For much of my life, I struggled enormously with the notion of community. I always felt outside. For periods of times I would “join” a community and spend time there. It would be important in my life...

 Discovering, and fully knowing, Basic Goodness has been the most fundamental transformation I’ve gone through.

If you can discover this inside and around you, it will change everything about how ...

I grew up in a land of constant fighting. The Ireland I grew up in is a divided nation. So much hate, dotted across a beautiful green island. People killing constantly. Taking young men out to the b...

 I wrote this poem at the time when I made the decision to set off down the path of listening to my heart, to commit to myself. To put my metaphorical backpack on my back and commit to the road of per...

 At a certain point, something happened to me. I started hearing my voice. I mean, it had been there all along, but now I really started to hear it. More than that, I began to listen to it. And I bega...

 In Oregon, where I was living in a cabin in the forest, I took a new road. That day, I took a right where before I had gone straight. As I drove down this new-to-me road, I couldn’t help but notice t...

I waltzed down Grafton Street, the main shopping street in the center of Dublin, Ireland, on a sunny spring day. I held a giant bouquet of flowers close to my chest,  both arms fully wrapped around ...

 I stood in my bedroom, a pile of probably 100 shirts on the bed, along with many other pieces of clothing, reaching several feet high above the bed. I stood beside the bed with one of the shirts in h...

 Shortly after I quit my job, left my apartment and the city I’d been in for almost 20 years, and left to wander the world to follow my heart, I woke up with a strong feeling. Not that I have no home,...

Standing on Pearl Street in downtown Boulder, Colorado. It is 7pm, the shops are closing. I am here with a purpose. I choose an Italian restaurant for my experiment. There are a few people inside, ...

The image above is a personal logo. I developed it myself as a my own spiritual totem, based on powerful teachings that hold deep personal meaning, gathered from my insatiable curiosity to explore the...

 The Heart’s Call and the Resistance We Meet

So many of us are called by our heart to create something in the world. To do meaningful work. To manifest our purpose. And yet so many don’t go all that ...

I have been very ill for the past month. Debilitatingly so. For much of this time I haven’t been able to walk, hardly even to the bathroom, without large effort, holding myself up by the wall. My mu...

As you might know, when we sit in meditation we notice a thought arise, and when we notice that we’ve been thinking, we can simply label it “thinking”.

Thinking.

And let it fade as simply as it ar...

 The main practice that I am living life by at the moment is one I call “Care How I Feel”. This is a phrase I picked out of a workshop I went to a few months ago. This phrase in particular “Care How Y...

 I walked out of the office from the side door. I bid a last silent, unseen and unheard goodbye to everyone as I did, feeling into the shock, the clarity of this final walk through the door. Without a...

A strong smell appeared to me, as I drove across the massive Bay Bridge that stretches between Oakland and San Francisco. It was New Year’s Day, this year. The afternoon sun shone bright and low, th...

A few days ago I was on a boat ride from Boca de Tomatlan to Yelapa, Mexico. The only way to get to Yelapa is by boat, there are no roads. We had arrived too late to catch the regular water taxi ser...

 A thought today about the ineffable nature and power of scale and perspective. Looking out at the ocean while meditating, the vastness of it, the never-ending roiling of the waves, the heaving to and...

 I feel the draw of heading out with only my daypack. Down to the bare essentials – journal, laptop, a few clothes, toothbrush. The feeling that everything, absolutely everything that I need is with m...

 I continue to deepen my understanding and practice of fear and uncertainty. It’s a fascinating and highly useful skill to expand our capacity to feel fear yet still take action. Fearlessness, that aw...

It’s a busy morning at my local coffee shop, a place I come to write. I manage to stake out a claim on a table in the corner, amidst the chattering rollicking kids clambering around their chairs. Ki...

 Tonight the fear washes over me like the tide running suddenly in on the beach, far further than the previous surge. In the past 18 hours I have sold almost everything I own, including my bed, my bow...

 I look out the coffeeshop window. Sun is shining on the wet roadways and tennis court. I tell a lady I’m moving out and going traveling indefinitely. Her whole face breaks into a smile, a huge warm e...