Deep loss is so revealing. Although through meditation practices and commitment to examined living/examined mind, it is possible to live with a great degree of open-awareness, nothing quite shows up ‘who you are’ like loss does. Thus I’ve found losing my grandfather to be a place of deep vulnerability, more like an inverted mountaintop than…
stop means go
A family of cardinals has been visiting the little second-story balcony of our rented apartment since February. Only one wears the bright red that clearly signifies *cardinal*, with the other three more brown-toned, often fluffed and lively in their chattering. One of the brown-toned cardinals sports bits of orange too, as though going through a…
Zeroing In
So, I’ve been doing shadow work–contemplative work which includes intentionally going into the emotional places I’d rather (and usually do) avoid, and searching around in there to see, “What still hurts?” Basically, it’s a check up. In the same way, I have a shoulder issue which bothers me occasionally, but only when and if I’m…
Don’t answer that
It’s been a while, but I need to write. About loss this time. Maybe I’m always writing about loss. How to reconcile with losing. Losing to those I was taught we should not be losing to especially, justice weeping endlessly. Losing to time. Constantly losing to time. Losing to the weight of expectations, and to…
Unthinkable
Then I learned that her main gig is that of a teacher… currently working in an immigrant detention center not too far from me…
Fathers, Legends and Queens
I spent a lot of Fathers’ Day watching films, beginning with Rocketman as a promise to my daughter, who loved it so much that she paid to see it three times. Then, wishing to make comparisons, I rented Bohemian Rhapsody., which I’d walked wide circles around before, failing to imagine how anyone could do Freddie’s…
magic in the doing
“I wasn’t doing magic anymore… was just talking about doing magic.” The above is a note I jotted to myself several months ago, and ran across today. It was something I saw up ahead as I wrote it, as though spoken by a me reflecting on that time, once through it. There was a sense…
Bubbles & Wings
Today, after a full night of tossing and turning, I felt it… a spark of innocence floating in the air. It seemed very real, yet somehow not of the same universe or substance as the rest. I watched, my inner vision locked in on the hint of the glimmer, as just like the Good Witch’s…
Character Examinations
We see some of the we characters we thought of as noble and ‘good’ as sadly ineffectual and even dangerous due to the very values we love so much, for one thing. And we reluctantly love, even forgive, indisputable monsters. George R.R. Martin has said in interviews that he finds the question of redemption especially fascinating. Me, too…
On flowing through horizons
I let the weekend pass by without writing, too preoccupied to string thoughts together sensibly with the correct measures of thought for others, the big picture, my little self. I’m worried about things: my country, my judgment, our systems of justice, overall stamina to rise to the occasions arising. And of course the just day-to-day….
