The current socio-political climate in the US, and much of the world, is such that we all have work to do to understand our relationship to differences in personal identity. Doing awakening work today requires us to lean in to how we embody our lived e …
Category: Essay – Profile Page
White Woman Witnessing
It’s been a deep journey of grief for me since George Floyd was murdered by police officers in Minneapolis on May 25. You might wonder why this is newsworthy, the feelings of a white woman of late life, product of privilege, in the face of global unres …
Growing Up Beyond Inclusion
“If only we could just get along. If only we could just be one happy, human family.” It’s a good dream, a valid dream, and one worth investing heart and soul into. And us White people want to believe that including people of color will get us the …
Racism is Alive in Me
As we say in Trillium Awakening: the good news is that perfection is not required in order to have a spiritual awakening. And, we are quick to add: the bad news is that perfection is not bestowed upon spiritual awakening! This is a humbling fact, to sa …
My Story
I’m delighted and a little surprised to find myself writing this “teacher bio” — who’d a thunk? Here’s why: once upon a time, when I was little, science was my family’s religion. My parents were “fundamentalist atheists” meaning that they were as vehe …
The Simplified Short Version of Van’s Evolved Dharma
There is only Ultimate Radiant Divine Being, or the Ultimate Divine Self. Paradoxically, Ultimate Radiant Divine Being is simultaneously both unmanifested and manifested.There is nothing/no thing, no one, no where, and no place that is not Ultimate Div …
Trust in God and Tie Your Camel
As a lover of acronyms (they help me learn and remember), I offer up a new one for this time of global pandemic and widespread fear. FEARR (Feeling, Experience, Acceptance, Reality/Revelation) Many of us are feeling fear as we hear about what’s happeni …
Living with Uncertainty
A good deal of our work in Trillium Awakening is about “greenlighting,” saying yes to what is arising. It’s tied deeply into our way to Trust in Being, to radically embrace who and how and what we are in any given moment. The path to realizing consciou …
Mutuality: Awareness in Words
Something that stays constant for me is awareness. Whatever is happening inside of me in some response or reaction to pleasure or pain, I am aware of it in a full sense. It hasn’t always been this way. For most of my life, awareness was filtered throug …
Awakening (to Our Senses)
A talk from an online sitting, January, 2019 Winter time is, in Chinese medicine terms, a period of maximum Yin. Yin is coldness, darkness, stillness, quietness, transformation and potential. It contrasts with Yang – fire, light, action, noise, movemen …