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.

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….

On Reflection… part 1

David Bohm and Jiddu Krishnamurti were right in posing that the incoherence of thought is our greatest challenge. Some thirty years later the burning question is; why has their legacy not borne fruit? What did they miss? What’s gone wrong?

Images, Projections, Reflections; Perturbations on the Surface of Sorrow

In this second segment of a video-taped dialogue Krishnamurti speaks of sorrow and compassion, death, and the sacred. At one point David Shainberg, who sits in for “every-person,” makes a connection between images and the surface of the sorrow that underlies existence. He suggested that images were like waves upon this river of sorrow. I

Reflection/Projection

I’m not sure what to call this post, even of what to say. It’s time for introspection and time to reflect on media. People whose thoughtfulness matter to me are struggling with the form their expression should take. “We” – an amorphous “group” that might only exits as a projection in my head! – are

Cross post from Antonio Dias, Reflections on the Dark Mountain

I went to the Dark Mountain, the home of Uncivilization, and found a living culture. I didn’t know that’s what I would find, my hopes tied up and caught up in theoretical frameworks positing the likelihood of just such a thing. The flimsiness of my previous scope of interaction having been overcompensated by mental calculations

On Isolation

Isolation. I wrote about it here. * Lewis Lapham has had a seminal influence on me. he’s always been a writer pursuing what lies beyond the superficial. I read Harper’s religiously when I was young, amazed at how anyone could see so clearly, write so well…. His recent remarks remind us of the birth of

There Is a Gulf Between Foraging and Mining

There is a gulf between two attitudes and ways of working that can be described by looking at the distance between foraging and mining. When we forage we gather what we need. We also limit our effort. If a spot is too resistant to our efforts; if what we’re after is scarce; we move on.

The Space We Need

Art school was where I learned that success was a trap. How limited my teachers were. Experts. Hemmed in by reduction. It would take thirty-five years for this to sink in. Not surprising if you consider the trajectory of the intervening decades, beginning with the height of their positions at the time. The accumulated authority

Consuming Community, Consuming Our Selves…

There come times when what asks to be done is for there to be silence. This can seem harder to accept than many other demands the moment makes on us. We have momentum. We consider our habits valuable. We expect and we expect others do too. Expect a certain “output.” This gets tricky when the

Approaching Conscience?

Perhaps a way to shed light on where this track is heading is to introduce conscience. We think of conscience as the internal touchstone for an externally directed morality. There is a superstructure of Good & Evil and conscience is where this battle is joined inside each of us. This conception of conscience covers any

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