by Renée Tillotson | Nov 4, 2024 | Letter from the director, Life At The Center
By Renée Tillotson Before my father passed three days ago on November 1, 2024, he made sure to mail in his ballot as his last act of political self-determination. As I sit here reflecting on my dad’s passing at this pivotal moment in our country’s history, I...
by Renée Tillotson | Sep 5, 2024 | Letter from the director, Life At The Center
In Celebration of Junghyun (Lina/Gia) Kim (1971 – 2024)beloved of Master Jonah Chin I stand in awe of someone who walks their talk, even in the toughest of circumstances. The way Master Jonah Chin conducted the memorial service on August 7, 2024, for his wife...
by Renée Tillotson | Jul 4, 2024 | Letter from the director, Life At The Center
By Renée Tillotson My family did something remarkable last week. They took a project of mine, basically tore it to shreds (Ouch!), then helped me to recreate it. I wonder what you’ll think of the end result by the time we were finished with it… Let me begin...
by Renée Tillotson | Jul 4, 2024 | Healthy Life Tip, Letter from the director, Related Meditation & Culture Articles
By Renée Tillotson When it comes to family and long-time friends, we feel as if we know their life history, their favorite foods and their pet peeves. We feel as if we can often accurately predict the next word out of their mouth or the next expression that...
by Renée Tillotson | May 9, 2024 | Letter from the director, Magnificence in our 'Ohana
By Renée Tillotson The world can be a pretty fierce place. In its face, Lani Kwon, with her Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology, calmly asserts , “All of us, if we live long enough, will experience a mental health challenge.” One of the toughest...
by Renée Tillotson | Apr 8, 2024 | Letter from the director, Life At The Center
By Renée Tillotson It’s no big secret that my husband, Cliff, has been my hero ever since the first weekend I met him in 1975. He was both so kind to me as a novice skier and so brave as an expert skier himself – launching himself off a super high...
by Renée Tillotson | Mar 7, 2024 | Letter from the director, Life At The Center
By Renée Tillotson It’s been exactly seven years ago since this story happened, yet I only now feel ready to share it with you, my dear readers. It was such a personal experience, I suppose I’ve needed time to process and put words to it. With the goal of the heart...
by Renée Tillotson | Mar 7, 2024 | Letter from the director, Life At The Center
Nine years can be a long time…or a merely a beat in heart time. I always loved the photos that Cliff brought back from escorting Sandhya to India nine years ago – our family’s wonderful first trip to the sub-continent. I loved the stories of generous...
by Renée Tillotson | Feb 8, 2024 | Letter from the director, Life At The Center
By Renée Tillotson In a war-damaged house in a northern Ukrainian town, a young woman paints our way into a happier future. Her name, very appropriately, is Vita, meaning LIFE! I came upon Vita’s artwork just before Christmas as if magnetically drawn to it. A brief...
by Renée Tillotson | Dec 7, 2023 | Letter from the director, Life At The Center
By Renée Tillotson Plugging away in my Still & Moving Center office at the end of a long Friday, I keep hearing delightful strains of music reverberating through the wall. What is that?!? Curiosity piqued and my senses enchanted, I follow the music...
by Renée Tillotson | Nov 9, 2023 | Letter from the director, Life At The Center
By Sarah Hodges I remember watching live musicians and performers, ever since I was young, and feeling that their songs and movements understood me. That is to say, I felt often like a ‘stranger in a strange land’ out in everyday life. The way I sensed the world...
by Renée Tillotson | Oct 5, 2023 | Letter from the director, Life At The Center
By Renée Tillotson Has someone you know ever taken your breath away? It’s an awesome experience. So often, we get comfortable with someone close to us. We come to expect their habits, their little idiosyncrasies, their normal, everyday way of moving through the...
by Renée Tillotson | Sep 7, 2023 | Letter from the director, Life At The Center
By Renée Tillotson Sometimes your heart hurts so much, you know just what you need to do. News of the horrific August 8, 2023 fires on Maui reached my husband and I the next morning, a Wednesday. The loss of life and terror of the people of Maui boggled our...
by Renée Tillotson | Jun 8, 2023 | Letter from the director, Life At The Center
by Renée Tillotson We were in our early fifties when Cliff got completely wowed by a legendary Hawaiian waterman named Nappy Napoleon. At age 66, Nappy was just about to paddle his fiftieth Molokai Hoe. This long-distance race in a traditional 6-man Hawaiian outrigger...
by Renée Tillotson | Feb 18, 2023 | Life At The Center
(This story was originally published in April, 2017 and is particularly relevant today for Maha Shivaratri.) When our driver Suresh told us his wife’s family lived in Chidambaram, I had no idea of the significance of his understated comment. I did not guess that Cliff...
by Renée Tillotson | Feb 2, 2023 | Letter from the director, Life At The Center
by Renée Tillotson Our two sons and daughter would probably agree that I have a fourth child. Her nature is deep and caring, yet light and playful. She’s quite the world traveler, yet she’s never left the home of her birth almost 12 years ago. She has probably...
by Renée Tillotson | Nov 17, 2022 | Letter from the director, Life At The Center
by Renée Tillotson I like talking about our living bones. About how they manufacture all of our red blood cells inside their marrow. About how they heal to be even stronger than before they were broken. Bones provide such a vibrant, resilient structure to our living...
by Renée Tillotson | Nov 3, 2022 | Letter from the director, Life At The Center
by Renée Tillotson We live in a world of chaotic – sometimes desperate – unknowing, of fervent spiritual seeking, and of an abundance of self-proclaimed spiritual guides and gurus. How can the seeker know whom to trust? Ralph Waldo Emerson (who lived in...
by Renée Tillotson | Oct 17, 2022 | Letter from the director, Life At The Center
by Renée Tillotson When I met Mālia Helelā two weeks before opening Still & Moving Center in 2011, I invited her that very day to come give hula classes. Although she told me she had become a hula teacher at a remarkably young age, I really had no concept of the...
by Renée Tillotson | Sep 5, 2022 | Letter from the director, Life At The Center
by Renée Tillotson Inhale and listen. For someone who has trained herself as a “doer” her whole life, I don’t recall going into a situation with much receptivity. I often enter with a predetermined plan for what I am bringing to the table, for what I am sharing, for...
by Renée Tillotson | Aug 3, 2022 | Letter from the director, Life At The Center
by Renée Tillotson Ever been surprised by looking in the mirror? It seems to be happening to me a lot these days. I recognize the eyes… I’m just not quite sure to whom the rest of the face belongs! Walking past hundreds upon hundreds of faces in Denver International...
by Renée Tillotson | Jul 6, 2022 | Letter from the director, Life At The Center
by Renée Tillotson We’ve all had those moments. Those perfect instances in time when everything is in balance, in harmony, when we can breathe deeply, recognize how much we love someone and how fortunate we really are… given the chaotic world around us. We’re...
by Renée Tillotson | Apr 7, 2022 | Letter from the director, Life At The Center
by Renée Tillotson Since living in Hawai’i, Nature has become more alive to me – more intelligent – than I previously acknowledged. Everything seems to dance in Hawai’i, from the soft, flower-scented air that greets us as soon as we get off the plane, to...
by Renée Tillotson | Aug 16, 2021 | Letter from the director, Life At The Center
by Renée Tillotson I’m excited to make my first public announcement on this topic to all of you. We’ve just opened a new venture, The Academy of Mindful Movement! The Academy of Mindful Movement trains instructors and coaches from the athletic, performance,...
by Renée Tillotson | Jul 8, 2021 | Letter from the director, Life At The Center
by Renée Tillotson The belly laugh that comes from the Dalia Lama compares with no other I’ve ever heard. It wells up from his deep, earthy understanding of humanity’s plight, pitched between our most outrageous monstrosities towards one another and our...
by Renée Tillotson | Jul 8, 2021 | Healthy Life Tip, Letter from the director, Related Meditation & Culture Articles
By Renée Tillotson Get curious about your emotions! The Dalai Lama considers understanding our emotions to be so important he commissioned some psychologists to track and identify the full spectrum of human emotions.* Why is it so important to learn about our...
by Renée Tillotson | Jul 3, 2019 | Letter from the director, Life At The Center
Pearl Haven…. A sanctuary for pearls? Here pearls = girls, each one unique, beautiful, a treasure. Why would these unique, beautiful, treasured girls need a haven?Truth is, these girls have not been treasured, honored or respected. The girls for whom this haven is...
by Renée Tillotson | Apr 12, 2018 | Letter from the director, Life At The Center
Letter from the Director by Renée Tillotson Kwan Yin, the goddess of mercy and compassion, is often pictured accompanied by a carp. She’s the one whose statue graces our lobby at Still & Moving Center. Her selfless credo, a bodhisattvic pledge, has always inspired...
by Renée Tillotson | Apr 6, 2017 | Letter from the director, Life At The Center
by Renée Tillotson When our driver Suresh told us his wife’s family lived in Chidambaram, I had no idea of the significance of his understated comment. I did not guess that Cliff and I were about to be delightfully ushered through a portal into the heart of India. At...
