The stories we choose to tell shape how we understand ourselves and the possibilities we believe are open to us.
It’s been almost a year since I came here. It has been a rich experience.

The land here is special. I had the opportunity to dance out on the mesa a few times. Its such an expansive experience. Its like the space swallowed me in these 360 views that were constantly changing in subtle ways.
In that space, there are no words.

Since being here, I’ve been pretty active with the local Gelukpa center (Buddhist), the Hanuman ashram, and the Taos community of love. There is a lot of Dharma here for being a small town. I started facilitating meditation sessions at the Ksitigarbha center at the request of the resident Geshela. I was also invited to give a talk at the Toas community of love on Shamatha.
Watch it here.
I think the most profound readings I’ve come across since being here have to do with understanding that our perspective is consistently incomplete and flawed. “Through our preconceptions we distort the reality of almost everything.”
Meditation continues to be a stable refuge in Samsara.

I’ve been fortunate to have beautiful old friends come to see me and have made a few new ones.

I love that the art scene here is so active and how it inspires local festivals. During winter there are a few festivals near the center of town with carolers and pastries! Recently, the ecstatic dance and 5 rhythms scenes have been making a come back. Maybe they are seasonal. They’ve been insightful and revealing.

In an unexpected turn of events, I got an elementary PE coach job in November. I thought after quitting after my first year at a Texas public school I’d never do that again, but teaching PE in New Mexico is a bit different and much less stressful, although teaching seems to still have a sharp edge to it. I love the views from the playground. I also love that there is a built in gardening module every year in PE! This year I got to teach all the students in the school mindfulness breathing techniques. There is nothing more important I can share.

Taos has been a good home. It’s been especially nice living with my current roommate Kathryn. She’s an amazing cook!

During spring break I headed over to the Drala Mountain Center (DMC), previously SMC, where I used to work. My friend Sopa, who I had worked with there, had just been ordained a nun and was moving back. I thought it would be good touch base with the land. It had been a couple of years since I last visited, and was curious to see how it had evolved. It was an amazing trip. I volunteered in the kitchen.
Upon my arrival, I was surprised to find that I was given the same room I had stayed in almost a decade ago, when I had arrived at DMC the first time!
The new staff was friendly and social. On one outing, I was shown this place out in Red Feather Lakes that had many boulders laid flat at the foot of a perfectly vertical cliff. My guide told me that he had found a petroglyph of a humming bird and a rabbit next to each other. When he consulted a Mayan epigrapher, he was told that it communicated “the entrance to the underworld”. He told me unusual encounters he had while hiking in the area.
On another occasion, my kitchen colleague took me crystal hunting. That was a first!

After DMC, I spend a day with another ex-colleague, Rachel, in Silt. The hi-light of that visit was seeing this UFO house, inhabited by this artist who worked exclusively on various mediums of alien art.

During my Easter break, I visited Sedona. That was an incredible trip. There is so much to see there and so many angles to see from. I unintentionally took a back road west through New Mexico. That drive was pretty epic too. The landscapes were like something out of a Salvador Dali painting. There’s so much space out there and when a unique landscape comes along, it is highlighted by all that space. I spent a few days camping and visiting the various vortices. On last day, I met a guy, by Oak Creek, who took me to a sand mandala dismantling ritual. That was pretty special. The teacher gave a short talk on death.

Like so much of what I’ve experienced in the last year, life is so vast and profound. Even at its most mundane moments, there is still a quality of limitlessness that is available in the gaps between the breath.