dripping with passion

i’m in the middle of a three day juice cleanse. i really like this challenge and the feeling of my body being rejuvenated by nutrients from the earth. {i did a six day cleanse nearly two years ago , and i can’t believe it’s taken me this long to do another. i finally bought myself my own juicer.} another thing i like about juicing is the fun of making up random combinations of fruits and vegetables. so far i’ve made orange-grapefruit-cucumber, cantaloupe-carrot-pineapple, apple-pear-spinach and honeydew-kiwi-celery . there’s some strawberry-carrot-mango in my fridge for tomorrow and i’m also excited to try sweet potato-red bell pepper-apple-ginger . although i am sometimes really, awfully bad at it, i super believe in mindful eating . food and the human body are both so glorious!

1. january in palo alto the weather was positively glorious this weekend. on saturday i went on a bike ride with a friend from our neighborhood through the luscious, sun-drenched, tree-lined streets leading to downtown palo alto. we ate lunch outside on a pretty patio – it was just so lovely ! i took a long run along the alpine trail in portola valley that evening at sunset. sunday morning i woke up and hiked in the hills above that same trail, and it was balmy and verdant and so pleasant. not bad at all for the last week in january. 2. running and my body i am training for my second half marathon, which i will run on february 8 in san diego. i am just amazed by and so grateful for my healthy body. like most (all?) women, i often wish my body looked differently in some way or another, but – seriously! – it is magnificent! i love love love the feeling i have after finishing a long run (i don’t always love the feelings before finishing!). 3. following humansofny on instragram i had se...

it was the p.s. that really convinced me to love myself :) every single day lately, i feel a lot of struggle to get out of bed (before the sun comes up!) and get to work. but every single day, the second the first “good mornings” are exchanged with my students, i am glad i am awake and there.

saydi and i went to see “ graced with light ,” an art installation made up of twenty miles of colorful ribbons in san francisco’s grace cathedral. i got to play with my new camera (eeek sooo excited about it!) as we walked under the cascading hues wrapped up in the gentle peace of the airy, hallowed church. those colors, that light, those patterns – they just soothed the soul. i loved the way the sun outside sent spattered dazzling colors onto the cold, achromatic stone while the tints and tones of the ribbons seeped through the empty, ebony nave. it reminded me that brilliant color and gleaming light can infuse any darkness. as i stood surrounded in color in a place named for grace , i felt hope stream like the ribbons. {i just learned that another element of this installation is video projection, which happens during the weekly yoga on the labyrinth class at the cathedral – so i’ll have to go back!}

on saturday morning at 7am, the buzzing of my phone woke me up. it was my sister saydi, calling from boston. i figured she forgot to factor in the time change, and i drowsily silenced the call. when she called again, i was a little annoyed that i wasn’t left to sleep in when i have such early weekday mornings! when the phone rang the third time, i groggily answered, “hey sayd, is everything okay?” she told me that she had just booked a plane ticket and was leaving her house in half an hour, and that she’d be here at 8:45pm, if that was okay with me. what an act of pure sisterlove!! saydi woke up, read a sorrowing email i’d sent the night before, arranged for the care of her husband and four children, and went to the airport. i am tremendously touched by her decision to come, and enormously imbued with love and strength from her visit. i still can’t believe this happened! and i’ll never be able to belive how blessed i am to have this sisterlove. on sunday we walked the dish, explor...

this week, i have needed to focus a lot of attention and energy to healing . there has been, recently, a resurgence of my heart’s flowing wintry river of grief . i have felt as if i am in the middle of an extremely painful furnace of sanctification. and while i’ve felt scathed, scalded and charred,  i have also experienced the wonder of not being consumed by those flames, and can feel them purifying me. in this blaze, i am miraculously healing. part of this healing is choosing to claim peace over understanding. my heart and mind cannot understand all the complexities that have brought me to this great hurt, but: the peace of god, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds… -philippians 4:7 yes, there are so many things i don’t understand. but there are few things i feel i can believe for sure. and the peace of those things passes understanding and allows the flames to refine rather than consume. **first, i believe that god is aware of me, and that he will...

  on the morning of january 1, 2014, i read the last page of the book of mormon. over the years, i have kept a list of completion dates in the front of my scriptures, and i have now read that sacred, treasured, beautiful volume sixteen times in my life. it just feels like it gets better every time. i have had incredible experiences over the course of those sixteen reads that have very thoroughly convinced me that the book of mormon is authentic and is holy, and that testimony has allowed me to gain faith in many sublime truths. i was thinking today about the ways that the book of mormon has impacted my life, and about the lessons that i have learned from its content and narrative.  i realized that one central message in those pages is a truth i’ve often considered: hard is good . the text is full of stories of sanctification from hardship, beauty for ashes, redemption borne from suffering … and the existence of the book itself is an example of something miraculous and won...

yesterday was the monday of all mondays. coming back to work after two full weeks off? yuck. i went to sleep on sunday feeling pretty overwhelmed. real life sure smacks you in the face after a long break! but i immediately remembered how much i love the students at my school when i arrived on campus at 7:20am. and i was feeling fresh with new years' resolutions under my hair. i decided it was going to be a good day. and, even though i lost my keys and became stranded, it was a good day, and today too. i am buried in new books for our school library that i picked up (for free!) before the break. somehow i've become a librarian. and i kind of love it! i've noticed that the thing i tell students most often is "you get to choose" - you get to choose if you behave well or not, if you work hard and succeed academically or not, if you are respectful or not, if you have a good day or not. and i've realized that i need to keep telling myself the same thing....

also during my week in utah: -went to three movies! i hardly ever go to movies in the theater. it helps when mom and dad are paying :) i saw saving mr. banks and the secret life of walter mitty with my parents and a late night showing of catching fire with catherine. -visited with dear high school friends (and their babies), and then took a run to hire’s big h – the classic east high spot. -slept in and spent lazy mornings at my parents’ house snuggled in the mountains…had great conversations by the fire. -strolled around the galleries of park city’s main street and enjoyed a delicious meal at a darling cafe with my sweet mom. -attended music and the spoken word at the conference center. i was so full up that i felt like my heart was going to burst. the music was spectacular (and the choir sang one of my very most favourite songs which is very tender to me), and the prophet was there! -went to my best-friend-from-the-womb jane’s saturday morning pilates class. it was so fun to ...