MY BLOG

Trust, and The Zombies My offering to you is a short and sweet strategy that has helped me to make decisions for myself with clarity and ease. Please feel free to share, or comment! May the spirit of our time bring us renewal! To be alive is a strange trip. Time appears to change everything, but for the cosmos, it's all business as usual - nothing has changed. To us mere mortals, we're in the thick of things constantly. We have to search, struggle, and stumble our way through

How to balance effort and ease, and Miriam Makeba Please enjoy this rich and relevant conversation from a few weeks ago from the monthly satsang. As we enter a new season, and we engage with life with a renewed vigor and curiosity, the questions that came up are especially potent: How do I balance effort and ease? How do I stay motivated to practice? After a year of mostly seeing one-dimensional social media versions of most other human beings, I feel that it's worth remember

Take time to face realities, No rush. Manu Dibango You are you from womb to tomb, And nothing about you remains static. In dreams, the role of you finds itself In lives unfamiliar, odd, and as real As waking life. But are you the you That you dreamed of? Inspired by Manu Dibango - "Tek Time" #writing #poetry #yoga #compassion #dignity #respect #ahimsa #love #soul #funk

Check your assumptions, and Donald Byrd Listen to a recording of the piece here. Pay attention, TLDR - Liberation is possible. Our distant ancestors let themselves marvel. They watched the stars and were mesmerized by dancing flames against the darkness of night. Regaled by myths and monsters, and awe-struck by the abundance and wildness of life, they imagined ways that such a curious situation might have come about. Comfort in ideas ensured survival against the madness of un

Difficult conversations, quantum physics, and Hudson People Listen to a recording of the piece here. The spirit of our time is one of great conflict and healing. What appears to be paradoxical may not be. We may quarrel over the appearance or reality of a situation, and we may be zealously convinced in our beliefs, and we can still surrender to the unknown. Science, mythology, philosophy, and spirituality or wisdom traditions all attempt to reconcile deep mysteries. Who are

Love, light, cheetos, and oreos... Misconceptions distort and warp light and shadow into opposites. As a prism bends bands of light making visible a mix of waves shining shards hues blend and extend beyond sight; what we consider separate wholly belonging together. It's an easy mistake confusing causation and correlation, cheetos or oreos and nutrition. Gripping ideas will tear apart our world. What healing will come from force and fury? How can rage, repudiation, or rejectio

How can something be both separate and unified? (Hear a recording of the reading here) Take heart dear friend, As we approach every day we have the opportunity to choose how to relate to our life, and therefore existence itself. Most of us regularly make choices about how to live while taking so much for granted. While we would probably be paralyzed by awe if we fully perceived the complexity of living, opening ourselves slightly to the hidden context of life might give us a

Stories, surrender, and John Lennon. (Hear a recording of the reading here) Every time in human history has been marked by an unspoken undercurrent that churns up conflicts, confusion, and change. With instability arises also possibility, opportunity, and ingenuity. The human story as depicted through what we have retained in mythology, philosophy, and religion is as much struggle as surrender. We love to tell stories that create heroes and villains of ourselves in relation t

Life without threats, and The Doors (Hear a recording of the reading here) Every few days it seems like there is another paradigm shattering event that has the potential to drastically change the way our collective human organism experiences itself. The information overload coupled with emotional overwhelm might make us feel depleted. Now is the time to repossess our vitality and energy. Nature moves through us in cycles; as described by the ancients the flow of grace operate

Transitions, audio recording, Billy T.K.'S Powerhouse (Hear a recording of the reading here) Tread softly dear friend, Every moment, countless changes take place in the world around us, but also within us. Cosmic principles move celestial and quantum objects, and everything in between. At the tender point where transitions happen, like joints, there is more likelihood for injury. Human beings, like all other forms of life, are brilliant and complex expressions of eons of cosm

Happy Solstice! Common ground, and Ira Sullivan. Language ensnares mysteries compounded proffering a glimpse under the hood, but only useful if not confused with truth. Colorless. Vibrational. Mechanistic. Form and formless alike as expressions of what cannot be named. The same forces that condense particle clouds into neurons, coalesce subatomic forces to twinkle against the background of night. We forget. Sense wetware by which we engage creation, the gift for which we cann

Take the leap, and Caetano Veloso First flight on tender unused limbs, beautifully unaware of awaiting heights, and with no concept of what a moment could be once wings take wind. What is known is now distilled through the instrument of mortality. Cells respond with ancestral knowledge, the unproven theory: this body is meant to fly, guarantee free. Jump. One or one hundred feet falling or flying gravity works the same. The terrestrial home remains, as does the open container

Screaming profanities at the sun, and Focus. Remember to marvel to bend towards the ground. Apparently below, but actually itself suspended somewhere sandwiched in not-so-empty space, and a self-consuming floating fusion reaction. It would blind us if we looked; our eyes cannot see the source of light, we know it by reflection, refraction, and diffraction. How fascinatingly forgetful we are. We look without seeing, confirming and conforming our vision. We conjure who and what

Let's get started, Metta Sutta, and Jimi Hendrix Here are a few simple offerings for reflection in the coming days, weeks, and months ahead: All ideas, thoughts, beliefs, or any other concept born of human imagining have the same weight: none. Nothing human beings can do has the power to create or destroy existence; no matter how much effort, we could never turn a cooked stew into raw ingredients. What we regard, through our mind, body, and senses as separate can nor ever wil

Memory, and Irma Thomas The premise of wisdom traditions, at their core, is that no story, however intricate or outlandish, can accurately contain the power, mystery, and possibilities of how, what, and why everything exists as it does. Ultimately, we must come to terms with being willing to be blind, to some extent, to the broader context of life, and must be focused on and open to life as it arises and unfolds within and around us. We are always present and participating in

What is between us? and Aretha Franklin It's said people are divided, but what is between us? A Marianas trench of some kind; a hidden world of conditions so extreme only barely recognizable and horrific lifeforms thrive. Do we measure the space in microns or miles? Amidst the immeasurable galactic curtain of space hidden in the absence of light, nothing on this planet is truly so far. Or is time between us? Halcyon days or holocaust, tribal paradise or valorous conquest, mod

Wisdom from clouds, and The Pointer Sisters. If you live in the US, you are probably aware that an election is underway. It's tense. Vote if you can, and haven't already. I have nothing more to add. When we have done what we can do, and it is time to surrender into the flow of natural forces beyond our will, what do we do with ourselves? There is a dance of cosmic forces moving through everything that exists. Wisdom traditions from every part of the world have persisted to ad

No one is disposable, and Stevie Wonder. Hear me. No matter how much we disagree, or what cause we are a champion of, our worthiness to live on this planet is not up for debate. Whatever alignments or allegiances we might claim, no one is disposable, or beyond redemption. We cannot discard whole groups of people, forms of life, or segments of our planet. It feels like the divisions between people are beyond repair, but looking forward to our planet's history there may be no o

Humanity in puberty, dark fluid and magic, and De La Soul Our daily lives are fraught with information that is largely unsettling. In such a charged environment it can be hard to understand what needs to be done, and also to find the motivation or conviction to take action at all. If our enthusiasm arises from a place of obligation and social norms, it unlikely to be something we can maintain without becoming frustrated, disappointed, or disillusioned. However, if we are able

Love in action is creativity and possibility, and George Harrison Deep bows, friend. As we round out a year that has revealed so many aspects of human life we ordinarily take for granted, we must be focused and deliberate with our thoughts, words, and deeds. We cannot spare ourselves the pain of knowing the grief and sorrow of our world. There is no distraction, or temporary refuge, that will guide us from confusion to clarity. Narratives and talking points are falling around