I started meditating when I was in my early teens. I checked out all of the books from the library on it, which seems impressive on paper until I give you the context that there were at most four or five books in the entire collection. Meditation for Dummies was one of my favorites because … Continue reading For Hygieia, with Love, On Meditation as Hygiene
Some Media Recommendations
This week, I listened to the first two podcast episodes in The Long Time Academy, which won awards in 2022 for its work. The podcast is a short series with the intent of giving the listener a transformative spark away from short-term thinking — of thinking instead as ourselves as descendants and ancestors in a … Continue reading Some Media Recommendations
A Few Passages for August
Here are a few passages that I've been thinking about as of late, and I thought I would share them just in case they are also interesting to some of you. Phaedo, 62b, trans. Brann, Kalkavage, & Salem: “For it would seem,” said Socrates, “to be unaccountable if put this way. And yet just maybe … Continue reading A Few Passages for August
Seasons
This is the final weekend before things start to get hectic at work — earlier than is typical in August. The next month and change involve a lot of reshuffled days to meet with search candidates, onboarding workshops, and networking events as my job moves from quiescence into the hyperactivity of Fall Mode. This morning, … Continue reading Seasons
Five Beautiful Things
“Praise to the Melodious Wisdom Goddess Saraswati, Called ‘The Melody of the Youthful Display of Joy,’ by Kunkhyen Longchenpa in Sunlight Speech That Dispels the Darkness of Doubt: Sublime Prayers, Praises, and Practices of the Nyingma Masters, translated by Thinley Norbu. I was struck by the beauty of the words and the single-pointed focus of … Continue reading Five Beautiful Things
Conversions Away from the Gods
When I was in college, one of the women in my social group called herself pagan, but she would not come to the events that the campus pagan group — which I ran for a few years — organized. She was adopted, she went to Catholic school, and she was raised by a traditional WASP … Continue reading Conversions Away from the Gods
How To Write a Hymn (2)
Listen to Rachmaninov’s cascading concertos,to the majestic meander of Yes’ “Awaken” —follow these melodies as they set forthbeginning to end, an evolution always revertingback to the first breathing fingertips upon keys. Now: an epithet. Come to it as an agalma.It is sheet music — syllables and stresses.It is speech coiled together — dimensioned tight.Like a … Continue reading How To Write a Hymn (2)
How To Write a Hymn (1)
Give forth enough breath to let imagescut shapelessly into the lungs’ flatness.Wrap each symbol tense, layering uponsteep cliffs the cascade of fall·catch·fall·rise.The God will buoy you. Attend to this:a flutter of notes light as incense,brittle as dried laurel crushed between palms.Open up this everything in ink's meandering traces.Work them gently like clay upon a wheel,but … Continue reading How To Write a Hymn (1)
Please, For the Love of the Apotheosis Painting of President Washington Having a Great Time with the Gods, Climate Change Is Not Partisan
This is one of several posts that I am creating together in order to have peace of mind about some pressing matters, primarily focused on current events in American society. Even limiting myself here, I have a feeling that our partisanized atmosphere makes this about as effective as Plato’s attempts to philosophize in Syracuse, so … Continue reading Please, For the Love of the Apotheosis Painting of President Washington Having a Great Time with the Gods, Climate Change Is Not Partisan
KALLISTI 