Category: Stories
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Prayer Wheels
I want to tell you a story about one of the way-points along the path of my gradual awakening. But I recall, that story has already been told. What follows is a prose poem written while visiting Labrangsi monastery, in the town of Xiahe, China. It’s a Yellow Hat sect, but the monastery is…
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Uncomfortably numb ~ David Gilmour and I can’t put our finger on it
I’m going to tell you a story about someone who became a part of my life in a way few other people ever experience. Well, I wonder about that. I wonder how many other people go about their day-to-day lives only vaguely aware that there’s something unusual going on in their life, but just can’t…
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Letting go, moving on, going forward ~ Camel and Ice
Camel’s lilting, melancholic and epic instrumental, Ice is among my favourite pieces of music. Discovered on a late-night college radio station in 1979 in Rochester, New York, it stands out on the album I Can See Your House From Here (despite the DJ’s touting of Remote Romance as, “Best on the album”) I suppose its…
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Tumare Darshan ~ The essence of Noosa
OK… something to end this very loooong, but very productive day. A song that I will always associate with a beautiful beach in a faraway land and a short strip of magical bistros and restaurants barely more than a stone’s throw from the beach. There were sacred sunrises, and uncanny encounters, bliss and sorrow, beauty…
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Dog & Butterfly ~ The beauty and bliss of reaching higher than you can grasp
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 directing us in our moments…
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We’re too good to be this political ~ Be the change you want to see in the world
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by
My first mistake today was climbing into the bathtub and picking up the May 31st, 2010 edition of Canada’s weekly news magazine, Macleans, rather than the copy of Stephen Mitchell’s The Second Book of the Tao, in which I’d thought to have a nice, long spiritual soak along with the hot water, and possibly bubbles.…
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Desert Dragstrip ~ Zen and the Art of Observation at any Speed
In 1974, Robert M. Pirsig published Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, an extraordinary book about an extraordinary journey. The bit about touring around the U.S.A. on a motorcyle is good too. This novel captivated me in my early 20s. The mystical philosophy of ‘goodness’ Pirsig explores fascinates me. It’s not a perfect book,…
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Bif Naked is my bright mantra ~ Everyday
A couple years ago, right about this time, my life was a process of transformations. Significant ones. Life changers. World changers. Personal, spiritual, career, love: you name it, it was changing. It seemed like Bif Naked had a song for every single transformation, every single condition I was experiencing. My Whole Life, Lucky, Violence, Hold…
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Get Miles Away to find your way home ~ Gomez, Thomas Moore and Tristan
The year 2000 was an extraordinary one. It was the year I wrote and produced my play, Prisoners, which in itself marked several milestones on my spiritual path. And there was this girl. A dark beauty who rekindled my passion for music. Gomez was just one of the bands we caught live that year at…
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Cycling Mantras ~ Establishing Desert Rhythms
Bicycling is among my passions, one of the ways I connect to the world, my body, my being. The rhythm of riding, the cyclical nature of cycling, of spinning the crank arms, to spin a cogset, to spin the chain, so that the wheels spin. Round and round and round in a circle game…the movement…