• Thoughts

    Feeling the Emotions

    At least part of each of my days now includes reading old blog posts that I used to spend at least part of each day writing. So many words. So many ideas that belonged to others and that I thought…

  • Thoughts

    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…

  • Thoughts

    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,…

  • Uncategorized

    English Major Heretic

    No institutional training required It’s a day ending in Y, so I am thinking about or starting a new website. Actually, in this case, it’s a new Substack, and this time, I’m asking others to join me. In short, I…

  • Thoughts

    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…

  • Thoughts

    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…

  • Thoughts

    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…

  • Poetry

    Autry’s Humility

    It was love and it was desperation.It was need and pure charity. It wasn’t perfect. Only God is. But it was enough to save a life. Thank you, Reynolds Price, for writing “Endless Mountains.” Thank you, Mom, Dad, God? Whoever…

  • Thoughts

    Silent War

    I have been engaged in a war since birth, as has each and every one of you. I bet you didn’t know that. Don’t feel bad; neither did I. The enemy is good. It has endless resources, recruits, and weapons…