The other morning I sat down to my bowl of homemade muesli, sprinkled it with hemp and chia seeds, and doused it in almond milk. I stared at it and thought, I never imagined in a million years that I would be eating raw muesli with almond milk—and liking it.

I was out with a friend last night, enjoying a real manhattan in a real bar (at night no less, and mid-week! The stars must be in some rare alignment) and in the course of conversation my friend said in a rather Eeyorish way—combining wit, humor and severe cynicism—that he could see his future, and what he saw looked a lot like a trailer park.

Our ego wants to stay comfortable, it wants to take care of number one. But the soul has higher aspirations; it recognizes that we are all one and that we are only truly happy and satisfied to the degree that we are serving the whole.

how do we revive Soul—a subtle, invisible, formless, internal entity—living as we do in a noisy, gadget-gawking, consumption-oriented society that constantly pulls our attention away from our inner life?

The life of a writer is not as glamourous as you might think; it’s not all sweatpants and eating dry cereal out of the box and royalty payments stuffing the mailbox. This morning, for instance, I awoke from a spicy little dream and stared into the dark thinking about the dream and what it meant and trying to drag out the good feeling for as long as I could.

I have been sick with the flu for eighteen years now, the last six days of which were mostly spent in bed, which may account for what you’re about to read, but then again, it may not. I’m beginning to think that my fever may have actually cleared my head more than it shrouded it. This may not be such a wonderful thing.

I had a boyfriend in college who knew from his first breath that he wanted to be a lawyer. I was hugely envious of this: he was so directed, his course so clear. I had no idea what I wanted to do, or who I was. This boyfriend used to say that I had a lot of stars in my heaven, a poetic way of saying that I was directionless.

I was very excited, at the beginning of this year, to welcome 2012. February would usher in the Year of the Dragon, an auspicious year, a year of power and dynamism. Having been born in a dragon year, I gleefully anticipated doubly good fortune with health, wealth, and a book deal raining down from the heavens.

Recently I met with a doctor who asked me what I did for a living. When I said I was a counselor he replied, “Thank you.” I must have looked at him quizzically because he immediately followed this by looking right at me and saying, “Thank you for doing that work. It’s so important.”

Standing in line at the market I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her. I watched intently as she negotiated the checkout, toddler at her side, young baby in her arms.  What was it like, I wondered, having two? I was filled with curiosity, much as I once had been about pregnancy itself.

I love baseball. Okay, I love the San Francisco Giants. (I especially love it when they’re winning, which they are.) I think I most appreciate that, in baseball, each player has his unique style and contribution to make and his moment at bat, but his talent is only seen, is only really useful, in the larger context of playing as part of a team.

The other day when a friend asked me how I was I had the disquieting experience of hearing my response. What I heard was a well-worn repetition of a tired story–how I am (okay), how my husband is (not so okay), what the kids are doing, where my book is in its publication odyssey (otherwise known as Limbo)–and I thought, “I’m really tired of this story; it’s boring.” Then I thought, “I need a new story.”

The French, it is frequently noted, take the entire month of August for a holiday. Unlike Americans, they are not sensually challenged: their language is gorgeous, they treat food as a worthy pleasure and not some glob to be mindlessly scarfed while driving, they drink wine at lunch and dinner and they don’t blink at the idea of a mistress.

First, I want to thank the many kind people who have inquired about my well-being since last month’s column. Here’s the update: I’ve tried everything from shaman to MRI and I’m still in pain, the cause of which remains a mystery; but I did discover that I have three disintegrating joints in my neck, so at least I got something for my trouble.

Two weeks ago my daughter and I had a nasty little tumble from my bicycle, which plopped us rudely onto Third Street and left us battered and bruised. Being five, Sophia recovered at the speed of light. Being some decades past five, I am still purple and in pain.

“The pursuit of happiness” is an odd phrase in our Declaration of Independence. Like Justice Scalia, I imagine that I know what the founders meant by it, but it seems to me that the concept of “pursuing” happiness is wrong-headed.

Five hundred years ago cartographers, imagining what lay beyond the known borders of the earth, poetically wrote that beyond a certain point in the uncharted seas “there be dragons.”  Dragons are the mythological, metaphorical expression of our innermost fears; the sea they inhabit our unknown future.

My quiet little life of writing and drinking too much tea has lately given way to a crash course in social media as I prepare to move my book into the public eye. While I love being in the middle of a creative blitz, the cramming of technology as a second language (TSL) has me feeling slightly stupid, excessively amped, and generally off-kilter.

Winter is arrived, wrapping us in the deepest darkness.  The sun sits suspended on an invisible threshold, its solstice marking both an end and a beginning, a tipping point.  The power, the crisis of this moment, was keenly felt by our ancestors. 

I’ve long been in the habit of drawing insight from the natural world. Taoism teaches that everything is one; therefore, you can take just about any experience from the natural world and apply it to where you find yourself in order to gain some insight, or direction, or perhaps even a bit of wisdom.