One of the most important jobs of religion is to hold us when shit hits the fan. To provide us with reference points, community, and skills for sustaining ourselves – through hardship, through suffering, through the confusion that springs out of all our lives. But religion isn’t up to that task for most of us…

The first tools we think of for survival are knives and pointy sticks. If you are trying to survive in the wilderness with nothing but the clothes on your back, of course, you’ll want to chop down trees, hunt game, build a fire. But the second tool you will need is a container. Something to…

A wasp strolled leisurely across my cheek as I sat on my porch meditating this morning. There’s a whole nest under there. And eventually, I’m going to have to crawl down there past the dog poo and the spiders and shoot it out with the hose. But in the meantime, the wasps and I coexist.…

Doing the thing is hard. Your nervous system starts screaming every time you head towards the unknown, the new, the creative, the wondrous. Or it distracts you, comes up with 10 million excuses, demands clarity or certainty you can’t provide. But you know that doing the thing is what stands between you and everything you…

There’s a reason why the land of the dead so often has an escort in mythology. Anubis, the Valkyries, the Grim Reaper – all appear at the moment of the death of one life to walk with you through the gateway into the next. They are called psychopomps. These are keepers of the threshold, the…