If I seem preoccupied with books, it’s because I am. The fact is, if I never bought another, I still have enough to last me several lifetimes. And among them are a great many that are well worth reading again. So it should come as no surprise, that as winter closes in and my little thrift store lamps come on, I have mostly set my computer aside and dedicated myself […]
Down to every last grumble, every last ache and pain, I’m doing exactly what I want to be doing. Every smile, every silence, every sigh; every kindness, every slight — all are mine to choose. So why should I pretend otherwise? Why should I pose? Why should I lie? . Stop saying, “The secret to happiness is . . .” There is no secret, only these nuthatches splashing in the […]
The body as teacher. The body as friend. The body as substance. The body as dream. The body as sailor. The body as ship. The body as sea. The body as troubadour. The body as flute. The body as song. The body as ash. The body as wind. The body as tree. . Back from an early-morning run in a very warm, dense rain. . Thoreau’s journal, March 9, 1854. […]
Allow the miracle — not just the small one you desire or imagine, but the universal one that brought you here to wonder at the stars, and which reveals itself in spontaneous, infinitely wise order. Why seek wealth, or an end to your private suffering, when you are already the entire cosmos? . If it takes effort to smile, work at it a little harder. Let a little light into […]
The keeping of bees is like the direction of sunbeams. —Henry David Thoreau I have a way of attracting books. A visit to the bookstore this morning turned up two enticing volumes, which are now here on my desk. One is a used Library of America edition of travel writing by Henry James: Collected Travel Writings: Great Britain and America. The book appears to be unread, and is in its […]
It’s an interesting notion, that if something is rare, it should cost a great deal, and turn a large profit. And it’s just as interesting, that if something is free and readily available, it should be thought of as common, and not rare at all. How different the world would be if supply and demand were guided by love, kindness, compassion, and wisdom. . To one degree or another, we […]
The primitive human in me doesn’t want to be sitting here at a keyboard. It wants to be gathering wood or picking berries. If I must tell stories, let it be near a fire, sung as a poem, or pounded out on a drum. . In life as in the library — may the sweetest, ripest fruit always be just out of reach. . A cloudy morning for the eclipse. […]
Note: To operate the camera, cradle your life in such a way, standing above it, and in it, looking down, through it, and all around, from childhood to dawn, then press the button that takes the picture — and be sure not to frown, when you realize you forgot the film. . Thoreau’s journal, entries for March 2 and March 4, 1854. The First Bluebird. Golden Senecio Leaves. The Melting […]
I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers. — Kahlil Gibran, Sand and Foam. . Ideally we will hold no opinion, and therefore have none to defend. For what’s an opinion but one more way of living in, and clinging to, the past? We may believe nothing has changed since we arrived at the […]
Today’s a good day to do very little, and to do it so slowly and thoroughly that it’s impossible for it all to be done; and to do it in a manner not of who and what, but of an absorbed, fully engaged child. Attention isn’t a spotlight, a narrowly focused beam, but a way of life, a state of being. I may focus on an ant, and indeed I […]
William Michaelian 