Posts by Kristen Bentley

Before we begin this journey together, you have a right to know what motivates me, why I seek to live intimately with my own life and the world. The most truthful answer to this is the simplest: because I have to. I am compelled by some deep hunger of the soul, driven by a desire…

Letting go of obligation has dramatic impact. Sometimes, preparing a meal when I am tired and cranky and want to argue with the assertion that popcorn is not an entrée, I catch myself grumbling, and I stop for a minute. I sit down in a chair and take a deep breath. I feel my weariness…

In my first career I practiced as an Optometrist. I helped people with their sight every day for 16 years. I often joke that I got the message to work with people’s vision when I was 14, and after I took it figuratively for years, I realized that it was actually the vision of one’s life that…

This poem…. I am standing upon the seashore.  A ship at my side spreads her sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.  She is an object of beauty and strength and I watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky…

When asked how an ordinary person could preserve his sense of the mythic {the imaginary / the dream} when most feel too besieged by the everyday claims of the bills and the mortgage, Joseph Campbell answered: You must have a place to which you can go, in your heart, your mind, or your house, almost every day,…

Yesterday, a dear friend and mentor of mine said something that has been lingering with me ever since. This was her comment, “There comes a time when relationships are more important than business. It’s that time.” This comment meant a lot to me in that moment, given these particular circumstances, and it continues to mean…