Dear Reader, It’s been a wonderful week of hiking here on the island of Mallorca. October is an ideal time to enjoy the outdoors, with mild temperatures offering a welcome respite from the scorching summer heat. Even a short walk can make a remarkable difference, helping us realign body, mind and spirit and reconnect with what truly matters. My first pilgrimage was in 2006, and over the years, this once-a-year ritual has become something of an addiction—in the best possible sense. Each...
15 days ago • 1 min read
Dear Reader, We live in a world that rewards constant reaction. We comment, explain, defend, correct and respond—often before we have had a moment to ask ourselves what is really going on beneath the surface. This week on the LivingToBe podcast, I explore what can happen when we become a little more intentional about our words, and discover that silence isn’t emptiness. Sometimes, it is where wisdom begins. My article in this week's Blog that goes live on Tuesday is about what the ancient...
28 days ago • 1 min read
Dear Reader, There are places where the boundary between the ordinary and something deeper feels thin. Ancient peoples understood this instinctively — they built their temples and sacred groves where the human world seemed to draw closer to the divine. But the reverse is also true: some landscapes carry the weight of violence and grief, an atmosphere no rational explanation quite accounts for. On my pilgrimage journeys, I've walked into villages and felt an immediate lightness — open doors,...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Dear Reader, On a recent stretch of the Pilgrims' Way from Winchester, I sat in the cathedral during a morning prayer with a handful of strangers, thinking about everyone who had stood in that same spot before me — wondering, as I was, what any of it means. I carried Julian of Norwich with me that day. She wrote "All shall be well" from inside the Black Death — not as a promise that things would turn out fine, but as an invitation to trust anyway. Somewhere in the Itchen valley, under trees...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Dear Reader, The Dalai Lama once said we sacrifice health for money, then money for health, and die having never really lived. Meister Eckhart said the same thing seven centuries earlier, in reverse: break the shell of who you think you are, and you find the kernel underneath. This week, I had an intense conversation on the LivingToBe podcast with hospice chaplain Catherine Duncan She told me what she's seen at hundreds of deathbeds. Status and possessions fall away. What's left is peace,...
2 months ago • 1 min read
Dear Reader, A children's charity mailing free books to children every month up to the age of five got me thinking about something bigger: the words we live with shape how we think, feel and treat each other. Not metaphorically, there's real psychology behind it. From Dolly Parton's Imagination Library to the state of public discourse, this week's blog traces a single thread: language isn't neutral. What we hear and repeat, from childhood stories to social media pile-ons, leaves a mark — on...
3 months ago • 1 min read
Dear Reader, Dear Reader, There are two things I would love to share with you this week. I had a great conversation with bestselling author Ulrich Schaffer, who lives in Canada, on the art of conscious living. In an inspiring conversation, we explored the differences between religion and spirituality, the gifts of solitude, caring for a loved one through dementia, aging with grace, and why a meaningful life begins with paying attention. Check it out here on LivingToBE. You can also see it on...
3 months ago • 1 min read
Dear Reader, I'd love to share two conversations that I think will resonate with you. Recently, I joined Sana on the Mindful Journey podcast to explore the profound difference between a hike and a pilgrimage. We talked about why walking can become so much more than exercise—it can become a path of transformation. Some of the ideas we explore include: A hike is something you finish. A pilgrimage is something that finishes you. Religion often tells you what to believe. Pilgrimage invites you to...
3 months ago • 1 min read
Dear Reader, This Sunday I want to share with you one of the most enduring images in Christian spirituality. For centuries, pilgrims, monks, artists, and seekers have meditated before Andrei Rublev's The Trinity. Many consider it the greatest icon ever painted, not so much for its technique but for what it reveals about the nature of God. Most religious images cast God as ruler, judge, or distant monarch. Rublev offers something else entirely — and in an age shaped by division, competing...
3 months ago • 1 min read