Category: Perfection
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Before and After ~ Stephen Mitchell’s Second Book of the Dao
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in Books, Insight, Love, Non-Fiction, Perfection, Peter’s Poems, Poems, Poetry, Spirituality, SynonymsI 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 pain, injury Before injury, fear…
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Matches and the eternal sunshine of the spotless soul ~ Lawrence of Arabia
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 eyes as the sun rises…
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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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The trick … is not minding that it hurts ~ Lawrence of Arabia
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 physical pain here. There’s plenty…
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Beginning again with Sacred ~ Lotus Feet & 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 aware that I’m doing it.…
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War Prayers ~ Mark Twain and Lao Tse on the artlessness of war
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in Books, God, Insight, Non-Fiction, Perfection, Philosophy, Political, Social, Spirituality, SynonymsYesterday 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 day to memorialise the millions…
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The second book of The Way ~ Stephen Mitchell illuminates the Tao again.
Mmmmm… a day of cloudy wet so a retreat into a tub of hot water with salsa & tortilla chips and a good book about one of my favourite subjects, Stephen Mitchell’s The Second Book of the Tao (Dao, Tao, same thing, same pronunciation: Dao). Hmmmm… the liner notes of this book explain that the…
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Jason Bourne and identity — who am I?
Who are you? Are you the sum of your experiences, your actions, your memories? Are you your dreams, your plans, your aspirations, the person you’ll someday become? Are you your past, or your destiny or your present? The best films in any genre are always the ones that touch on essential human questions. What is…
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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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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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Revelations on the cycle of life & death, and spirit ~ Blaise Smith Band
I downloaded this song, Revelations, over a year ago. I can’t recall playing it since, though iTunes insists it’s been played 7 times before. Yesterday it came on while on my way to my chiropractor’s. Something about it haunted me. I wonder if I’d ever listened to the lyrics before. Really listened to them. Revelations,…