Dana Gornall is the co-founder of The Tattooed Buddha and mom of three crazy kids and a dog.She has been writing stories since she could put words into sentences, writing books and poems from early on and is still completely in love with language of all kinds. The desire to connect with people on a deeper level has always been the catalyst for writing and still is every single time she sits down at the computer to bleed her heart onto the page. A sign language interpreter and lover of language, she finds bits of enlightenment in all of those connections. When not working or writing, you can find her lying outside in the dark night gazing up at the millions of stars or dancing in the kitchen with her children. She has written for elephant journal, Yoga International, Rebelle Society and Meet Mindful and Be You Media.
Where Salvation Lies
By Dana Gornall It was the end of a long day at work. It seems like every day at work is a long day. Pushing the glass door forward into a temporary freedom, I spied my tiny, white car in the parking lot when a flicker of movement caught...
Mindful AF: Does This Make Me More Authentic?
By Dana Gornall "Those who cling to perceptions and views wander the world offending people." ~ The Buddha Fuck. The word is everywhere lately, it seems. Whether it be an adjective, noun, verb or adverb, it is sprinkled with such ease...
The Inner Tradition of Yoga by Michael Stone {Book Review}
By Dana Gornall "We expend so much energy avoiding the way life actually unfolds, and most of the time we are not aware that we are doing this. This is exhausting. When we begin to see that there is spaciousness where there was resistance,...
The Price for Mindfulness
By Dana Gornall "Look at the stars. It won’t fix the economy. It won’t stop wars. It won’t give you flat abs, or better sex or even help you figure out your relationship and what you want to do with your life. But it’s important. It helps you...
This is a Meditating Mom
By Dana Gornall Plumping up my bed pillow, I fold it in half, and perch myself on top of it. I should really get a zafu, or a meditation cushion, but a pillow also works. I'm a mom, and a meditating mom at that, so you make do with what...
Sometimes We Kill Birds
By Dana Gornall I killed a bird the other day. Me. The goddamned vegan. The chick who doesn't even like to kill spiders (even though they do freak me out a bit). The chick who has thought about getting the word Ahimsa (the Sanskrit word for...
Parenting: It Doesn’t Get Easier. It Gets Different.
By Dana Gornall I used to have this dream I was swimming in a pool. It was a large, rectangular, Olympic-sized pool with black painted lines on the concrete floor, just like you would see at a YMCA or rec center. I was always under water, lungs filled with...
A Nap Would Be Nice
By Dana Gornall A nap would be nice. These are the words I scrawled on our blackboard message board that hangs on the wall just before you walk into and out of the house. It rests right below the garage door button. Meant...
There is No Guru
By Dana Gornall Every once in awhile when people hear my name, they repeat a line from a popular 1980's movie, Ghostbusters. "There is no Dana, there is only Zuul." It's the line Sigourney Weaver delivers after being possessed by some sort of...
My Friends with Benefits Relationship with Meditation
By Dana Gornall I want to meditate. Actually, it goes beyond wanting and has reached a level of needing to meditate. I'm stressed, I'm cranky, and I feel like I have gone past overwhelmed. Driving to work the other morning, the radio was off; I...
Single Mama Buddhist: Can We be Clergy?
By Dana Gornall "I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan. And never let you forget you're a man because I'm a wooommman, Enjoli." These were the lyrics played on a popular early 80s commercial I heard over and over while I...
Dharma & the Dating Mom: Everything is Awkward
By Dana Gornall One of the problems with settling down with one person at a young age is that everything is new and young during that time. Teenage intimacy means making out in the back seats of cars, holding hands at the movies, and sneaking...
Dharma & the Dating Mom: I Need Space but I Don’t
By Dana Gornall “Desiring another person is perhaps the most risky endeavor of all. As soon as you want somebody---really want him---it is as though you have taken a surgical needle and sutured your happiness to the skin of that person, so that any separation...
Dharma & the Dating Mom: Actually Dating {Part 2}
By Dana Gornall There is something comforting about communicating in writing---especially in digital format. For me, writing as a form of expression has always been a better way because I could take my time with my thoughts. For some reason everything in my...
Dharma & the Dating Mom: After Divorce {Part 1}
By Dana Gornall I was just shy of 19 years old when I met my husband. I married fairly young---naive and still unsure of who I was, I grew into myself throughout that marriage, but unfortunately, we didn't grow alongside of each other; so after almost 20 years,...