Home for a Quick Touchdown

The view above at Crossroads is from the gazebo where our clients start every day with meditation. It's also where a good-bye ceremony is held for each client who successfully completes the program. Although I had no ceremony, I nonetheless went to the gazebo and said good-bye once again to Crossroads as my six week contract ended. I love this spot in this special place of healing and was pleased to be able to help out these clients who want to turn their lives around and are willing to do the hard work to accomplish this. I treasure the opportunity to serve them in this endeavor. How could I not? Hard work so worth doing.

And now I'm home for a brief recharge, a great friend gathering and quick change of clothes before heading out again but this time for FUN! Fun on vacation with my Honey, our daughter and the grands. Fun for almost a month, fun in Disney World, fun at the beach and fun with my sister-in-law and friend and various nieces and great nieces/nephews as well!

A little more about the gathering of friends that my honey had arranged for last evening. Five friends were unavailable but fifteen friends came to share pizza, conversation and comraderie. It was a splendid night and so very wonderful to have all our good friends together meeting one another, some for the first time, and giving me the chance to talk with them all at one time when my time here is limited because of vacation. What a great time I had! How grateful I am for the friends we have made here. I love my life, in part, because of them. Grazie Mille i miei amici!

May Sarton

In our program here at Crossroads we sometimes use poetry to best express a particular topic. My colleague, Greg, uses this poem of May Sarton's to challenge our clients to seize the opportunity given to them in treatment to do just as she describes- become themselves. First published in 1948, it's a favorite of mine and I was startled and pleased to see it on the clients' counter. Sarton was an amazingly prolific writer, please enjoy.

Now I Become Myself

Now I become myself. It's taken
Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people's faces,
Run madly, as if Time were there,
Terribly old, crying a warning,
"Hurry, you will be dead before--"
(What? Before you reach the morning?
Or the end of the poem is clear?
Or love safe in the walled city?)
Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and density!
The black shadow on the paper
Is my hand; the shadow of a word
As thought shapes the shaper
Falls heavy on the page, is heard.
All fuses now, falls into place
From wish to action, word to silence,
My work, my love, my time, my face
Gathered into one intense
Gesture of growing like a plant.
As slowly as the ripening fruit
Fertile, detached, and always spent,
Falls but does not exhaust the root,
So all the poem is, can give,
Grows in me to become the song,
Made so and rooted by love.
Now there is time and Time is young.
O, in this single hour I live
All of myself and do not move.
I, the pursued, who madly ran,
Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun! 

   May Sarton

Grateful for Annee

 “At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.” — Albert Schweitzer




I've had a chance to work again with my good friend, Annee, here at Crossroads. Our careers have criss crossed and thrown us together in three facilities (the other two in California) over the years, oh happy fate. I call her my wise friend because she is and she's generous in sharing her wisdom. I've been the recipient many times and one time she saved my life, you know, the way girl friends can do. I was immobilized with hurt and fear and didn't know what to do next. I called Annee. She said: just show up, pay attention, tell the truth, and let go of the outcome. I thought to myself, I can do that, and that thought gave me hope. I saw the way out and it was simple. I wrote those words down and put them on my refrigerator and read them every day, clung to them as to a life raft, did them as my only requirement. It changed everything of course. It's how friends can change each other's lives.


So, in between our work, we gab and float and luxuriate in time together. Makes my heart happy. And grateful.

From My Little Corner of the World

We had rain galore last night and various shades of gray skies today interspersed with showers. The clouds scudding around were the fast moving kind that arrange and rearrange themselves dramatically on their way to dump their rain here or there as they see fit. It is quite a show. 


It forms the back drop as I stay present to the difficult stories of those with whom I work. 

Healing Landscapes

"Tribal people have known this for millennia, sensitive as they are to the healing properties of landscapes- those that teach us our limits. Contemplating the sacred balance of wild terrain of the seas is recognized as therapeutic, restoring the inner geography of the soul."
(The Solace of Fierce Landscape: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality by Belden Lane)



I caught the best part of the day yesterday at the local beach, Half Moon Bay. It's secluded and gorgeous. The water is warm enough to just walk right in, bob around and talk with my friend, Annee, to my heart's content. It was a restorative way to relax after my first full week of work.

Crossroads also recognizes the healing terrain of the sea as therapeutic. This is the view of the bay today  from one of the porches. Just walking onto the campus is soothing.

The sea has always been a healing landscape for me. What about for you?

Update From Antigua

The sun is shining still as it has all day but gray storm clouds fill the sky to the West and block the sun now and again as rain readies to fall. It didn't take long to jump back in the saddle at Crossroads and feel at home, especially with the warm welcome from the staff.

The view from my room:

Saturday at Long Bay Beach with good friends. This is my friend Annee Delaware's photo:

We lounged here, swam, walked the beach and talked the day away:

And admired the local crafts:

I scurry around researching the latest on pertinent topics for our clients and current best clinical practices. But I calm myself with the knowledge that what's most important comes from the heart rather than the head. Have to say I love this work.

Embrace What Is

SEE WHAT IS For us, as people sitting here meditating, as people wanting to live a good, full, unrestricted, adventurous, real kind of life, there is concrete instruction that we can follow, which is the one we have been following all along in meditation: see what is. Acknowledge it without judging it as right or wrong. See it clearly without judgment and let it go. Come back to the present moment. From now until the moment of your death, you could do this. As a way of becoming more compassionate, as way of becoming less dogmatic, prejudiced, determined to have your own way, absolutely sure that you’re right and the other person is wrong, as a way to develop a sense of humor, to lighten it up, open it up, you could do this. Pema Chodron I've been setting this as my goal each day lately in an effort to stay in my now as a retired woman, and look what happened. I've been asked to come back to Crossroads in Antigua to work for six weeks. Crossroads is Eric Clapton's drug and alcohol residential treatment facility where I worked for 2 1/2 years and consulted for short stints in the last couple of years. Check out the hotlink above to see more about beautiful Crossroads and their world class treatment program. I leave early tomorrow and feel so glad for the opportunity to do the work I believe in with the clients I've devoted my professional carrier to. If that isn't enough, I'll be with my dear friend since 1987, Annee, who will be working there as well. Indeed, she was the one who introduced me to Crossorads. Bless her! Another chance to become more compassionate, less prejudiced and dogmatic, To lighten up , to open up and to help others do the same. As one who wants to live a full, unrestricted, adventurous, real kind life, I'm grateful and amazed. I'll keep in touch.

Views From Antigua

My favorite church in Antigua, old, still used and lovingly kept.

English Harbour where I lived for 2 1/2 years. It has an historic Georgian Dock Yard and many visiting boats in the winter, currently including the Maltese Falcon, the world's largest sail boat. In juxta position to the above church, it's an intriguing, sleek, futuristic looking thing.

The little cottage at Crossroads where I've been staying for the last 5 1/2 weeks and for 3 1/2 more days (but whose counting?) until I go to Trinidad wherein waits my husband, daughter, son-in-law and the grands. Oh joy, oh bliss! Let the holidays begin.