Shorty Lungkarta Tjungurrayi’s “Mystery Sand Mosaic”, 1974 (Photo: Grey Gallery) Ken Johnson of the New York Times recently wrote a review of the show, “Icons of the Desert: Early Aboriginal Paintings From Papunya” currently on view at the Grey Art Gallery at New York University. I haven’t seen the show yet but will be down […]
Tidal Flow
In her conversation with Bill Moyers, Buddhist writer and nun Pema Chödrön talks about going into an extended retreat: I felt like I was in Kansas, and Oz was outside the door. You know, it’s like sensory deprivation. But, gradually, what begins to happen is that you sink so deeply into what life has been […]
A Knack for Navigating
Karen Armstrong’s new book, The Case for God, was recently reviewed in the New York Times by Ross Douthat. Armstrong is a prolific writer whose energy to explore, explain and probe the human proclivity to religious belief is enthusiastically optimistic and beguiling expansive. (You can hear and see Armstrong speaking at TED.) As a Christian […]
Flow as a State of Being
Lava flowing into the sea on the Big Island, Hawaii, 1999 My friend Andrew’s weekly Sunday epistles have had a thread running through them over the last few weeks that speaks directly to my current state of mind. Maybe it is just a stage in the growing older business. I have come to think of […]
How Kind Time Is
Thomas Merton in the fields near the Abbey of Gethsemani. (Credit: Sybille Akers) At Thomas Merton’s Grave We can never be with loss too long. Behind the warped door that sticks, the wood thrush calls to the monks, pausing upon the stone crucifix, singing: “I am marvelous alone!” Thrash, thrash goes the hayfield: rows of […]
- Aesthetics
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Read Me My Mirandas
Thank you Regina Hackett at Another Bouncing Ball for highlighting the latest from quirky dry-humored phenom Miranda July. Her films (Me and You and Everyone We Know) and writing (No One Belongs Here More Than You) dance me into a conceptual space that is reminiscent of Yoko Ono’s installation art in its smooth side swipe […]
Caretakers
The new Poets House building in Lower Manhattan near the Hudson (Photo: Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times) As the plethora (din?) of voices and venues in the online free for all continues to expand exponentially, it is so helpful to have your own trusted list of favorites. Judith H. Dobrzynski is one of mine. […]
- Art Making
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The Primaries
Friedrich Nietzsche Bodies. Language. Expression. Metaphors. Meaning. That’s a list of issues that most people who make things think about. A lot. A recent article from the Boston Globe written by Drake Bennett touches on a lot of these themes, particularly how metaphor both comes from and impacts the way we think. Here’s a sampling: […]
Paradisio
Diamond light . . “[He] sang beyond the genius of the sea” . . Foam painting waves . . Rough water on Monday/Yom Kippur, following a storm at sea . . There’s no better balm than a long stretch of beach, the angled light of late September, a weekend in a house overlooking the sea, […]
Taking a Break
Fix me, Small Point, fix me Thirty of us are venturing up to our favorite remote corner of Maine for four days to celebrate the landmark birthdays for two of our group. This is a same tribe of friends who spent a wonderful holiday together at this very spot the weekend before 9/11. It became […]