs!” he’d scream coming down the stairs and then he’d yell, “Coffee!” Not demanding them but joyfully exclaiming to the world that he was going to make them. I often wondered if they’d had mad sex before to make him so vibrant, exuberant and hungry. I never asked, just laughed and received the kiss on the crown of my head as he’d walk by to start his process, the smell of lavender wafting over me from the oils he was sure were curing his every ailment. He’d start breaking eggs, slamming plates and pots, exclaiming over it all, creating a breakfast festival.  

Now the house is quiet, his wife escaped me for her meeting, not sleeping in for grief. But slipping past me as I wrote, an inability to rally the same enthusiasm for coffee and eggs. Perhaps she never had it. Perhaps she indulged his boisterous mornings. But I sit here as always, a guest at their table and I hear his cacophony in my memories. I feel the exuberance of a life well lived in the walls and in the way the grey spring day wafts over the magnolias in the far neighbor’s lawn. The table is as it’s always been. The miniature tiger, dog, cat and full sized dragonfly under glass, the fruit bowl full next to the withering orchid, the rosemary next to the artisanal gin we sipped over stories the night before. I listen to the clock ticking sipping coffee from my antique cup that reminds me of old diners and I vow to treat the day with a boisterous reverence as I continue to live a ilfe well lived with my friend in the air around me. I let him inspire me as always: to head into each day with a cacophony that exclaims life as the gift and the burden we are privileged to carry. And I wait for my eggs.

Repair is a Radical Act

I read this awhile ago, before the resistance movement. Isn’t that what we’re experiencing? Resisting the urge to scream, to shout, to check the news, to get so caught up in it all that we forget the beauty and resilience all around us? Are we resisting the urge to pretend our small actions don’t matter? The calls to representatives, cancelling on-line accounts, shopping local, being just a little bit kinder, listening to the bird’s songs and each others’.

That’s where repair comes in. Like when my dear friend Diana came by to take 5 different colors of thread on a needle with an especially large eye to cross-stitch small holes my cat had massaged into my favorite sheets. Now rainbow colors fill where her claws had been. The sheets are uniquely mine, a work of art, the memory of a morning spent creating and laughing. I don’t want orneed new. That’s a radical act in a consumer culture.

What if we could cross stitch the threads of our being? Repair those small or large holes in our hearts, in our psyche. Those small digs that have made us feel less than amazing? Can we cross stitch over those with multicolored thread? We can. Through yoga, self-expression like writing, painting, planting a garden, painting a wall. Stillness and meditation heal places where the claws have been. Choosing to take care of ourselves and each other cross stitches the fabric of our communities. Practicing random acts of kindness extends the pattern so we can repair and radicalize our lives gently, without starting a war.

Let’s practice peace in our yoga. At Tribal Tulum, we’ll start with a new schedule in April that includes more ways to repair. We’re adding some wonderful meditations, yoga philosophy discussions, new classes and some special events from teachers you probably weren’t aware were so diverse. We’ll sing and be still together as we radically expand our abilities and recognize new abilities in others. We create community where before there was only acquaintance. We heal ourselves, repairing past damage. We change the world using repair as a radical act.

April 1st we’ll start with an 8 am meditation. The same one we do when you retreat here. Think about starting that again with me and start the process to repair yourself and our world, one breath at a time. The new schedule is on the website and here if you prefer.

Crushing Overwhelm

With all the craziness in the world, it’s hard to feel you make any difference. So many people, places and things need help. I want to buy at the right places, use my dollars to make change. I want to voice my concerns, call my political representatives. I want to save the world, stop plastic and human trafficking, clean the ocean, write my next Eco Woman novel. I want to create community, see that group of friends, host that workshop, write that email, make that facetime call. I want to use alternative medicine, heal myself, not trust the doctor.

Then there’s my chosen reality: I can’t manage, get frustrated, let my power fade and do little at all.

Or I choose my mat and begin. I practice yoga. That makes everything more manageable and reminds me I’m connected. My practice takes me from that place of panic and stress to the place where I know, step by step, I can be the change I want to see in the world. I AM the change I want to see in the world.

So if you are feeling overwhelmed, welcome. But here are 3 steps that will crush it.

1.     Get to your mat. – at home or at a studio or join me here in Tulum if you can escape for even a weekend. Mexico’s all over the news. Perhaps you want to get to know her.

2.     Take a second and stop. Right now. Sit and take 24 deep breaths – it takes about 2 minutes. See if you can stay focused on only the breath.

3.     Move a little. You know the poses – 3 to 5 sun salutations. If that’s all you have time for, its enough. If you have time for more, wonderful. But, remind yourself, what you do is enough.

Bonus – write that on a piece of paper – a sticky note, a receipt – “What I do is enough. I am enough. I am.” Put it somewhere you can see it.

Second bonus – be joyful in your day as you take the small steps in your personal resistance. Joyfully shop second hand, joyfully drop the Amazon and facebook accounts, joyfully shop local. Joy is your birthright and your purpose.

 That’s it. Every day. Let me know how it works for you.

 If you have the time and resources, join us for our yoga and writing retreat, March 13 to 18. There is still a space left. Digging deeply into you and expressing it in writing is powerful. It can change your world. And remember, your world is the world.

 If you need more time to plan, we have a wonderful yoga and dive retreat in May with South Oregon Dive Club. See the world with a different lens when you combine yoga and diving. I’ll throw a little yoga and writing in there too.

Stay happy. Find your bliss and resist.