I do not think a day passes in my life in which I fail to look with fresh amazement at the miracle of nature.

It is there on every side. It can be simply a shadow on a mountainside, or a spider’s web gleaming with dew, or sunlight on the leaves of a tree.

I have always especially loved the sea.

Whenever possible, I have lived by the sea… It has long been a custom of mine to walk along the beach each morning before I start to work. True, my walks are shorter than they used to be, but that does not lessen the wonder of the sea.

How mysterious and beautiful is the sea! how infinitely variable!

It is never the same, never, not from one moment to the next, always in the process of change, always becoming something different and new.

- Legendary cellist Pablo Casals,
from Joys and Sorrows


Dana Wyss Healing Arts
Breathe deeply, practice often, be well.
http://www.danawyss.com/

Image / Aliaksei Skreidzeleu


The New Colossus
by Emma Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”


Dana Wyss Healing Arts
Breathe deeply, practice often, be well.
http://www.danawyss.com/

Image /  Marina Strizhak

"If I were asked for two words to summarize the habits of the heart American citizens need in response to twenty-first-century conditions, I would choose chutzpah and humility. By chutzpah, I mean knowing that I have a voice that needs to be heard and the right to speak it. By humility, I mean accepting the fact that my truth is always partial and may not be true at all, so I need to listen with openness and respect, especially to "the other," as much as I need to speak my own voice with clarity and conviction.

American Democracy is a non-stop experiment in the strengths and weaknesses of our political institutions, local communities, and the human heart. The experiment is endless unless we blow up the lab, and the explosives to do the job are found within us. But so, also, is the heart's alchemy that can turn suffering into compassion, conflict into community, and tension into energy for creativity amid democracy's demands.

Today we are in the middle of another election cycle. Once again, false claims, half-truths, hateful rhetoric, fear-mongering and demonization of the opposition dominate our civic space, driving out the genuine issue-oriented debate a democracy needs to survive and thrive. We need citizens with chutzpah and humility to occupy our civic space and call American democracy back to health. There is no reason, at least no good reason, why our number cannot be legion."

- Parker Palmer drew the ideas for this article
from his book, "Healing the Heart of Democracy: The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit.



Dana Wyss Healing Arts
Breathe deeply, practice often, be well.
http://www.danawyss.com/

Image / Iryna Denysova 


So much lies outside of our awareness, a great deal more than lies within it, in fact.

We're more comfortable when we feel masterful, informed, in-the-know, and sure.

The stories we tell ourselves about what we know, how the world works, and how it all fits together- even when they're true - are just a page in a much larger work.

Few things in life routinely remind us of our smallness, our ignorance, our insignificance, the way that nature does. These reminders can be both humbling and beautiful.

Being small and unable to see the whole picture also means it's not all up to us to fix, arrange and control everything we observe, a relief if there ever was one.



Dana Wyss Healing Arts
Breathe deeply, practice often, be well.
http://www.danawyss.com/

Image / Choi + Shine Architects



When it is genuine, when it is born of the need to speak, no one can stop the human voice.

When denied a mouth, it speaks with the hands or the eyes, or the pores, or anything at all.

Because every single one of us has something to say to others,

something that deserves to be celebrated or forgiven by others.


- Eduardo Galeano, The Book of Embraces



Dana Wyss Healing Arts
Breathe deeply, practice often, be well.
http://www.danawyss.com/