An Illusory Economy

We are caught between beliefs that are untenable and hard limits that will not go away. Let’s look at what falls under the name economy. It is a mental construct that has been accepted as the rational way to organize how we interact to meet our physical needs within what is now described as a

“The Greatest Illusion in the World is the Illusion of Separation”

The greatest benefit I’ve found from the internet is the way it functions as a tool for Serendipity. It is an electronic I Ching of sorts, though with many additional pitfalls one avoids by sticking to casting bones or sticks. The title of this post appeared as one of those FB images sent out to

Vulnerability, Ultimate Realism?

Realism is another fraught word. Let’s imagine for a moment that it meant having a perspective on the world that was the best possible match for the conditions we face. To paraphrase John Lennon, “It might be easy if we try.” If we did have such a viewpoint it just struck me that the most

You Can’t Hide from Futility

One of the defenses of denial is that if we were to begin to accept what is in store we would fall into despair. Better to be busy than desperate. This ignores the power of Futility. It continues to amaze me the way the most self-declared pragmatists; political, military, and business leaders; remain by all

Futility, the chasm between efficiency and effectiveness

In the tension between our immersion in the fabric of being and the atomized self’s struggle to achieve a stasis, a utopia, not of richness, but an illusory concretion of wealth, in which we wish to stop without falling; we define the human condition. The workings of consciousness are so easily misunderstood as signs of separateness from the rest as epitomized in Cogito Ergo Sum. Yet consciousness, our phenomenological embededness in experience is the only window we have through which to glimpse an awareness of our integration into greater systems and structures.

Lilac Blossoms

A friend has asked me to meditate on an interesting question, well phrased, “What is the origin of originality?” As I prepare to look into this question with all its implications presented afresh by the inclusion of origin within originality opening up fresh avenues of inquiry, I’m led to go back over pieces I’ve worked

Musing on Medusa, Reflections on the Gorgon’s Head

Those of us who fear chaos, through our efforts to control chaos, bring about more chaos, a more virulent chaos, a more violent chaos.

The Primacy of Attention

Fear makes you stupid. Fear swamps intelligence. Fear takes us out of Being. We resort to strategies in an effort to re-establish certainty. Fear drives us to reject what-is in favor of any expedient that feels as if it will deflate our fear. We lose track of whatever may have initiated fear, whether an actual

Whiteness, a Community of Narcissists

This post was drafted in August of 2015. At the time I was concerned whether it was complete enough. Whether it said enough. On looking it over today I am struck by how this theme has continued to strike us day after day. And how little, outside of the works of James Baldwin and his

On Reflection… part 2

There have been times when it has seemed appropriate to appeal to the metaphor of a snake shedding its skin. This last year brings to mind a different serpentine behavior, stupor induced by the effort to digest an enormous meal. An Anaconda at these times can be mistaken for a fallen tree trunk….

Writing, we invoke…

Writing we invoke. If it is ever to be anything more than a display of cleverness, writing is an act of prayer. We seek out; we ask for; we hope to receive something from beyond what we think. What we think we know.

“Let’s be realistic!”

We feel the weight of this admonition upon us everywhere we turn. It stands like a wall between us and it echoes in our minds. We take it as a warning. In fact it is our prison.