Winter is a time of dramatic transformation and alchemy. The growing season over, the temperatures drop, there are fewer hours of daylight and the trees are bare. In many places in the world plants wither and die back, and the earth is blanketed in a thick cover of snow. It is a time for outward stillness and dormancy. Sound bleak? In the Bleak Midwinter by Julie Andrews Not bleak I think, but deep. Deep inside the earth – perhaps under …

Remember those first cell phones we called ‘bricks’ for their bulky size? How about the first portable PC, laptops that were really too heavy to comfortably carry (or work with one on your lap for any length of time, for that matter). They were supposed to make our offices portable – and they did, if you are thinking large, heavy briefcase. With the portable devices like tablet PC, iPads and smart phones do we even need home offices anymore?  A comfortable armchair, a …

This was one of the most powerful exercises I did when I was first learning feng shui. The front door can tell us so much about how we feel about our home. For one thing, all the energy for your home enters through the front door. It sets the tone and makes the first impression. So naturally, we want that first impression to be a good one. It wasn’t that I discovered something I didn’t already know when I did …

Yes I have a new book in progress; her working title is “Home Sensibilities”. Now this is going to sound completely unrelated but it actually is: here on the north Pacific coast, we are enjoying blissful weather with warm days verging on hot, and cool refreshing mornings, and it is only those early evenings (twilight at 8:00 now!) that I know that it really is the Fall. And so, by chance, this morning I was working on my chapter about late summer …