My granddaughter Siena tangled up (joyously) in lights A lovely thing about Christmas is that it’s compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together. — Garrison Keillor Compulsory is a good word for this time of year. So is paradoxical. While the holiday percussiveness is pervasive, I still keep looking for some […]
Wisdom
- Art Making
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Young and Yet Wise: Weil and Hesse
Simone Weil Eva Hesse The writer Simone Weil died in 1943 at the age of 34. In spite of her short life, her legacy is a rich one, spanning a variety of métiers including philosophy, Christianity, theology, social justice, mysticism. And even though her life’s work was from her point of view of a god-centered […]
- Creativity
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Perennial Uncertainty
Vapeerine 3, from a new painting series Most of us know that feeling of rubberbanding: the rapidity with which you can move from loving what you are doing to finding it completely unacceptable. The writer Anne Lamott (who has written in depth about writing itself in books like Bird by Bird) advises her Twitter followers […]
Unleashing the Wandering Mind
Heron on the beach at Small Point, Maine _____ Note to my readers: As I head back up to Small Point, I reread this post from two years ago. That beach, that heron, that quiet—they are all still there, waiting to encompass any and all. I’ll be back Slow Musing at the end of next […]
Staying in the Fluid
Reflections of Commonwealth Avenue on a Boston University poster with a life of its own Discovering the selfless nature doesn’t have a monumental “Eureka!” quality. It is more like being continually perplexed, the way we feel when we’re looking for the car keys we’re so sure are in our pocket, or when the supermarket’s being […]
- Art Making
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The Periphery, Whole Fragments and Ruminations
Nigrassa, one of the pieces included in the show at Chautauqua Institution this summer, “On the Surface: Outward Appearances,” that has been sold and taken up residence elsewhere. Ann Lauterbach, poet and educator, is the author of The Night Sky: Writings on the Poetics of Experience. As is usually the case, her insights about poetry […]
The More Beautiful World
For people who spend a lot of time alone—by design—and are avowed introverts, the concept of social activism is more of a theological commitment than a behavior. Like that person who hates going to the gym, I have an abhorrence for meetings. If a cause requires me to attend any, I’m a no. I believe […]
- Aesthetics
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The Nakedness of the Present
Meredith Monk (Photo: Peter Ross) Meredith Monk was an ubiquitous influence on me during my early years as an artist in New York City duing the 70s. Already an icon, she explored forms of expression that ranged wide and deep, crossing over into so many different métiers—dance, music, visual art, writing, film, performance, theater. She […]
- Art Making
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What Takes a Little While
Songwriter Bob Russell ( “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother”, among many others) wrote these lyrics for Billie Holiday back in the 1940s: The difficult I’ll do right now The impossible will take a little while. The second line was the inspiration for the title of one of my favorite books, The Impossible Will Take […]
- Art Making
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The Unlikely and the Unimaginable
Rebecca Solnit (Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian) My respect and admiration for the writer Rebecca Solnit is long standing. The author of many extraordinary books, she posted a short essay online a few years ago that went viral immediately. No wonder, since the title captures in one phrase an experience that every woman I […]