Building Connection and Resilience in a Disconnected World
+ I cooked you a meal; come join me at the table
Disconnection is THE mental health crisis of our time.
In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, our May meditation series is going to dive into CONNECTION - to Self, to others, to the natural world and to Spirit.
In a time marked by political chaos, rising loneliness, and emotional exhaustion, many of us are searching for ways to restore a deep sense of belonging. This episode explores how meditation can be a powerful tool to reconnect — not only to ourselves and to each other, but also to the natural world that sustains us.
🔥 Discover why connection and resilience are the two most vital gifts meditation offers during times of crisis - and how to build these qualities.
🌏 Learn how our innate bond with the earth calms the overwhelmed, anxious and exhausted mind.
🧘 Experience a guided meditation that helps awaken your senses, quiet the mind and build a resilient, connected spirit.
🎧 This meditation features a rainy spring dawn in the Pacific Northwest as recorded by Nick McMahan. Snowmelt from the Cascade mountains and frequent cloud cover causes streams and rivulets to pop up along mountainside. This particular valley, like many in the western cascade range, has many small marshy areas surrounded by tall evergreen trees. By April the nights are filled with sounds of the Cascades Frog and a persistent white noise from nearby flowing water. A dawn chorus starts early and quiets down as a rain shower approaches. This region of Washington is the ancestral lands of the Stillaguamish People.
Thank you to Nick McMahan for today’s nature field recordings, sound design, and editing; and thank you to Brianna Nielsen for production and editing support.
Just the Soundscape
Western Cascades Frog Pond by Nick McMahan
Love the soundscape in today’s episode? You can listen to it in full here:
Little Meals; Great Expectations
One of the ways I experience connection is through food. I find connection to earth in the seasonal, locally grown food I purchase from our CSA. I find connection to Self in how I choose to nourish this body-heart-mind. And, I express my love and connection to others through cooking. A kitchen witch, through and through 🥄
I read and collect cookbooks like novels, and one of my favorite relaxing activities is to dream up menus that I may or may not actually serve one day…
As I have been working on this month’s meditation series devoted to connection, I wondered,
What would I cook for YOU, if I could?
The title of this section, Little Meals Great Expectations, is a nod to an essay written in the 1950s by MFK Fisher - one of my favorites (though it is hard to pick with her). For I would want this to be a simple, light meal. Nothing too heavy or over-done. I would want a sense of ease and space on every plate.
The menu I dreamed up for you comes from Dorie Greenspan’s spectacular cookbook, Around My French Table, which I borrowed from a friend’s mantel the last time I visited their home.
As I read through this lush tome, I pictured a backyard, late spring picnic. The wild roses will have faded, and the honeysuckle come into bloom. Cool enough in the evening that we can linger in comfort long into the fading late. I might light a fire for those that are prone to a chill.
Along the table, you find a variety of colorful cold salads and small bites:
Avocados halved and drizzled with pistachio oil
Grated carrot salad, simple and vibrant
Honey lime chilled beets
Salmon & potatoes in a jar
Roast beef tartine on homemade bread
Tuna, mozzarella and basil ‘pizzas’
Ice-cold chamomile-strawberry tea or hot coffee served in carafes.
Fresh cut flowers all along the table.
And, time.
So much time. To linger over slow bites and rich conversation, to make eye-contact and to leave the phone elsewhere.
To connect.
Thanks for eating with me 💛
And lastly, a question for you -
I’ve just shared my favorite way to connect. Will you please share yours? How do you most love to connect to yourself, to others, to nature or spirit?