"So is it study or is it art?" The first is a wick drawn by a practiced hand, straight through wax. Patience dipped again and again to fill out a candle's form, layer on layer for length, strength and stability. There is dedication in study, repeated practice like a mantra, mastery a form of devotion. You give yourself and …
I offered to be part of our community "Solstice Sing"* when it was a small offering among ourselves and local musicians… nice venue to sing a little song, among friends. Then more folks got wind of it, and suddenly there were top-notch professional performers and singers and sound healers surfing in! It made for a fine event… and left …
I suggested yet again that our death is introduced when we are born, the seed of our departure planted upon our arrival, and perfect darkness as a backdrop for all the colors and sights and sounds of this little, lovely (hopefully at times seen as lovely) life. Can't I just hang that one up for once? No. I don't …
I haven’t written so many poems. Nor have I penned a single novel, though there is one waiting, and behind that one, who knows?, maybe another. I have been blessed with a few songs. I used to draw well, a lifetime ago. I am responsible for a half-carved Buddha, who patiently waits inside a few …
“Don’t.” Behind the counter, a seventeen-year-old is washing glasses and setting them to dry on a cloth by the mirror. Her back is to the room, but from as she washes, dries, sets a glass upside down, and them repeats, her eyes go up and to the left and follow guests as they enter and leave. Her friend is …
I don't seek painful experiences; but pain, and its companion-echo, anguish, find me. I suppose that, as often as not, this is due to unskillful navigation in the waters of life, whose shoals and reefs demand the best of a master sailor: hard to starboar–! Oh. Get out yer hammers and yer cotton caulking, lads; we're shippin' water! As …
Somewhere in between acquaintance and friend I asked why?, and she answered: I survived cancer. It was some years ago, she said, a decade now without another challenge. I counted back: how young! And the thought dissolved – as some thoughts do – becoming a gentle interior rain, washing down to common ground, what is …
The sun’s touch soft today, the air perfumed with sweetest taste of spring, simple, with no effort, the round globe leans toward its lover, longs for love, and every living thing becomes a blossom. I gave myself an hour – no more than an hour was needed – and left my labor to rest, set it on the desk, …
I woke before an alarm, like a shorebird stepping in before the wave. That’s more natural: a piper is never caught by the curl. Those winged fingers flit him skyward if the crash and roil of the sea comes too close. He lives on the waters: not in them. He eats what the sea has offered, running along the …
After the movie ended, I sat for a moment. I imagined a moon rising behind the clouds, so that the weather’s back was lit all silver, while below the rain fell easily down. Nothing easier than letting go, from a great height, and being received, at sea level. That was not what I thought. That is what I …
Finally. This morning, March 31st, marks the beginning of an eight-month daily practice of yoga asana, meditation and spiritual study, in preparation for an even more intensive certification program to attain teacher status. I have walked along any number of similar roads, most often to some form of completion, as they led on to bigger ways or to smaller, more …
entre lágrima e sal seca sal, sol que seca entre chuva e a mão horas, memórias que dá a lágrima como chuva cai cámera lenta, amor ví o rosto de espelho na sua joía líquida descendo como raío doa sal, olho que olha de luz de dor de benção que faz fechar as mãos …