I recently finished George Saunders’ latest book, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain. In it, he takes seven short stories by famous Russian authors and talks about what works in them—what’s going on at a deeper level than a cursory read might reveal and why he can’t stop reading them himself. He intersperses this with discussions of his realizations as a human being and a writer. I loved it, but it’s taken me […]
In this second article on the topic of genius, I found myself drifting towards our ability to recognize beauty and truth. I thought it was an interesting topic, because it relates to how we process information and perception as individuals, and part of what is so beautiful about genius is that it breaks apart our clotted mentalities. The reorientation of perception that comes with encountering genius can be startling, but also I’ve found it can […]
The Only Principle is this: Nothing happens that doesn’t unfold within a field of awareness, and every awareness is held by a greater one because no awareness is great enough to hold itself. This is precisely true, even though awareness is always, only and ever… One. (That last bit’s the Other Principle.) Using language as we are here is like trying to make a hole in the Emptiness by using teaspoons to scoop out little […]
I am fragile, but when I shatter– as I must, and soon– a warmth will remain. You will find me again. That is the most dazzling magic. This realization comes while standing at the edge of this life, looking down, hovering weightless– a sand grain witness to a vast sea. Each arriving wave softens the distance into which my longing stretches. I am readying to dissolve. Together, can we cover the Vastness? Or will I buckle, […]
Wings aflutter, like a curious dart connecting invisible dots across the sky, a collage of frozen frames- a beak, a wingtip, an eye- excerpted from whirling Possibility, a solitary thrush comes in for a landing on a crackling braid of steel, a stranded iron dance hall populated by troupe after troupe of Hertzian dervishes, a fire brigade of magnetic flowers opening, blooming, and then collapsing into electric echoes. Twenty stories above the desert floor, head […]
Embracing Forever 