Now, visiting the high school is one of my favorite days of the year.
I continue to be inspired by their curiosity, their kindness, and their willingness to change their minds. As always, I walk away with gratitude.
For years, it stood beside me when I wanted to run, when I’d forgotten to breathe, when I needed to sit down and become less visible.
I no longer need the chair but it warms my heart to see it still here.
I started sharing my story with high school students less than two months after coming home from prison. It was terrifying for me. I had yet to work through my prison-trauma and the intense fear of vulnerability with people.
This chair was my friend.
- no discipline for strike participation
- no lapse in benefits, seniority, or protections during strike period
- parties agree to mediation and good faith bargaining
We appreciate everyone’s support. Now, let’s get the deal done.
SFO STRIKE UPDATE: IBEW 617 Airtrain workers are returning to work on Friday, March 13 with a temporary contract extension in place (through March 31).
Conditions of current agreement:
- all economic increases from a new agreement will be retroactive to March 1st
- cont’d …
IBEW Local 617 Airtrain workers are striking at San Francisco International Airport (SFO). Please support our efforts in protesting unfair labor practices and negotiating a fair contract.
This was the love that saved my life.
Kaiser healthcare workers are striking. 31,000 people strong. #kaiser #healthcare #strike #unionstrong #patients
Ichi-go ichi-e. This particular constellation of delightful people had its moment yesterday, never to gather in this particular way ever again.
I really love my people. Spirit Rock’s Community Dharma Leaders, January 2026.
Jacob Frey, Minneapolis Mayor: “To ICE - get the fuck out of Minneapolis”.
The rest of us: “To ICE - get the fuck out of our country”.
The cynics think today's attack on Venezuela is staged and transactional. Maduro is allied with Putin, but in 2019 Putin offered Trump a swap: Russia cedes Venezuela and gets Ukraine. (See Fiona Hill's testimony in Trump's first impeachment trial, h/t @davetroy.com). Even Maduro may be in on it. 2/
I was mentored by men who had murdered. Let me tell you about one of them.
A thread in honor of Herb Blake.
They were good like that. I just asked them.
The Prison Spiritual Tradition. This is my lineage.
"Our actions are driven by relevance. We all want to feel we matter in some way. Relevance is what makes one kid go to college while another kid joins a gang. Each does what he or she thinks is necessary to be acknowledged. In search of relevance men and women become saints or sinners." - Herb Blake
It seems that I'd passed the letter on to one of the group's volunteers. Here it is:
Then, a few years ago, I re-read a short book he'd written called "The Last Place I Looked". Somehow, I had missed an important part of the book, likely because it was nestled at the very end, like an appendix. It was the letter he'd written.
For years after learning that Herb Blake had passed away, I wondered what had become of the letter I'd read on his behalf the night I left Folsom Prison. I vaguely remember giving it to one of the group members, but I couldn't remember who. It seemed that it was lost to time.
Herb Blake passed away just a few years after leaving prison. He spent twenty three years incarcerated and, perhaps, his greatest mark was left in the hearts of the men he mentored there. My heart is marked by him, and I feel like it is my responsibility to mark hearts in the same way that he did.
It would be my last time going to the Contemplative Fellowship and it felt momentous to be the usher of his parting words, like he was entrusting me with something very special. I read his parting words for the men in Greystone Chapel, and then I shared my own.
Blake was finally granted parole in December of 2008, the same month that I was to be leaving Folsom State Prison for a lower security facility. He was not going to be able to attend the Contemplative Fellowship before leaving, so he gave me a letter he’d written to the group.
Instead, when he showed up to the Contemplative Fellowship after his denial, it was he who encouraged us to stay the course, rather than the other way around. Blake’s forbearance in the face of disappointment was powerful and contagious. He inspired us all to be better.
I’ll never forget the day Blake had his parole date rescinded by the Governor, though the parole board had found him suitable for release. I would’ve expected him to be dejected and melancholic.
Blake had an aura about him, a way of being in the world that made his mere presence a transmission of wisdom & kindness. I half expected him to step out of his skin one day and reveal to the world that he was actually one of those beings of light from the movie Cocoon. Blake was a spiritual giant.
e was gentle in his handling of discord and gracious in the way he met disagreement. He often led the group in meditation, famous for likening thoughts during meditation to the letters arriving during mail call.
Blake spoke clearly and compassionately, able to communicate fluently with men from different cultural and religious backgrounds. He embodied what might be called upaya, or skillful means, in Buddhism.
By the time I met Blake (his preferred way of being called in prison) in 2007, the man who had murdered had long since left prison and had been replaced with a selfless human being who mentored others in the art of awakening.
fter having gone to prison for murder in the 1980’s, he spent twenty something years getting to the roots of the greed, hatred, and delusion that had caused his younger self to commit the crime he had.
I met men in prison who could only be referred to as spiritual giants. Rarely have I met people in the free world as genuinely awakened as some of these men I had the pleasure to do my time with. One of these men was a man named Herb Blake.
In a world where human touch was nonexistent save for the violence, these moments of mutual, physical care were priceless.
