The Guest House: "Gem Tactics" – Details, episodes & analysis

You’re invited next September 20-26, 2026, to The Tender Harvest, a week-long retreat amidst the golden hues and organic bounty of the world-class Ballymaloe House in County Cork, Ireland. Each day will feature yoga, meditation, farm-to-table meals, and curated excursions—plus ample time for rest, self-nurturance, and imagination.

__

I awake to the murmur of a boy speaking to his slumbering father. All night long, the darkening stillness of December had settled over the house, and, as usual, our son had scampered down the hall just before dawn, burrowed under a breathing mound of blankets, and reached toward whichever one of us was nearest. “I love you so much,” I hear my child sigh as he tucks himself beneath the warm weight of his father’s arm.

I have no language to measure such a moment, ordinary though it may seem. I have only an attention born of it, a residue of tenderness reminding me that somehow –however improbable, fleeting, and marvelous – we are here together, and here at all.

Later, diagonal rays of winter sunlight beam across the sky, a fact bright enough to leave an afterimage seared on the inside of my eyelids. Of this event, too, I keep only what impression remains: a momentary flash that lingers and softens.

Which brings me to the medicine of tenderness—our capacity not just to intellectualize or conceptualize, but to feel the invisible textures of this living world. The word “tender” shares its etymological parent, the Latin word tendere–meaning “to extend outward or upward, to stretch toward or hold out, to offer; to direct toward, to aim toward”–with the verb “to tend,” in the sense of caring for, but also with “intention,” “attention,” and “tenders,” the small boats that carry people or goods from larger vessels to shore.

A thruline here links the practices of intention and attention, guiding our consciousness toward what we care about, with a whole-bodied suppleness of presence. The metaphor of tender boats bridges the mutual nature of tenderness. How can one person’s practice of tenderness bring another to shore in a gradual and reciprocal softening of nervous systems? How is it that when one person rests with awareness in the tender weight of their body, heart, and mind, it can signal to another that their bruises are safe from further harm?

Ezra Klein recently shared an interview with Patti Smith, the iconic musician, writer, and visual artist—sometimes called the “godmother of punk”—who rejects those labels wholesale. With a shrug that suggests the humbler, deeper values of her practice, she says, “call me a worker.” I love her for that.

Many moments resonate in their conversation, but none so much as when she likens a good poem to a teardrop: “If you’re thirsty and you get that drop of water, it suddenly becomes the most welcome thing in the world.” My mind catches on what kind of thirst—what invisible needfulness—a good poem can satisfy. This is not the thirst of the yarrow or migrating whitethroat, not even the thirst of the bear in autumn. It seems a uniquely human thirst that calls out for the sincerity of real art.

On the subject of death and spiritual thirst, Mary Oliver wrote: “Who knows what will finally happen or where I will be sent, yet already I have given a great many things away, expecting to be told to pack nothing, except the prayers which, with this thirst, I am slowly learning.”

I believe this kind of thirst, of the nature of wanting to understand and be nourished by the mystery of our existence—by the grace of what it means that we are alive and able to wonder at the circumstances of our aliveness—dwells somewhere beneath the surface of every human being. This thirst lives in the unseen currents of heartache, uncertainty, and longing that flow like water beneath a frozen river.

According to fellow poet Jane Hirshfield, Galway Kinnell once called “Tenderness” “the secret title of every good poem.” That line, for me, speaks to the particular mechanism within poetry that can meet such thirst. Tenderness is the dynamic tension between bearing witness to our shared fragility and strengthening our capacity for wholehearted presence and connection with ourselves and each other. It is the alchemy of kindness that can distill cold facts into feelings, thaw a hardened heart, and show us how we’re not alone. Like a teardrop, a gesture of tenderness can be small and exact, yet it can quench us with vital sustenance and healing.

Strangely, the image of a teardrop has seeped into my morning practice like a quiet teaching. As I reach for some nearby poem, my mind skidding over the uneven terrain of the hours ahead, I pause to take a breath, and it occurs to me: I can carry a teardrop inside this day. Most authentic mindfulness practices seem strange to the outer gaze, but their effectiveness lies in the specificity and earnestness with which we orient toward them. So, here it is: a useful practice, an invisible resource to mind my life. One way I am learning to soften.

__

+ Join me every month for movement + meditation exclusively for paid supporters of The Guest House. Our next practice will be live on Thursday, December 18, at 9 am MT / 11 am ET, and will be shared via replay soon thereafter.

+ Back to a regular studio class! Join me at YogaSource in Santa Fe every Wednesday morning, 9-10:15 am MT / 11 am-12:15 pm ET for Dynamic Practice. This class is live and not recorded. Join in-person or virtually from home. Register directly through the studio here.

+ Two deeply envisioned retreats in the year to come: first at Beyul Retreat in the pristine wilderness surrounding Aspen, Colorado, for an extended Memorial Day weekend, May 21-25, 2026; then at world-class Ballymaloe House in County Cork, Ireland, September 20-26, 2026. All the details here.

Together, we are making sense of being human in an era of radical change. Your presence here matters. Thank you for reading, sharing, ‘heart’ing, commenting, and subscribing to The Guest House.

In conversation with poet Parker Palmer, we trace the quiet art of listening for one’s true vocation, the solace of circles where no one is fixed or saved, and the long, harrowed path toward a wholeness that does not deny its own fractures.

Parker J. Palmer is a writer, speaker and activist who focuses on issues in education, community, leadership, spirituality and social change. He is founder and Senior Partner Emeritus of the Center for Courage & Renewal, which supports people in every walk of life in nurturing deep integrity and relational trust for the sake of personal and social transformation.

Palmer holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California at Berkeley, fourteen honorary doctorates, and two Distinguished Achievement Awards from the National Educational Press Association. Among his honors, he is a recipient of the William Rainey Harper Award, previously given to Margaret Mead, Elie Wiesel, and Paolo Freire. In 2021, the Freedom of Spirit Fund, a UK-based foundation, gave him their Lifetime Achievement Award in honor of work that promotes and protects spiritual freedom.

Palmer is the author of ten books—including several award-winning titles—that have sold over two and a half million copies and been translated into twenty languages. Anniversary editions of three of his books were issued in 2024: Healing the Heart of Democracy, A Hidden Wholeness, and Let Your Life Speak. An updated edition of On the Brink of Everything and a 30th anniversary edition of The Courage to Teach are due in late 2026.

Resource Links:

Learn more about Parker and his work:

Website: Center for Courage & Renewal

Substack: Living the Questions with Parker J. Palmer

Substack Author Page: https://substack.com/@parkerjpalmer861952

Facebook: Facebook Author Page

More from David - book releases, workshops, mindfulness talks, upcoming events, and more:

Website: Davidkeplingerpoetry.com

Instagram: @DavidKeplingerPoetry

Substack: Another Shore with David Keplinger

Substack Author Page: https://substack.com/@davidkeplinger

More from Shawn - free audio meditations, upcoming events, retreats, monthly essays, yoga classes, and music alchemy:

Website: Shawnparell.com

Instagram: @ShawnParell

Substack: The Guest House

Substack Author Page: https://substack.com/@shawnparell

Together, we’re being human in an era of radical change. Your presence here matters. Bless our work algorithmically with your <3s and comments, and share this post with a loved one. Paid subscriptions make this offering possible. Thank you!

Springtime in North Carolina is gorgeous. It can’t help itself. Perhaps it’s oblivious to—or in radical disagreement with—the brokenness of our times. Either way, the azaleas burst into riotous bloom, the crepe myrtles frill themselves in defiant pinks. In the mornings, birds trade secrets across the creek, their calls carried on air perfumed with fresh dew on pine needles to the back porch, where I sit in my mother’s rocking chair.

This is the place where one branch of my family has put down roots. An invisible wheel exists here among us, with smaller wheels—wheels within wheels—turning persistently through the seasons. It’s also the place where a beloved uncle passed last autumn, just as the maple outside his bedroom window flared into auburn light. In his final days, we watched that tree together and recounted long-forgotten stories. I remembered a visit to First Street in Rumson, when he swung me onto his shoulders and walked down the street. I remembered how the curves of his shoulders hummed beneath me as he laughed. How tall I felt then, how near to the canopy of trees; how the world suddenly seemed bigger and closer, and I, more a part of it—alive to everything, and everything alive around us.

Memory can work like this—the way light filters through leaves or a scent pulls you backward. In a recent conversation with Krista Tippett, musician Justin Vernon (better known as Bon Iver) said, “I thought I was done being surprised… but there are things behind things behind things.” The layers accumulate, folded under the weight of time, only to surface in time, unbidden yet strangely familiar.

Now the maple is green again, its leaves doing what they were made to do when touched by springtime light. Its roots drink in a soft rain. Some layers remain hidden, or slip away, only to circle back, as though time itself were not linear, but folding in on itself like fabric. And I think about how you have entered the mystery now, and maybe you are humming in some new, unknowable way.

Practice—call it “mindfulness” or whatever name feels right—is an agreement to be touched by the world, by the nature of our aliveness. David Abram called it “a kindredship of matter with itself.” We learn to live in reciprocal communion, even unknowingly, and discover within ourselves gradually more tonality, more steadiness, more truth. When we plant ourselves in this moment, and notice the ways we are thirsty, and then return again and again, we begin to sense that our lives are not just motion or mechanism, but part of some deeper listening—not just hub and spoke, but spiraling motion.

Hope, too, is a force of nature. It arrives unannounced. Here’s another chance, another season. The word numinous comes from numen—a Latin term that means both “a nod of the head” and “divine will.” Now spring has found its fulcrum, and with a quiet nod toward resurrection, it invites us to reach for something like joy, whether or not we feel ready or agree with time’s assessment.

Springtime is not a promise. It’s a presence. A tilt in the wheel. A shimmer in the unseen. A reminder that aliveness is not always sweet or simple—but it is, still, ours.

Together, we are making sense of being human in an era of radical change. Your presence here matters. Thank you for reading, sharing, ‘heart’ing, commenting, and subscribing to The Guest House.

Today is the Vernal Equinox. We’re promised incremental victories of light. But early spring is no darling — not here in the high desert. Here, she can be chafing and mercurial; she can show up in sputtering, immature fits and freezes; in mean winds that would cut down the most tender and flower-faced among us without reason.

Earlier this week, the sky howled and turned the color of mud at mid-day. Cell phones blared out public safety warnings. Dust agitated at every seam.

What’s a nervous system to do? Have mercy on the tender-hearted, Lord — on the dream of apricots and cherries, and the boy at school pickup who is rubbing and rubbing his nose against the back of his chapped hand.

Like you, I am learning to find refuge. I am learning to take shelter in the soft aliveness of my body; remembering in adulthood what came so easily and imaginatively to my younger self — how to build a fort, how to tuck into a small world of my own making.

So, I gather a reading light, a ball of yarn, knitting needles, and a poetry collection, and I tent a wool blanket over my head to hole up for the duration.

One thing I know for sure is how a poem can serve like the keel of a boat, offering stability and resistance against sideways forces. A poem — a few words that, when linked together at an angle just so, can carry us into and beyond their meaning. And so it is with this needfulness, under a blanket in my living room, that I come to Wordsworth’s “Lines Written in Early Spring,” a meditation he wrote in 1798 on the joyful, interwoven consciousness of nature — a “thousand blended notes” of birdsong — and humanity’s grievous failure to remember its place under the canopy of all things.

In the grove where the speaker sits, twigs “spread out their fan,” flowers “enjoy the air,” and Nature, personified, is a force with a “holy plan.” But human beings, the speaker laments, have lost the splendrous sensibilities of spring: “If such be Nature’s holy plan / Have I not reason to lament / What man has made of man?”

It occurs to me that man has done many good things with his hands. I am thinking now of a live performance of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2, or the sweater that Wendy-from-the-yarn-shop just masterfully knitted, or the perfectly packaged mini-waffles my friend Ted brought back from a recent trip to Japan.

But much of the time, we get things at least half-wrong. Like seed-creatures, we struggle to find our way upward through hard ground. We move too quickly, unaware of our conditions, and make mistakes. We forget to pause and remember the purpose of our unearthing. And we forget the interweave, the garden of our original belonging.

So, I’m teaching myself how to knit. Novice that I am, it’s awkward work. It’s near-in. I tink (a new word for me, a semordnilap that refers to the act of un-stitching) almost as often as I knit. I struggle to position my hands, to maintain the right angle, I poke around and lose count and then I have to begin again.

And in all this seeming progress and unraveling, as I return to mistakes embedded long ago, a new pattern — peaceful and even elegant — is steadily emerging. Oh, nervous system, dear friend. I am un-stitching and stitching myself back together again. I am braiding threads of myself into an artwork of my own making, which is weaving me back into something greater than my own making. And when the thing is ready, I will hold it up in wonder. I will hold it to my cheek.

Together, we are making sense of being human in an era of radical change. Your presence here matters. Thank you for reading, sharing, ‘heart’ing, commenting, and subscribing to The Guest House.

Found amidst the twisted metal and ash of a family’s home in the Pacific Palisades is a pottery shard with a single word inscribed upon it: love.

It’s a clay piece no wider than the palm of your hand, a remnant from a serving dish that a daughter made for her mother, who displayed it in the bungalow where she lived for forty-seven years until one recent day when a black-plumed terror tore through the neighborhood, and it burned to the ground.

For Diana, the one who first taught me how to love. Thank you, Mama. Happy Mother’s Day, 2011. Your loving daughter, Lisa.

Little remains after a fire. Not the for nor the who nor even the you. In the yard, a wind sculpture spirals upward in the stunned calm of a new day. Stone chimneys stand, only they are no longer chimneys but landmarks by which neighbors orient themselves amidst the rubble and scars of their former lives. A clay murti still sits demurely on the mantle. It is a metaphor, if not a miracle — how the heat melted away its glaze and revealed the form beneath.

And love, in all its blessed unlikeliness. Having passed through the inferno of its creation, having withstood as the house wailed and collapsed around it, this small and necessary gift is discovered atop a charred pyre as though placed there, liberated, message intact.

City skies are painted on linear scraps and framed by buildings. The desert sky is like this: giant, unmitigated, persistent. To live well in the desert, you must look to the opening above the narrow frame of your life. You must consider how light moves across the sky, how gods shift their bodies over the landscape, then bow and tuck themselves behind the night until the sun rises again the next day.

Azure is beautiful but can also be unyielding. The earth firms and softens according to the seasons. Slow water eases; gentle water eases. Fast water flashes off the hard earth and floods the arroyos. And if the water does not come — if the days are brittle and the future unknowable — we are thirsty for it.

When the ground dries, we feel it in our joints. The sky lifts — quiet, strange. We ask for water. Lord, quell our bodies and minds. Lord, irrigate our hearts. Lord, make us watertight.

Then, the birds come looking for water. We give them water.

Mary Oliver writes:

I tell you thisto break your heart,by which I mean onlythat it break open and never close againto the rest of the world.

A poet finds a way to say what must be said when it must be said. A poet is made of poppies and daffodils, yes, but also of unflinching metal. Forged in fire, quenched in water, a poet is like a sword meant to wield, cut through, and rise again.

Metal cannot help but conduct warmth. Metal cannot help but have luster, for it reflects the sun's light. Metal has solidity, a high melting point, and sharpness. It houses its own shadow, like most earthly things. So, when metal writes about lead, it knows a thing about it. And when metal says —

Here is a story to break your heart.

Are you willing?

You are willing.

Steadfast comes from the Old English stedefæst, meaning "firmly fixed, constant; secure; enclosed, watertight; strong, fortified." It first referred to English warriors in the 10th century who stood their ground, weapons readied, unyielding to Viking invaders.

And here is one more reminder of the determination of love. In Portuguese, the word resistencia is a false cognate. You’d think it means resistance, but no — resistencia is closer to endurance, to the practice of withstanding. Resistencia refers to that which is unbreakable.

To endure is to show up in the ways that most reflect who we are and what we love, to continually orient ourselves, even amidst circumstances we would not choose. When the instinct is to burn, to endure is to carry water instead.

Become a paid subscriber for $6/month to access monthly yoga + meditation practices exclusively for The Guest House community. Practices live or via recording at your convenience. Next gathering soon to be announced!

STEADFAST

(Inspired by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s “Wordlessly”)

The way the pericardium holds the heart,

the pond holds the murk, and fish,

the bowl holds the porridge my child eats

its steam rising to hold her face —

and morning cups the day,

the way day cups the night

in a great, persistent mystery,

the socket holds the gaze.

your palm holds my hand,

your silence holds, “I’m here” —

our bodies hold the ache

of how the world could be,

how the world could be

holding how it is.

- Shawn Parell

Together, we are making sense of being human in an era of radical change. Your presence here matters. Thank you for reading, sharing, ‘heart’ing, commenting, and subscribing to The Guest House.

Dear friend,

I’m writing today from a quiet harbor in the West Indies where, for the past few years, my family has come to rest during the liminal week between Christmas (or this year's portmanteau, Christmukkah) and New Year’s.

In the final days of 2023, in an essay about thresholds and time, I described an overlook I like to walk to here on the island of Grenada — a cliff at the top of a grassy knoll from which water shimmers into a circular horizon. So much has changed since then, a reminder of how the business of time is to change.

If I could, I would tie the gentleness of this place with silk ribbon and dispatch it across the sea in every direction. Nearby, a kindly breeze rocks a resting child in her hammock. My father whispers in my son's ear, laughter buoying up from their bellies as kids scamper barefoot across the thick green lawn and a pot of fresh mint tea rests on the table, its fragrant steam unfurling in the air.

In this place of warbling, white-breasted flycatchers and shading palm fronds, of lilting afternoon voices filtering through muslin curtains, a certain fatigue I can no longer ignore lays its hands calmly on my shoulders. For months, I’ve been brushing aside signals of this heavy tenderness, but now my mind and body settle into them. I begin to wonder about the texture and tone of this fatigue, about its intentions and layers and causes. I watch a ripening calabash tree and imagine what it might feel like — not good, not bad, but simply laden.

I am beginning to re-learn the science and art of rest. I get slower and quieter, simplifying my days by shoring up against the instinct to do, fill, get, and rush. I visualize silk-ribboned gentleness delivered by tiny boats of breath to my nervous system. My mind loosens, and I remember a childhood lesson from my father, who has spent most of his days on or by the ocean, on re-finding equilibrium when feeling sea-rattled: relax as much as possible, breathe deep, and fix your gaze on the horizon, kiddo.

And gradually, my bones begin to feel their weight again.

How many of us carry a quiet knowing, unnoticed or avoided, until stillness brings it into view?

My mind drifts to “The World," a poem by William Bronk that my friend Jess Lazar introduced to me this past year.

I thought you were an anchor in the drift of the world;but no: there isn’t an anchor anywhere.There isn’t an anchor in the drift of the world. Oh no.I thought you were. Oh no. The drift of the world.—The World

It is a sorrowful, even devastating poem, but Bronk’s revelation also carries benevolence. The brimming honesty of “I thought you were...” “but no” reflects and comforts my grappling at the precipice of this new year. Truth be told, I have moved between hope and apprehension, promise and disappointment, acceptance and fear — and it’s exhausting. I’m learning to find a more nuanced, intentional way of leveling my gaze amidst the world's drift.

“The World” is hopeful insofar as its author reaches outside the confines of his one lonely boat to connect with us, his readers. The drift of the world is unrelenting and amoral, he intimates. We are human and, therefore, subject to attachments, grievances, foolishness, and all the rest. Our anchors moor us in their brevity, and our lives, too, shimmer with wakefulness. It’s all so precious and immutable, yet we can tap into unexpected harbors and safe ports, not despite but because of and given the facts.

Rumi reminds us, “Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds’ wings.” We are of the nature to wake up. We are of the nature to let go. “I thought you were an anchor in the drift of the world; but no….” Looking out over azure water, I’m reminded of how life emerges and regenerates from these tidal rhythms — we expand, we contract, an ocean falling and rising again from within.

Together, we are making sense of being human in an era of radical change. Your presence here matters. Thank you for reading, sharing, ‘heart’ing, commenting, and subscribing to The Guest House.

In this insightful conversation, I’m joined by poet James Pearson to explore personal growth, vulnerability, and the creative process. The discussion centers on themes of transformation, wholeheartedness, and navigating life’s difficult "winter seasons," a metaphor for the times of struggle, uncertainty, and rebirth. Pearson shares personal stories from his journey of self-discovery and healing, including the moments of asking for help that led to unexpected lifelines. Together, we delve into the wisdom found in nature's cycles and the power of messy, in-between times for personal growth.

James reflects on his poetic work, particularly his debut collection The Wilderness That Bears Your Name. We discuss the idea of being "mirrored into existence" and the importance of human connection in helping us see and embrace our true selves. This conversation is both a meditation on the cyclical nature of life and an invitation to make room for uncertainty.

Episode Highlights:

* Wholeheartedness: The challenge of connecting to wholeheartedness during difficult, desolate times, and the courage it takes to ask for help.

* Unordinary Emergence: Inspired by David Whyte’s concept of the hidden essence within us that emerges when we are invited and supported.

* Mirroring and Connection: The importance of being "mirrored into existence" through human relationships and how communal reflection shapes our sense of self.

* The Mud Season: The metaphorical season between winter and spring, where growth is messy but crucial.

* Nature’s Lessons on Transformation: Lessons from Parker Palmer and Richard Rohr on the humility and grace found in life's messy, humbling experiences.

* Reclaiming Authenticity: Facing existential crises and shedding old identities to make space for more authentic versions of ourselves.

* Seeing Beauty in the Mess: Reflections on how even life’s "weeds" and imperfections hold beauty and significance.

This episode is an invitation to embrace life's muddy seasons with patience, courage, and the willingness to see possibility in the mess.

* Learn more about James and The Wilderness That Bears Your Name at Jamesapearson.com.

* Connect with James on Instagram: @Jamesapearson

* Subscribe to The Guest House on Substack for regular essays, podcast episodes, and more.

* Shawnparell.com - Check out Shawn's website to sign up for 5 free meditations, join Shawn’s email list for monthly field notes and music alchemy, and learn more about her work and upcoming events.

* Stay connected with Shawn on Instagram @ShawnParell for live weekly meditations and prompts for practice.

* Join David Keplinger and me on January 24-25, 2024, for Mary Oliver and the Quest of Openness: "Are You Willing"?—a yoga, meditation, and somatic inquiry workshop hosted by YogaSource in Santa Fe. Drawing on his many years of friendship with Mary Oliver, David will help us explore themes of openness and willingness in her poetry.

In this deeply moving episode of The Guest House, I sit down with artist and trained therapist Caitlin Rhoades to explore the intricate landscape of grief and death. Through her own experience of compound loss, Caitlin reveals how grief reshapes our lives, teaching us about love, resilience, and the priorities that truly matter. Together, we navigate the societal discomfort surrounding death, the somatic experience of grief, and the transformative power of facing mortality with openness and inquisitiveness.

Whether you’re grieving a loved one, supporting someone through loss, or seeking a deeper comprehension of life’s impermanence, this conversation offers profound insights and actionable wisdom for embracing grief as a natural part of the human journey.

Episode Highlights:

Grief is universal: It’s not limited to the loss of a loved one but encompasses daily and situational losses.

The physical impact of grief: Unprocessed grief can manifest in the body, requiring mindful approaches to healing.

The need for cultural change: Open discussions about death can dismantle societal discomfort and deepen life’s appreciation.

Grief’s nonlinear journey: Every experience of grief is unique, defying a prescriptive process.

Support through presence: Authentic engagement with grievers means meeting them where they are, without judgment or quick fixes.

Transformative potential of grief: Loss can deepen love, joy, and life’s clarity when approached with courage and intention.

Creating space for grief: Normalizing conversations and providing safe environments for emotional expression is vital.

Join us to explore how grief can be a powerful teacher and connector. Reflect on your own relationship with loss, and consider initiating meaningful conversations about death with your loved ones. Please subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with anyone who might find comfort or insight in these reflections.

Resource Links

You can learn more about Caitlin’s work and ways to work with her at caitlinrhoades.com.

Follow Caitlin on Instagram @caitlinrhoadesceramics.

Check out the Getting Your Affairs in Order Checklist: Documents to Prepare for the Future from the National Institute on Aging.

Subscribe to The Guest House on Substack for regular essays, podcast episodes, and more.

Shawnparell.com - Check out Shawn's website to sign up for 5 days of free meditations, join Shawn’s email list for field notes and music alchemy, and learn more about her work and upcoming events.

Stay connected with Shawn on Instagram @ShawnParell for live meditations and prompts for practice.

I'm delighted to invite you to Gathering at the Hearth, a winter retreat in the Rockies co-led with Wendelin Scott, this February 21-24, 2025. Join us at Beyul Retreat near Aspen, Colorado, for a weekend of yoga, meditation, and rest in a serene, snow-covered sanctuary. Cozy cabins, crackling fireplaces, and nourishing practices await—space is limited, so reserve your spot today! Discounted rates when you sign up with a friend.

Subscribe to The Guest House and never miss an episode filled with stories and insights that inspire, connect, and empower.

My grandmother's final gift to me was a rosary of fifty-nine blue stone beads around a silver-cast cross. It arrived in the mail one afternoon with a card that read Dear Shawn, Pray. Love, Gram like a wire sent from her hospice bed in Pennsylvania to my kitchen in New Mexico. What was the lesson my grandmother, at age 98, wanted to dispatch as she packed her bags for another world? With a grocery bag tucked under one arm and a baby on my hip, I read and reread the card, trying to decode her tremulous cursive and the white space around the words, their unspoken context.

Like many women of her generation, my grandmother seemed preternaturally endowed with reserve and fortitude. She graduated from college, became a dietician, served in the military, and raised six children after the love of her life, the grandfather I never met, died in their forties. 

My grandmother wore rubber-heeled red sandals with cherry lipstick. She drove a van with handicap rigging for my aunt, who had cerebral palsy. We spent many childhood summers living under her roof at the lake. She would hand us exactly one dollar each for candy at the bodega on good days. With the point of an index finger, she instructed us to wash your hands, make your bed, unload the groceries, say your please & thank you’s. What my grandmother commanded, we obeyed — and on Fridays, she cooked bolognese. 

Sundays were for church-going. Mary Oliver humbly wrote, “I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention.” I didn’t know how to pray or pay attention, but prayer was the thread my grandmother followed through life’s uncertainties, so to church we went. 

I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible…. To appear good, I joined the murmur of the congregation as the priest in his white and gold vestments lifted a chalice above his head. I remember how the almost sweet scent of incense hung in the air, the hard feel of the wooden pew beneath me, the sound of men clearing their throats, and women singing in airy voices while flipping through thin pages in the book of hymns. I remember how mid-morning light would enter through the stained glass windows above us and calmly spread its wings. 

Since those days, I have learned to pray in four languages. I've made ritual movements with my whole body, sat still in sustained silence, sought refuge in poems, touched flowers, poured water, circled up, made altars, and joined in song. I've sweat through prayers on airplanes and in hospital waiting rooms and held vigil with gripped hands through long nights, repeating the most muscular prayer of all: please. 

I once watched an old woman for an entire day at Boudhanath in Kathmandu. She had worn deep grooves in the wooden board beneath her by anchoring her feet and sliding on her hands and knees, touching her forehead to the ground, murmuring om mani pädme hum, back and forth, forward and back, through countless repetitions.

And though certain prayers have become friends, the specific form is less interesting to me now than the quality of concentration into which any prayer can invite our attention. “Attention” says the French philosopher Simone Weil, “taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love. Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.” Prayer doesn’t require formal structure; it doesn’t even require words. It just asks for presence.

Thich Nhat Hanh once responded to a question about the practice of prayer:

This is the basic condition for the effectiveness of prayer. The one who prays should be truly there, established in the here and now, having a very clear intention, a very clear desire as to whom he or she will pray, and for whom he or she will pray. If the one who prays can put himself or herself in that situation, much has already been done. That person already has begun to generate the energy of prayer, because he or she is truly present in the here and now with concentration, with mindfulness and intention. If that does not happen, well, nothing will happen.

A flame rises without human definition; prayer tends the flame. Prayer is any act that clarifies and concentrates the attentional channel between the one who prays and the direction of all prayer, which is up, which is love. Perhaps this is what Thich Nhat Hanh, who embodied and advocated tirelessly for peace, meant when he spoke of “generat[ing] the energy of prayer.” To be “truly [t]here” is to awaken to the groundlessness of any moment — to our dynamic, collective context — and to anchor ourselves in the living presence we can call by any name, but that does not demand one specific name. The Sanskrit word ishtadevata loosely translates as whatever facet of the divine you can recognize.

For all of us still learning to pay attention, 14th-century mystic Meister Eckhart offered an assurance: “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.” Thanksgiving is a complicated holiday. At best, it invites us to recognize the conditions that nourish and imbue our lives with goodness. This is no passive practice. When we feel re-sized by pain and disillusionment, when uncertainty wraps its cold fingers around our hearts, gratitude is the radical choice to acknowledge the blessed sustenance of our existence nonetheless. "To love life even when you have no stomach for it,” writes poet Ellen Bass. To notice the sun rising yet again. A friend's easy forgiveness. How light enters a room. A palmful of chestnuts. The almost sweet scent of cinnamon leaves. A finely shaped gourd. The way salt flavors a dish. A set table.

Together, we’re making sense of being human in an era of radical change. Your presence here matters. Thank you for reading, sharing, ‘heart’ing, commenting, and subscribing to The Guest House.