…to be cramming in Things We Planned To Do Before The Term Starts. Some of these things are my personal deadlines, the projects that I set out at the beginning of the summer. In which case I plan to keep my writing practice as equally urgent-important. Why should my lollygagging mean I reshuffle my priorities? […]
“This understanding of Judaism as a religion of action is encapsulated by the biblical verse in which the Jews standing at Mount Sinai signal their acceptance of the with the words ‘na’aseh v’nishma‘–’We will do and we will hear/understand.’” —from “Do First, Understand Later” by Rabbi Jill Jacobs Last winter, I scraped up against this […]
…and water. I don’t know which I’m lacking, now that I’ve run out of steam, but I know I’ve barely got brain to finish reading this Thomas Merton essay. So instead I’ll give you another picture, courtesy of my friend on the furthest right (she of the Selfie-Arm-! XD ):
Santa Fe is flowering into the monsoon season. St. John’s College cherishes its plantings with irrigation. Though I was in the high desert, the plants interspersed with the bare ground were in their ease of form and leaf and color. For a week, the natural world I moved through showed very little stress. Then I […]
ONE In the early, early days of M.’s and my relationship, he took me to Berkeley CA. There are several glorious stories from that one adventure, but this story is smaller. Because we were in Berkeley, which is in the Bay Area, which also includes Daly City, and because — in his culture and mine […]
There was this idea that we would go to a café in town, drink tea, write our Things To Be Written, and have a little distracted supper while still writing. Didn’t happen. We’ll say the stars refused to align, even though I don’t think that’s a thing. What we did instead: Oh, and we did […]
Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner A new friend happens to be preparing for Greek Orthodox catechesis. She was showing me her prayer-bracelet, a black cord of 33 knots and a bead. She prays the circlet three times, saving the bead for the last circle, and uses “the Jesus prayer.” She recited it, skitter-skatter, […]
Wednesday morning began with a 6:30 walking meditation session. Optional, naturally. And it was stinkin’ early. But as poet-K pointed out, it was exactly my thing. I managed to incorporate a new practice: keeping my steps (pace) inside my meditative breathing. This, my friends, is slooowww. But it made lots of room for looking. So […]
One of the constants at Glen Workshop is daily collective worship/devotion time. (It’s a faith+art conference, so not a surprise.) Our chaplain this year believes in silence. And when I say, “believes,” I don’t just mean the way Roy Blount, Jr. uses it in this line: “There’s an old Southern story about an old boy […]
As of Sunday lunchtime, I’ve ensconced myself at Glen Workshop. Evidently this afternoon’s work (Monday’s) was all about Thursday: it took me longer than I’d prefer to kite out and back to the AAA for maps, so I had just an hour or two to puzzle out all the various options for driving out to […]
