I can eat with gratitude and reverence, or I can thoughtlessly shovel it in. Either way, how I eat is how I live. If I eat thoughtlessly, my body will respond accordingly; we two will become coarse and crude, and be both cause and mirror of hunger and strife in the world. If I eat mindfully, and consume only what I need, the good food I eat will bring joy […]
Whatever the conditions, where a tree sprouts is where it must live its life. Out of this grows its patience and wisdom. Trees know how to wait, to bide their time, to conserve their energy and use it to their best, most joyful advantage; this in turn becomes their gift to the world. As I have aged, my bark has grown shaggy; knots have formed where my trunk and limbs […]
I was climbing the hill this morning, when I heard a jogger behind me, coming along with heavy steps, a kind of heel-slapping motion that hurt just to listen to — and up he came, slowly passing me, and he was in pain. Then he climbed the steps of the house at the top of the hill, checked his watch, and went inside. About this time, “Miss Kitty,” the little […]
After ten years, I’m pleased, and almost surprised, As Is still makes sense — though perhaps I mistake its joyful wordplay for sense where there really is little or none. Of course, I say that only to let you off the hook; I think it’s brilliant — which is another way of saying, I might or might not be a step ahead of Artificial Intelligence. ~ [ 1996 ]
Blessed to forget the rest — why, I wonder, do so many of my phrases read like epitaphs? And these stock words and images: who can count the number of times I’ve written the word peach, joy, waterfall, or blessing? Surely this means something, as do multiple allusions to madness, which seem almost to signify some kind of code, or shortcut way of proclaiming I am one with the universe, […]
And Man probably reveals more about me than it does the human condition, though I can’t separate myself from that condition, and wouldn’t care to if I could. I don’t want to see myself as something apart from everyone and everything else. If I’m lucky, I’ll rise as far as the condition allows, while it’s clear by this drawing I have already fathomed its depths. There’s a key element here: […]
Long ago, in my fabled childhood, my piano teacher, Mrs. Crawford, told my mother one evening that I had perfect pitch. This was in my first year, when I used to sing with every note — not because it was expected of me, or that it was part of the lesson; the singing was a spontaneous result of everything that was going on — the sound, the feel of the […]
Have you ever once seen a sign of impatience in the natural workings of the universe in and around you? Devoid of ego, the universe cannot be perturbed; it makes no mistakes, and is a calm, glorious happening of its own accord. It matters not when or if it began, when or if it will end, or by what agency. That is, in itself, a definition of perfection; and to […]
If you find it difficult to appreciate so many miracles, be wise and take joy in the one. . Once, in this very room, I came upon a family of sleeping elephants. I curled up amongst them and became part of their dream. When we finally awoke, you were watching, hesitating. . It’s a big world out there. It’s only small between our ears. It’s a small world out there. […]
Met with no traffic during this morning’s run through the neighborhood. Back in the house before four-thirty. A starry sky, with a bright, waning, super-blue moon. Air clean and free of wildfire smoke. Spanish. Read a page of Juan Valera’s Pepita Jiménez. Italian. Read a passage from a translation of Homer’s Iliad. How much of effort is really the reaffirmation of one’s ego-identity? Axe, muscle, gravity. But when I chop […]
William Michaelian 