I mistakenly thought my friend was taking pictures of her toes. She had her feet up on the front seat’s armrest and her phone held up to her face while she reclined in back. We were on a three hour car trip upstate and I was learning all about Snapchat.

Snapchat (for those of you who have been living under a rock like me) is an app where you can add filters to a photo of someone so that they look like a member of the band KISS or have a jaw that is wider than a face. You can add flowers and face paint.

My friend took this pink floral filter of me (above). I loved the flowers dancing over my head! It made me think of the day before our trip when we sat by the hotel pool at the place where I teach yoga. A guest came up to us and asked if we wanted to try his “color blind” glasses. Of course, we did.

The glasses made the trees greener and the sky bluer. The pale pink flowers were now fuchsia. I didn’t want to give the glasses back. But I did.

Now it is Monday,...

Nathaniel and Gil entered the stark warehouse below Canal Street; sage-scented fumes engulfed them and new age music droned.  A hand-written placard listed all the sample sessions

“I’ll grab a shot of wheatgrass juice and check out Sufi dancing,” Gil said. “You can go  for a chakra consultation.”

“What’s a chakra?” Nate asked.

“They come in many colors,” Gil said, walking away.

Before Nate could decide which session he’d tolerate, a woman with red bangs and toned arms handed him a mat. “Don’t be shy,” she said.  “I’m Lulu.  Welcome to yoga.”

Nathaniel noted her light brown complexion and a curl adhered to her forehead; some kind of green-and-black tattoo shimmied below her shoulder blade.  He decided it was a large frog.

“I’m not a yoga guy,” he said, shrugging.

“Come on in. You’re on the path.” She smiled and held open...

All I wanted was a week to write without getting up to walk the dogs, sit in traffic, clean the kitchen, or answer the phone. I had work to do and it wasn’t getting done. A writer friend told me about AROHO (A Room of Her own). She said it was a writing organization for women and that I should apply for their retreat on Georgia O’Keefe’s “Ghost Ranch” in New Mexico. It sounded fantastic. It was fantastic. I didn’t know that it would change my life.

It has been over one month since I left the desert but I’m still adjusting. It’s a good life here in NY, but I miss sunset colored mountains and breathing in readings and workshops all day long.  I bonded with more women in one week than I had during the past decade. If you met them, you would see how such a thing can be possible. We were in synch.

I took a small group poetry workshop with Evie Shockley.  I’m a fan, so of course it was very...

In honor of National Novel Writing Month, we have a terrific guest blogger! Enjoy some wisdom from writer and yoga instructor, Barbara Joy Beatus, and good luck to everyone who is writing 50,000 for NaNoWriMo. – S. Lipsey