The endings I love most are the ones where appearance is turned inside out by the fall of this one little domino—think Sixth Sense, or Interstellar, or another personal favorite, The Thomas Crown Affair. (Or what actually set me off on this post, which was the final episode of the Showtime series Homeland.) When that last piece falls, the meaning of everything that came before it is transformed. I particularly like when this reveals an […]
The first task with a subject like genius might be to define it, but I’m going to resist that temptation. I’d rather develop the ideas as we go, so that just about the time we think we’ve put our finger on it, we’ll understand why we can’t. What I’ll say is that while genius may seem to be a rare bird in our present society, it is not because any one of us lack access […]
Things that appear to be so under one set of conditions, are often found to be quite different under another. It is for this reason that most of our conclusions formed historically, in the context of separation consciousness, are erroneous. What’s remarkable about the experience of life is that we can be completely incorrect about ultimate reality, and have a very real and vivid experience of our own false conclusions up to and even through […]
Authenticity is not unveiled in a swoop of the cape. That only goes to show the last few days or hours or minutes– whatever the length of time has been since the previous flourish of unveiling– have been inauthentic. What the flourish reveals is the port of entry to our truth’s harbor. You enter by submarine. Your instruments have failed. The ballast is leaking and the batteries are dead. The hull is creaking and popping in […]
Power is a word that evokes a strange spectrum of thought forms and connotations, reactions and prejudices. I think this is largely because the power we are most familiar with is the type that involves a victim and an oppressor. We view power as the ability to cause events to occur despite the competing will of another. That is our definition of power– a definition that makes perfect sense in the minds of the separate […]
Hafiz picked me up and drove me out into the countryside, aiming the right front tire for every mud puddle he could find, and filling the rearview mirror with volley after volley of clay starbursts. Then, much to the relief of both my kidneys and the vehicle’s suspension, we came across a dog breeder and popped in to say hello. After a cup of tea and a profound discussion of canine nutrition, she invited us […]
Everything you see is a trick. And Love is the punchline. These skins are just the charade we need, to remember what can never grow old. Children with eyes overflowing— they don’t tire of hearing it over and over and over again. All those goo goo gah gah faces we make— so certain of our personal contribution to their pleasure… They’re not even listening. It’s what’s in our eyes they crave, that punchline peeking through our […]
Once Hafiz and I were walking along the beach beneath a violet sky that had gathered around a glowing sliver of the moon, speaking existentially about sunken barques drift wood hand-carved initials and the audacity of the ruffled tulip, when the pounding surf whistling winds and rush of mad-honking gulls tripped a lever inside of my famished organs of persona. I was suddenly swimming in the need to give my whole life away, to tear […]
My unfolding as a being has undergone a few prompt jumps in self-expression. In the 1990 time frame I went from viewing rock music as one of the influences most likely to lead to my destruction– in the same category as cigarettes, underage drinking, and not doing your homework– to buying Nirvana’s record Nevermind. And feeling somehow holy about it. It was auspicious. The lightning I had anticipated failed to strike. It takes all of thirty […]
The sleek apparatus we call progress has failed us. The signs are all around, if we but dare heed them. I’m very clear, for instance, that the curdling of country lanes into frost-heaved mogul courses should be a bygone phenomenon. You shouldn’t be forced to drink the day’s first cup of coffee while your kidneys are undergoing paratrooper training. Similarly, had progress been successful, tests of the Emergency Broadcast System would have been moot by […]
Embracing Forever 