Before and After ~ Stephen Mitchell’s Second Book of the Dao

The Second Book of the Tao ~ Stephen Mitchell

I was digging into Stephen Mitchell‘s The Second Book of the Dao one day back in January (over a lovely Red Snapper Soup @ Granville Island) when a passage in the second chapter inspired the following poem. Before and After Before sorrow, longing Before longing, anger Before anger, pain Before […]

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Matches and the eternal sunshine of the spotless soul ~ Lawrence of Arabia

Burning Match

Metaphor. I love metaphor. Matches. I just posted one about matches. Matches and pain. This one isn’t about pain. Not at all. It’s about perfection. This one is about the fire that burns inside each of us. Well, maybe there’s a little pain. It’s the pain you feel in your […]

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Dog & Butterfly ~ The beauty and bliss of reaching higher than you can grasp

Dog and Butterfly ~ Heart

Heart’s Dog & Butterfly has been on my mind and in my ears a lot the last few days, both the album and the title song from it. I love the song for the mirthful image of a dog futilely leaping after a fluttering butterfly, and for its wisdom in […]

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The trick … is not minding that it hurts ~ Lawrence of Arabia

Lawrence of Arabia ~ Peter O'Toole Blows Out the Match

I’ve always loved this scene introducing Peter O’Toole in David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia. In a film rife with extraordinary storytelling and wisdom, it remains my favourite. In hindsight perhaps it’s the spiritual undertone of Lawrence’s statement that’s always intrigued me most because, of course, Lawrence isn’t only talking about […]

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Beginning again with Sacred ~ Lotus Feet & Shakti

Remember ~ Shakti

I haven’t been living the sacred enough lately. Sometimes I forget how sacred life is, become caught up in the mundane, the day-to-day of existing in a corporeal world, in the meanness that can be everyday life. I stop, for a while, living a life that is sacred. I’m often […]

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Bodhisattvas of Science ~ Sagan, Feynman, deGrasse Tyson & Nye sing to the rhythm of the universe

We are all connected: to each other, biologically. To the earth, chemically. To the rest of the universe, atomically. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

This is a clever and quite lovely mashup of science, astro-physics, meta-physics, spirituality and rhythm. A dance floor Tao of Physics. I think I’ll let these bodhisattvas of science speak for themselves…what a wonderful collection of muses, of musical musings they give us…and John Boswell, the head musician and producer […]

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Watery Rhythms ~ Deva Premal sings of Oshun, Goddess of rivers, seashores and love

Love is Space ~ Deva Premal

Listen very closely to this song, to the underlying rhythms. What’s that sound, the shsh sshh shsshsh? This mantra is Ide Were Were, from Deva Premal’s album Love is Space. Listen closely. There’s a hint right at the start. Depending on the fidelity of your sound system, you may not […]

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Paul Simon ~ slip slidin’ my way from the blues to the rainbow’s loving hues

Slip Slidin' Away - Paul Simon

A day of sunshine and warm summery breezes, moving conversation and revealed transformations, a day of intimacy and worries unburdened, of gratitude and the most difficult of life’s moments shared… A day not so much impervious to the hardships, the horrors, the blues, but one that finds itself on the other […]

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War Prayers ~ Mark Twain and Lao Tse on the artlessness of war

The War Prayer ~ Mark Twain

Yesterday the people of The United States of America marked Memorial Day. It’s a day of baseball, hot dogs and apple pie, of families and communities gathering to celebrate the arrival of summer. It’s a day of flags and bunting and red, white & blue and national pride, and a […]

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