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A Sea Change

Since starting this blog in July 2009 I’ve posted 436 essays for a total of well over 500,000 words. Over the past year and a half the frequency of posting has dropped off. While this is not an announcement of an end to this blog I do find it’s time to let you all know

George Michelsen Foy’s Finding North

Is disaster… always envisioned geographically, is it always navigational in the deepest sense? Finding North, page 22 George Michelsen Foy asks this question early on in his extended ruminations in the form of a record, a log of a voyage. We join him on a quest woven of varied lineaments gathered over decades, facing questions ranging

An Exploration, navigating without a map.

I keep returning to the lessons of futility. We are admonished to, “Try harder!”in the face of that which we cannot change, leaving us spinning our wheels…. It has to do with cause & effect…. But this is only part of what’s going on.

There’s no freeing the mind without respecting the limitations of the body.

“(Taoism) isn’t a process of learning more facts or greater skills. It is the unlearning of wrong habits and opinions.” — Alan Watts It’s not just the Singularity Boys who get this wrong…. What is unlearning?

300th Post, Horizons of Significance

This is the three hundredth post on Horizons of Significance. Milestones encourage us to look backwards. We look at a span of time as having had a beginning, if not also an end, at least a comparison of that beginning with the present moment. What you see, looking at this screen are two identical images,

“I never thought of that!”

How unintended consequences wreak havoc on our expectations concerning the connection between intention and responsibility. I’ve been looking for ways to illuminate the space hidden behind our expectation that the only way to be responsible is to plan and then act out our intentions. Everyone I know, including myself, has had a hard time dealing

A Politics of Profound Disillusionment

Cheering “liberation” by proxy, is no more ethical than fighting wars of repression by proxy. We do a disservice in either case. In both cases we are condescending to our “lessors.” Instead we should be working on our own disillusionment while hoping that our example as it gains authenticity might “travel.”

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.

On Painting

Notes to a fellow painter, I’ve been thinking about your paintings and what you wrote about them. Part of the reason I’ve waited to respond has been wanting time for my thoughts to percolate. It’s so good that you’re painting. Carving the time and dealing with the logistics. That’s tremendous and shows the tenacity I