A Bird on the Wing
A little Clairfontaine notebook with one entry: it was precariously perched among other journals on the shelf in my studio, and its paucity of purpose was bothering me enough to make me take it to my reading nest and use…
Get Behind Me
Once again (twice? thrice? who knows?), I have come across the statement, “Get behind me, Satan.” It was there the night before last when I opened the pages of a notebook. “Get behind me, Satan”: those are the words Jesus…
You Should Probably Be Pissed
“Anger is bad.” “Give me facts not feelings.” “Science is unquestionable.” “Religion equals God.” What do all those statements have in common? They are, quite simply, wrong. Yet that’s not all there is to it: each and every one is…
Bridges and Stories Take Us Where We Need to Go
I had to stop reading the book before bed. Even though it was my second race with Bridge of Clay, and I knew what to expect, I couldn’t take any more of the nights with too little sleep. It wasn’t just…
No Demands
The trees in the forest across the road, where my family and I like to spend time, speak to me of perseverance and acceptance and being. They do being very well, far better than any of us. The fir trees…
What Is Shame Good For?
If you want to break a pattern, respond differently. Such a simple statement. I would call it deceptively simple, and by that I mean more easily said than done. In fact, I would contend that, although responding differently is essential,…
Longing to Be
I recently read an essay that laments the unrest in the world, concentrated, as usual, in the Middle East. Two specific statements (sentiments) shared by the author (editor of an art magazine) caught my attention, because each purports to be…
The Big Lesson
There is no teaching until the pupil is brought into the same state of principle in which you are; a transfusion takes place; he is you and you are he; then is a teaching, and by no friendly chance or…
Thinking about Love
If you do not know or understand someone, can you truly love them? The desire to love needs to include the desire to understand. To know, one must believe that knowing is possible. Communion, which encompasses authentic sharing, cannot be…
Put It Together
One of the gifts Dennis gave me for Christmas is a one-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle. It was on my Amazon wishlist, because I’ve learned that not all puzzles are created equal, and if I want one that won’t drive me crazy,…
Be Who You Are
I used to struggle to call myself a writer, an artist, a photographer. Didn’t I have to make money at something to be that?Even if I did make money at it, did the label really fit? Sometimes I forgot that…
Free Yourself
Early in life, we build cages to protect ourselves. From the inside they look the way Wonder Woman’s jet does from the outside: invisible. Sometimes other people see what we’ve built and furnished and comfortably live inside, but in order…
