New Moon in Pisces. Reflective?
The plot point arrives this morning. Dramatic changes in available care appear near on the horizon. Fire glints in the eye of the Dragon, what next…
The challenge!
After a good lashing from Charles for losing the thread of the story, I attempt to return to the arc with clarity and with purpose, a few more days will tell how I have done…
Where has the story gone? 2
Where has the story gone?
Narration of the days events, in part as usual. I interrupted the writing near the end to call Charles and found a helpful critique drawing my attention towards the arc of story. I will endeavor henceforth to bring a more careful inquiry to my process of giving voice to story in my way.
A weary Wednesday, but perhaps a silver lining…
A weary Wednesday, but perhaps the end of a difficult moment. Friendship, connection, and views…
The days are taking on an odd flavor…
In the wash of life, aren’t we all just in some sense a blend of saint and sinner, warmth and cool, wellness and decay? Are we ourselves, the inner feelings of being, destined to come and go? And yet are we also not the raindrops of love that eventually fill the ocean?
About that math…
The week begins on a holiday, slow, but with nourishing connections, resolved if oblique efforts, and perhaps just enough peace in the face of discomfort to meet the squirrels in battle…
The love of inquiring minds…
Charles asked for the basic whodunit, I hope I have obliged. 🙂
The silent cry of the snow lion…
Busy Saturday, family, love, friendship, joy, tears.
Emptiness and gratitude…
With nothing to write about, I looked into empty space, I looked into an empty mind, and stories poured fourth…
How may I love better? How may I be of service?
Even though the trauma of my karma nips at my flesh, even though the trauma of the world threatens so many lives I hold dear, even though… Even though.
Mystical morning…
An exhale from the pace of work and effort felt lately, gives rise to feelings of appreciation, elation, depression, and return to well-being.
Cutting through…
Having walked an uncertain path of looming shadows, terrifying forms, and glimmering lights, we have crested the hill. Footing still uneasy, but gate more committed than ever, I and my dear compatriots begin our descent into the valley of the future.
The week begins…
A full and complete Monday, fulfillment and exhaustion, no doubt on both…
Rainy days, the good kind.
Narrating a rainy Sunday from the familiar rituals of mornings discipline through the endnotes of a creative flourishing and budding.
Suspicious elation.
A day of seeming generativity and perceived good fortune, is found a little suspicious through the lens of the sleepless night before.
Mundane misfortune
A pleasant enough day took an unfortunate turn at the end. Nothing ruinous, just an odd close, perhaps to honor the full moon.
A little run over and drug…
Taking a moment for some of the more difficult feelings; it’s always a bit like inspecting closely as we brushed the flakes of dust off the window. They have their own beauty and sparkle, and as we go, much glory is revealed.
Tacos and Traffic
A short story on the blessings of technology, and tacos.
Pleasant surprises and simplicity…
It’s the little victories… Today, it was easy rising, a good meditation, good fortune in meeting kind members of the community, good and heartfelt conversation with a friend, the first workout I’ve had in a while, and the privilege and opportunity to labor for others. May all beings have good fortune. May all beings be well and happy.
The missing haiku…
The first week of February is off with a bang! Celebrating new clarity, new certainty, new friendship, and old, mostly just a simple recounting of the day from the feeling of deep appreciation, gratitude, and joy.
Thank you for your kindness, dear Charles.
At the end of an 11 hour Sunday workday, while the world of America echoed cheers of Super Bowl madness, I offer a humble bow to my writing mentor.
It’s all about the reciprocity, part two…
The boundaries of the world are falling away. So many little agencies, we call them countries, struggling to harmonize in a globe gone marketplace, struggling to harmonize their own internal coherence.
What we are looking for, is a reciprocity of identity. For us as a species, we must learn to listen, to see, to feel each other more skillfully; not only as individuals, but as cultures and ideologies, Christians, Muslims, Jews, capitalists and socialists, left and right, we need to learn to let each other in, to be touched and changed by one another. Not only as individuals, but as collectives, we need these vulnerabilities to express in the genomes of our DNA.
This is true for me personally, for my engagement in the world will not persist and thrive if I do not make this leap of realization today.
Raw, broken, beautiful…
What is generosity? What does it mean to receive? What happens when we do these things? What gets broken, and what gets born? How do we suffer love, give kindness, and share the fullness of ourselves with one another?
The gift of reciprocity, part one.
Today was an exquisite day of practice and privilege with some truly remarkable gifts of leadership.
One of the central themes I’m drawing from my journey through its recent forests and high mountain passes is the theme of reciprocity.
The slow steady engine of progress… We know not where it leads.
Just a Wednesday narrative from sleep to supper, with work, service, and sun in between…
Balancing on my tippy toes…
Starting the last of the first of the next…
Grace in the face of oppression.
Coming to the page with nothing but a broken heart to share, I found that I had so much more…
Circles
The narration of a day, the end of the year, the beginning.
Good problems…
The arc of the day reveals gifts in the way to gifts…
A prayer for sound sleeping…
Ramblings at the end of a long day…
We are that this is.
I come to these words (these words, not those words) through a body filled with spasticity. I imagine perhaps a little dehydration may have to do with that.
As the light faded outside, a warm golden glow piercing the chill of the January evening, I could feel the creeping tension in my flesh. Muscles contracting, both specifically and generally throughout my being; an unpredictable turbulence in the little ocean of presence.
Depression of the body.
A narrative of Tuesday, January 21, or parts of it. Curiosity about the friendliness of depression, and how we dance with them…
Answers.
As I continue to write and publish (this is now two weeks I think), I remain curious about the through line for this blog. I notice writing, in many articles, and even on some platforms takes the approach of creating a sense of “Answer.”
I think that is not what this is about. True to my thesis of Wisdom Dialogue, I think it’s more about discovering rich questions, and soaking in the feelings that they can generate…
The Wave/Particle of Response and React…
In response to my friend Charles, I consider the nature and quality of “my” external situation. What are the qualities of the outside world, and how do we position ourselves internally to meet that in the most generous and capable ways?
Feels like the weekend…
Moments of anticipation…
Stuttering moved…
Kabir here…
Early moments of a remarkable journey, circling back…
Chewing through…
Yesterday someone near to me, but once removed was born. Yesterday, someone a little further away, but not so far, died.
This is the reciprocity of life, what else is?
Wait, what’s the plan?
We all live our lives inside of stories – stories of our identities, stories of our dreams, stories of our fears, our past, our capacities and obstacles, stories of those around us, stories of what is true and unbending, stories of what is false and stupid. We create these stories together, and we create them alone, stories of the stories we have created with others…
I live in the story, for example, that we create stories, and in writing this here, I live in the story that it is useful to do so, and that these words will be read by you dear reader, at some point in the future.
So in the absence of useful practical action, I turn to the useful practical action of telling some relevant stories, both to myself out loud, and for others who may connect to these stories and find an interest in engaging with me in some useful practical actions.
So that is what I did today. I told stories,
Reflecting outward…
… To digress, for you other readers, for a moment; these writings I have begun here are a return in reverence to a project I undertook in 2013 and 2014. The project was called simply “Letters to Charles,” and was an acceptance of my dear friend Charles’s invitation to me to practice writing on a daily basis by sending at least 100 words to him by email.
Charles is a remarkable soul, and among many other things, a well read and accomplished writer in his own right. His daily replies to my letters served as an invaluable source of both encouragement and critique to help me hone not only the discipline of actually writing, but actually to hone the discipline of writing well. I do pray that these lines here reflect that, and not some terrible contradiction of that assertion. 😉
Exploring creative responses to turbulence…
Here in the early days of the Donald J Trump presidency in the United States, things are getting interesting (still.)
Ghandi, Mother Teresa, and You
Ghandi said “be the change.” Faced with modern global complexities such as climate change, rising class disparity, and social and political instability, what does that really mean?
We are Open Field Awakening.
We are a collective of deep friendships, spiritual and business partners, living and creating together in community. We have a practitioner’s home – where we practice explicitly waking up to and with one another. We employ various somatic, psycho-, and spiritual intelligences, from ancient to emergent.
