God Beauty Perfection Love :: Synonyms
To a practitioner of Tendai (Buddhism), everything is wonderful. ~ Saiko
Sheryl Crow, I don’t know, she’s got something going on, and has been one of my muses at critical moments. She writes and sings like a broken angel, with equal measures of strength and vulnerability, passion and fear, hope and futility. Some of her music is exquisitely beautiful — notably […]
A dream is a place where a wish and a fear meet. When the wish and the fear are exactly the same, we call the dream a nightmare. ~ Gregory David Roberts Shantaram
The joyful melody and playful rhythm will be all too familiar to my mother, and the eldest of my sisters. I was about 12 when this song came into my life, the first 45 rpm record I recall owning. I spun the disc hundreds of times…maybe thousands…playing it again and […]
A while ago I was reading Ken Follet’s The Pillars of the Earth. Set amidst the brutality of the English middle ages, it’s interesting to see how all Follet’s characters experience fear, and more interesting how they respond to it and how, oftentimes, they are controlled by it, particularly the […]
They’re here. Turquoise jacketed volunteers and orange vested police converge on the city. They’re here. They’re everywhere. Tomorrow, the world’s biggest winter party and carnival begins in this grey, wet city. Is this the first winter Olympics ever held in a place where the grass is green? Where the vines […]
A day of stress and frustrations and, in the end, a recognition that I’m not ready to move forward on a course of action requiring a one-year commitment…not just yet…not without a more careful consideration of the options and possibilities. So, a little something to calm the soul….
A couple days ago, this mantra played during a peaceful, energetic, meditative moment while in a healing session with my chiropractor. It reminded me, as it often does, of the woman who gave it to me. It was my introduction to the grounding peace and tranquility of mantras. As I […]
While we’re still fresh with images of butterflies… ‘How does one become a butterfly?’ she asked pensively. ‘You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.’ ~ Trina Paulus Hope for the Flowers
I can’t remember how I met her. I think it was possibly on the boardwalk, or in the arcades at Weirs Beach. I do remember my buddy Brad and I hitching part way around Lake Winnnepesaukee so I could be with her. It was the summer of ’76 on the […]
The Vinegar tasters is among my favourite allegories and provides an excellent introduction to the three philosophies that dominated China through thousands of years: Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism. For me, the most important of these is Taoism, a gentle, soulful and luminous philosophy. I’m going to be lazy and let […]