Eight Directions Wellness

The earth teaches me stability. The wind teaches me non-attachment. Water teaches me perseverance. Fire teaches me transformation.

Happy Guru Punima, when the full moon of July reminds us to learn fully from everything around us.

For your Vāta-deranged cat…

9 years ago my teacher shared this with me. We were at Ananda ashram for the week, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who misses those gatherings. But you can’t step in the same stream twice.

Who says that God doesn't come?
If you call God like Mirabai, God comes.
Who says that God doesn't eat?
If you feed God like Shabari, God eats.
Who says that God doesn't sleep?
If you sing God lullabies like Devaki, God will sleep.
Who says that God doesn't dance?
If you dance like the Gopi's, God will dance.

“The approach of a man’s life out of the past is history, and the approach of time out of the future is mystery. Their meeting is the present, and it is consciousness, the only time one is alive.”
- Wendell Berry

Something the current situation with my dog brings up very clearly for me - the gap between what people need to understand and navigate illness (for themselves, their children or their animals) - and what the current system has the time or incentive to provide - is an extremely wide gap. And this gap causes real harm, including decisions made without context, grief that's compounded by confusion, and people feeling alone with something they shouldn't have to face by themselves. If you're a part of any Facebook Groups dedicated to particular illnesses (again, human, canine, feline, etc) you see this confusion and loneliness clearly in the echo-chamber of social media.

While I'm not practicing right now, initial visits between a client and I would be an hour and a half long - and that was after spending a lot of time studying their intake application. I would thoroughly explain the imbalances from an Āyurvedic perspective. I would offer diet and lifestyle suggestions - including handouts of appropriate food lists, recipes, and book and cookbook recommendations. I would listen to what was being said and to what was not being spoken out loud. I don't even want to imagine trying to navigate illness without the support of a complementary health care person. Yes, allopathic drugs are powerful and can be lifesaving - but let's not forget the power of connection and compassion. Of being listened to by another human being. Of community.

Circling back to my pup. Has the vet suggested anything diet or lifestyle-wise in the two years since he was diagnosed with two tick-born diseases and resulting chronic kidney disease? Other than telling me to put him on very expensive kidney-safe dry kibble (which he dislikes, as do most other dogs from what I've seen on the (yes) Facebook Support Groups)? Were there any recommendations for home-cooked food? Even though I explained that he was accustomed to getting it? Book suggestions? A handout?

No.

In fact, during our last visit I saw her exchange a glance with the vet tech when I mentioned I topped his dry food with poached chicken breast and white rice to try to get him to eat something. Anything. It reminds me of how, when a friend was sick with cancer and had no appetite, the doctor suggested he eat donuts.

Donuts. Ok.

I've come to see that the majority of our modern-day interactions are empty and contractual. We're so far away from the shore of connection and depth that most of the time we don't even realize how far into the ocean of isolation we've drifted. This is why I quit my earlier career and studied Āyurveda in the first place - because I recognized - in it's attention to both detail and to the individual - an attempt to preserve and perpetuate human decency and compassion.

These past couple of days I’ve been sitting with my furry familiar and silently repeating the Mahamrityunjaya mantra as I do my best to come to terms with his terminal kidney disease. I repeat it as a request for an easeful passage - for him as well as for my partner and I who are caring for him and bearing witness to that journey. I say it that he may be freed into what does not die. I say it that I may be somehow strengthened and not shattered by this loss.

That I’m sitting in my smoke-filled house in a burning West adds another layer of grief and witnessing to the process. I’m not a fan of summers here, but I’m doing my best to be with them. Clearly I’ve been placed in this vast, sparse landscape for a reason. Perhaps it is a form of true renunciation—not marked by vows or orange robes, but by being in a place where attachment to roles, ambitions, and possessions simply dries up and blows away.

But bearing witness to my dog’s sickness is so terribly hard, because I’ve been caring for and protecting him for a decade - and now I’m helpless. It’s one thing to have done hospice volunteer work with strangers and quite another to walk this path with my daily beloved, faithful companion. It feels like I’m on a ship that’s sinking - and reaching for the life raft.

It’s vitally important to have a life raft. Maybe it’s not a faith tradition. Maybe it’s logic, science, moral values. Maybe it’s other people.

Whatever it is, it’s yours. Keep it close. Even as my day-to-day life has become less outwardly devotional, my inner orientation is forever altered by the practices I’ve done and the experiences I’ve had. At times like this I climb into the raft and let it help keep me afloat.

Lord Shiva dwells in the cremation ground of endings - seeing reality fully and allowing clarity and new beginnings to rise from the ashes. Shiva isn’t separate or outside of oneself, but is the quality of sakshi - witnessing awareness - that moves through us when we choose to stay present with suffering and transformation.

Yesterday I looked down to find a perfectly round white stone, like the moon, in my path. Then later a tiny, pure white feather. One soft and light, impermanent like the body itself, and the other solid and grounding, lasting, like the love.

Yes, our days are suddenly numbered - but weren’t they always?

Climate-aware
self-compassion
isn’t indulgence -
it’s realism.

Use this link on June 25, 2026 at 6:30 pm ET to access your FREE online class:
https://tinyurl.com/45scsxjt

This is basically the entire argument for meditation in two sentences. Someone cuts you off in traffic, your boss says something annoying, your kid pushes every button — and there's this tiny gap before you react. Most of us blow right past it. Meditation makes the gap bigger. You still feel the thing. You just don't have to be owned by it.