Dragonslayer

I started meditating and then decided to try working this out here. The book I’m (re)writing, Ambivalent Miracles, is some kind of Kilimanjaro. And as is the way with naming things, the title seems to have embedded itself in me on personal levels: I often bring ambivalence to the writing, or at least the needing [...]

Read Full Post »

Covet

Sometimes I think about how all the things we have and work for and want don’t ultimately make us happy and, indeed, often contribute to our aggregate misery and anxiety. The house (the mortgage), the car (the payments), the jeans (the back fat), the trinkets (and the losing them). The trips to Target propelled by [...]

Read Full Post »

Riding the Monsters Down

As I’ve mentioned in passing, I’ve been in a bit of a Carl Jung binge lately, especially since my mother out-of-law (my mother outlaw) gave me the mind-boggling Red Book for Christmas. I just taught, for the third time, Jung’s Undiscovered Self, which is perhaps his most concise exploration of the content and psychosocial implications [...]

Read Full Post »

Devotion

A couple days ago, my friend Aurelio, a reader of this blog and author of the wonderfully erudite Luctor et Emergo, suggested “devotion” to describe the kind of attempt at discipline I was explaining in my last post. Aurelio is a fine artist and practicing Buddhist, so I suspect he’s learned a thing or two [...]

Read Full Post »

Tyrannies

This word, tyranny, has been bubbling up in my thoughts lately. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that my single New Year’s resolution for 2010 is to “have more fun in the midst” of the things I’m doing. In other words, to remember to play, to enjoy, to not take it all too [...]

Read Full Post »