The Kink of Kado
We are born alone and die alone. We need to understand aloneness. We aren’t even two minutes into our weekend program. I instantly fall for this woman-teacher looking like a combination of Martha Stewart and Shunryu Suzuki Roshi.
Oma en Marina
Precies één jaar nadat haar man -mijn Opa- overleed, loopt een bloedpropje vast in de hersens van Oma en zakt ze voor de ogen van mijn ouders in elkaar. Drie weken lang zitten we om beurten in een Tilburgs ziekenhuis naast haar bed en twijfelen we over wat Oma nog wel en niet kan (niet: praten, slikken, de linkerkant van lichaam bewegen en wel: ja en nee knikken, in je hand knijpen, blij zijn je te zien) en vooral ook over wat ze wel en niet begrijpt (dit was veel lastiger).
Legs Wide Open
All heart opening practices failed when I found myself confused by a gynecologic exam.
How to write a teacher’s bio: crash course
A crash course on writing a good (aka interesting and useful) teacher's biography
Dirty Dharma
In a world that faces mass starvation and ecological disaster it is easy to call Mister Rotting Tomato a luxury problem. Yet by opening up to all things broken, dirty and out-of-place, we find the doorway to our uncontrollable, raw, tender and magical lives.
A World Beyond Words
When I was a teenager, I dramatically pasted onto my bedroom walls lyrics from Madonna’s song ‘bedtime story’: today is the last day/ that I’m using words/ they’ve gone out/ lost their meaning/ don’t function anymore.Strangely enough, this desire to let go of words all together pushed me into the most word-y job there is: writing. Inspired by writers who maybe couldn’t “get it all down”, but came remarkably close, I started using words as best as I could –and discovered a joy in that endeavor that to this day remains unequaled by anything else.
Zen Howl
My discovery of 'Zen Howl' When I was about three years old, my parents took me and my sister out of the city’s July heat on a bike ride to a cherry orchard. When the four of us settled around the torn open brown bag exploding with big, juicy cherries, I insisted on eating them [...]
Impermanence Gym
The feeling of having nothing to lose is sometimes worth some losing. Geertje Couwenbergh shaved off her red trademark curls during a difficult time and discovered the meaning of hair, loss, and the inescapable truth of change.