Dear friend, thank you for being here. I’m grateful for the new subscribers to knowing thyself—welcome! Please say hi in the comments or by email. I’d love to hear what lights you up, what makes you sneer, and your favorite quiet places on Earth.
One of mine? I call it the Redwood Cathedral—among the big trees behind the Henry Miller Memorial Library in Big Sur, California. The robust hush on that path pulls my mind to stillness. A few steps in, and the thoughts pinballing through my head settle into tidy rows of paused ideas. Nothing to do. Nowhere to go. Just a place to be, letting the rest happen.
A quick call to action: Twenty amazing folks pay for subscriptions to knowing thyself. Why? I’m curious! Paid friends—monthly or yearly—I’d love to hear from you. It means the world to me because it helps me help others. What inspires you to share?
I’m committed to keeping this space free for all—no paywalls, ever. If you’re able to support it, your reward will come. I can’t promise what cosmic hug you’ll get, but how about a one-line poem from me to you? Want to see what happens?
It’s all part of the game, isn’t it? We have, we lose. We learn, we share. Ups and downs. Chutes and Ladders. Know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, and so on.
What better way to close our month of silence than to nod at the fleeting nature of everything we touch? Our dear belongings, our dear friends, our beloveds. Our own ephemeral condition. And how the quiet sometimes scares us with its reminder: everything is preparing for departure.
I find it relieving, honestly. We spend so much time voicing discontent, fears, doubts—none of these stories tell the whole truth. They only persist as long as we feed them. In other words, everything is meant to pass.
Issues of esteem, too. Self-worth. That imposter syndrome thing. All this “I’m no good” storytelling? It has no place to land unless we pave the runway.
We pave plenty by saying things like: ‘I’m so dumb,’ ‘I’m a terrible person,’ ‘I can’t be happy,’ or ‘It’s just who I am—a mess, a failure, a victim, a burden.’ Pick any unhappiness, and we help it stick by giving it voice. We claim it, identify with it, when all it’s meant to do is drift by—like clouds, seasons, those old shoes you wore out.
Emotions, thoughts, moods, wounds—all of it passes if we give it space to move. All of it fades when we stop poking it. Poke an emotion, it escalates. Dwell on a sour mood, it goes rancid. Pick the scab? You get the idea.
In silence, we surrender. We acknowledge without stirring trouble. We allow without poking, picking, or fixating. In silence, peace rises.
Here’s a thought: the practice of yoga is a preparation for death. This may not be the studio slogan, I know, but hear me out—the union it promises is with the Creator. We often think that comes at life’s end. Maybe. The truth is, we meet death again and again through every stage.
We learn to walk and die to crawling. We grow independent and die to dependency. We find a beloved, live in love, then something shifts—a living love dies, and we’re reborn to new love. An awareness waits, free of the armor we’ve built to dodge it. At every turn, we might glimpse the Creator, discover the essence of being, rest in peace as we live.
Or not.
We might, instead, shout in protest. We might resist the change so strongly that it’s no longer a rebirth—it’s trauma. No question, change is hard. Especially the ones we dislike. Still, here we are, born again and again. And again.
Pause a moment to remember how brutal birth is for everyone involved. Still, what a beautiful mess.
Silence helps us see the beauty in the chaos. Learning silence takes time. My goal this month was to offer space, musings, and guidance you can revisit as you explore what stories drown out your peace. When does your voice outshout God’s?
For most of us, that’s always.
In today’s guided meditation, take a moment to notice your thoughts, emotions, and mood. Your hurts, too. Your doubts. Then, maybe, set them aside for a bit. Let’s get ready to wait… without waiting.
We’ll dive into the last stanza of Rilke’s poem. It holds the beautiful truth of who we are—always, essentially.
Soon, we’ll all be forgotten. That thing you said or did that sparked shame or pride? It’ll fade in a generation. Memorials to our best moments will lose their firsthand sources in time.
And yet, something lingers. We travel on—quietly, reluctantly, anxiously, hopefully—but something stays. We find it in silence. Maybe in our kids, grandkids, our connected lives. In the love we give and get. In the breath we share.
In the simple, honest claim: I am. In the name of God: I am.
Thank you for being you. Thank you for making this journey with me.
If you’d like to explore the previous meditations, find them here:
Week 1:
the sounds of silence
Dear friends, thank you for being here. Thank you for being you. Thank you for making space to consider the ways we might enjoy knowing ourselves… and our commitment to the endeavor.
Week 2:
Week 3:
letting silence in
Hi dear friend! I’m grateful you’re here. For those of you new to knowing thyself, a warm welcome and a high five. Isn’t this how we uncover life’s wealth—giggling together over our souls’ yearnings, letting our hearts converse?
Thanks for providing a deep well to drink from. I loved doing the video meditation ... of course, Rilke is a perfect poet to invite to the table. So grateful for the gifts you offer here to nourish that which is most hungry in our hearts and needed in our world. A thousand blessings!