Integrity, and the Shape of Competence, Boats for difficult times.

This latest post on Boats for difficult times connects with the stream of concerns we delve into here.

Security & Well-being

It’s a common expression. We consider the two must go together, “How can we feel good if we’re not secure?” Here’s John‘s recent comment on An Exploration, Navigating Without a Map: Tony, I have read and re-read your original posting, and I think I have a better grip on where you are going with it.

On Form

There’s a connection and relationship between the way we internalize honesty/deception and how we relate to form. Form is the means by which error is recognized and the means by which correctness is recognized. There are, it seems, two Muses: the Muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of

“Never Forget!” A recipe for psychosis

Today is an anniversary. A day we have been entreated for fourteen years now to never forget. An insistent cry that was already there, ready-made from previous assaults on American Exceptionalism. A vehemence that has had little to do with remembering the loss of life and everything to do with justifying aggression.

It’s a crime, part II

Must we be pure? Whenever we confront the depths of our corruption we hear this whining plea. Ego deflates us, How can I meet such a standard? A false question. We are what we are. We will do what we feel we must do. What is in question is what do these questions mean? Who

Questions of Identity

Schools fail us by teaching students how to work with knowledge rather than how to deal with ignorance, not be a sucker with the unknown. Nassim Taleb This neither begins nor ends with schools. In a time when the most popular public stance is to celebrate our fears and idolize those who act on them

Our Gorbachev, The politics of disillusionment.

It was June of 2009 when I first realized that Obama was to be our Gorbachev. June 2010 when I first wrote about it. We are now living through what that means. What happens when the apparatchiks themselves no longer believe their own propaganda? If a people are lucky, and Russia was, to some extent,

The point is… not to build a more just prison…

This paraphrase, taken from the end of Ishmael, continues to reverberate with me. “I have neglected one small point…” Ishmael begins to say, almost as an afterthought. “One of my students was an ex-convict…” “…what is crucial to your survival … is not the redistribution of power and wealth within the prison but rather the

Craft’s Collision with Civilization, a starting point

Andrew Taggart recently asked me to clarify how I see the deterioration and loss of Craft resulting from its confrontation with civilization. This is a big question! Let’s begin with a few definitions. I’m beginning to see Craft as a central focal point in examining how our confrontation with civilization has led us to where

Notes On Ritual

Some years ago, a dozen? Maybe more, I had an insight regarding ritual. I was thinking about the way Norse boatbuilders carved intricate designs on their craft. They were almost proto modern in so many other ways, creating boats that are still marvels when approached along our common notions of form following function. The Norse

Mastery, Not Control

I put this presentation together last April. I’ve been “sitting” on it, waiting to see how it held up before releasing it. Now seems to be the right time. This was originally written out as an essay, but after experimenting with different formats, I think it is best suited to the slide show. I use

Interrogation of a Dream

Those who chose truth – IF they can cleave to its root and meaning – carry on a different struggle. They, we, are striving to come into alignment with something outside that, while hard and intractable like wood, embodies the dynamic of growth and is rooted in the source of all Life. It is outside of us, but the hints of its existence it leaves us to find all point back to an underlying unity greater than ourselves, but/and, including us. We are not in the position of authority, not wielders of power in the name of will, but searchers grappling with that which can, IS, the only source of confidence or assurance that we can have to guide our actions towards results that bring our expectations into alignment with what can be.