This post originally appeared on a blog site called "Rescue Dog Tales." He came with the name Pony-Pony. For obvious reasons, we changed it—quickly. But we didn’t go with my son’s suggestion: Brownie. To the child who’d named the goldfish with big eyes, Eyes, and the one with a gold cap, Hat… well, you get the picture. Instead, we admired the overgrown mane of this plain Jane equine and equated it with our favorite vintage animated cartoon character. Shaggy it was. Shaggy was

Access the audio version here. I avoid vacation. I don’t like the inconvenience of packing up and relocating to a place where I can do the same thing I can do from home. It drives my family crazy but honestly, it’s not my fault. Living in Philadelphia with its vast options for entertainment and recreation makes it easy for me to be a homebody. Quite frankly, I’m justified. So in August when I was invited to go on the rodeo “trail” with a friend of mine who’s a professional bu

Access the audio version here. Yeah, I have anxiety. For years I’ve said that I don’t but within every definition of the condition, it’s evident. I do. Leaving the house is an undeserved chore and I’d rather starve than watch the automatic doors greet me at the grocery. The thought of abandoning the isolated comfort of my cottage paralyzes me. But I do it. Because what I want in life makes the choice a necessary evil. I’m getting better at it. I’ve reduced my wardrobe to the

Access the audio version here. I doubted the pond had anything more to say, I mean, how many times could I stand by murky water and get a message? The urge that day to plant myself on the rock wall amid goat turds and mown grass debris to dangle my feet in the cool water was, I felt, ridiculous, but I did it anyway. Here’s the silly part: I always suspend my feet cautiously below the surface, careful to watch for that elusive snapping turtle. I can see my toes but I can’t see

Access the audio version here. Good luck, bad luck, fate, destiny, karma. Each word elicits an emotional response. Each describes something that seems out of my control. As such, I don’t care for them. I don’t appreciate my emotions jump-roping through commas like an Indy car leading the heart of my emotional soul by the nose. There is only one thing I can control and that is my thoughts. How I choose to feel in any given moment is up to me. So what do I do when those words a

Access the audio version here. I arrived, anxious and hesitant, even with my husband by my side, wondering what the day would bring. Then instantly in the sparsely populated room, I sideswiped a stranger, making me feel like an imbecile. Politely she apologized, as did I since it appeared to me to be my fault, but I found something familiar in her stature and her face. She failed to recognize me but took the conversation to the next level, saying, “Well, let’s see how we’d kn

Access the audio version here. For one reason: to bloom. That’s why a flower exists. That’s why we exist. That’s why I exist. But it wasn’t always like that. If you desire something other than what life has become, the shift you’re looking for will never occur until you embrace one thing: awareness—simple recognition of the thought you’re thinking that drives the behavior you use in every single interaction that has created the life you currently live—one you now claim you do

What’s big is small; what’s small is big. I say that. And I mean it. I use it in context quite often to help grasp the enormity of the power of the universe within each tiny moment. It means that if everything that exists is energy, the smallest interaction with the force that’s being witnessed at this moment is but a mirror for all that surrounds us. It’s a universal law just like the one that states that an object in motion stays in motion until acted upon by an equal and o