All that passes descends,and ascends again unseeninto the light: the rivercoming down from skyto hills, from hills to sea,and carving as it moves,to rise invisible,gathered to light, to returnagain. “The river’s injuryis its shape.” I’ve learned no more.We are what we are givenand what is taken away;blessed be the nameof the giver and taker.For everything…
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoingand rightdoing there is a field.I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grassthe world is too full to talk about.— Rumi There’s no secret that the world feels more divisive, more aligned against the perceived slights, threats or opinions of another group. But then you read a…
“What and how much had I lost by trying to do what was expected of me instead of what I myself had wished to do?” – Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man You know the kind of dancing I avoid the most? The kind where everyone gets up and does the same thing in a coordinated way….
I’ve been actively using a strategy of keeping the things that draw my attention the most just out of reach. I first started doing this with Facebook, or Meta, or whatever they fancy themselves as now. I deleted the app off my phone and only have it on an old iPad that sits quietly amongst…
Look at the flowers, so faithful to what is earthly, to whom we lend fate from the very border of fate. And if they are sad about how they must wither and die, perhaps it is our vocation to be their regret. All Things want to fly. Only we are weighed down by desire, caught…
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside youAre not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,Must ask permission to know it and be known.The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,I have made this place around you.If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.No two…
“The books I read are like the stone men built by the Eskimos of the great desolate tundras west of Hudson’s Bay. They still build them today, according to Farley Mowat. An Eskimo traveling alone in flat barrens will heap round stones to the height of a man, travel till he can no longer see…
“You must be one man, either good or bad. You must cultivate either your own ruling faculty or externals, and apply yourself either to things within or without you; that is, be either a philosopher, or one of the vulgar.” — Epictetus, The Enchiridion Do you ever wonder why the Stoics are more popular than…
What might we accomplish in our brief time here should we apply ourselves towards it? Is accomplishing itself a worthy pursuit, or is experiencing the better path to walk down? I believe in fully experiencing life, but without setting a course and working diligently towards a calling who are we but sheep waiting to be…
You might say that winter brings simplicity, laying bare and naked the world outside. Living things have two choices in winter; to fatten up and sleep it off or to hunt for food to keep the furnace burning. Hibernate or keep moving. Survival, simplified. In warmer climates, or warmer seasons, you might get away with…
“It snowed. It snowed all yesterday and never emptied the sky, although the clouds looked so low and heavy they might drop all at once with a thud.” — Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek And then the snows came. If yesterday’s post was about the distinct lack of snow in the region, this morning…
