The other night I got that inkling. A tickle of spaciousness. One minute I was trying to decipher an ambiguity in the building code, and the next I was alone in the room at dusk, standing beside the window, trying to decipher the ambiguity of a meadow. I relaxed, settled—something moved within me. Unity, like freedom, is the utter magnitude of being. Later that evening I witnessed the great truth of our moment: the real […]
I have, for most of my life, been curious about the creation of a better world. When I think about what this world could be, it comes with feelings of wonder and happiness that are quite the opposite of the guilt and grief that attend the world as we have known it. I think these feelings are related to the sensation of things working out. Or perhaps more accurately, of things having already worked out. […]
Our world is being stretched. The tightened skin becomes translucent. It’s like a magic trick, only the illusion is punctured instead of unfurled. What’s really there can no longer be hidden. The make-up is sloughing off. It’s challenging, but clearly it’s needed. We have far to fall. But the ground is close. As close as we make it. That’s because the ground is us. We are the ones who will catch each other. Not the […]
This holiday season I received a gift subscription to Audible, and because I spend most of my reading time with works of fiction, I thought I’d use the daily commute for non-fiction. The first book I chose was Richard Dawkins’ The Blind Watchmaker. For reasons I cannot explain, I found myself curious recently about the theory of evolution, how it has evolved with the emergence of genetics, and what some of the open questions and […]
I have come to an important realization I think. And it’s not to say that I didn’t sort of know this already, but there’s a difference in knowing something and really knowing it. We’ve all seen these dichotomies: the zone defense or man-to-man, materialism or spiritualism, unrestrained capitalism or comprehensive socialism, cardio or strength training, STEM or liberal arts, the Right or the Left… And we all have at least one or two thoughts on […]
Lately I’ve been listening to a few more podcasts and reading a few more op ed pieces in the media than I ever have before, and one really interesting observation has become clear to me. We are (all of us) biased in ways I think would surprise us were they actually understood. While it may seem obvious, nevertheless this had the feel of real discovery to me. And I think there is a reason for […]
I take the pack of index cards out of my shirt pocket, slide the rubber band off, and lay them on the table. Hafiz has prepared a few placards and set them up at credible intervals. They read, “No Way, José,” “I Sure Hope Not,” “Why, Of Course!” “Prepare Yourself For Tears,” and “Jesus Christ!” I take a breath and shuffle the cards. Place them in a neat pile on the table. The first card […]
Sometimes the clouds roll in a few at a time like spectators to a barrel jumping competition, and before you know it the sky is bruised, the waves have run out of room, and they’re colliding on all sides like a legion of cymatic vendettas, or a black body radiation field composed of infinitesimal ballerinas and one-way mirrors. It’s the same way particles come into existence, always in pairs, up and down, here and there, […]
There are things we say sometimes to make a point– sweeping recapitulations of history, or statements of what is so in this world– and when we invoke them we do so as if they are self-evident. Obvious to those who would see. It is easy to forget how deeply we occupy our own lives and perspectives, and we can lose sight of the fact that what seems unmistakable to us is but the flowering of […]
Two, three—call it four decades on, and I’m both better and worse. I’ve settled into it in the way that precedes disappearance, as if I was placed in the back of an otherwise empty cabinet, sheltered by the presence of wood, where I’ve become a study in knowing something more that you can only glimpse in the repair of oily machinery, or the bailing of water from a low spot on the land where two surveyors […]
Embracing Forever 