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

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.

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

Two Fragments

The distinction between strength and power. As we discover how these terms are far from synonymous we find ways to use their differences as a heuristic.

Gifts

long term effects of emotional abuse: a distrust in your perceptions a tendency to be fearful or on guard self-consciousness or fear of how you are coming across an inability to be spontaneous a distrust of people and in future relationships anger that bursts out unexpectedly sensitivity to anyone trying to control you This list

What is missing…

The change of the seasons is so powerful…. It is disorienting…. We tend to view this as a collapse of whatever momentum we had developed over the months spent within a circle of similarity that allows us to feel a kind of certainty building. Yes, even for those of us talking endlessly about the pitfalls of

Addiction & Creativity

Addiction is getting stuck. Seeking relief from suffering instead of perceiving proprioception, we chase a form of release. It is temporary. Its effects lessen each time we resort to it. Our connection to clarity of perception – including a lived sense of its limits – weakens. Repetition digs us deeper.

So much that is irrelevant…

How do we move beyond rebellion? Implicit in this question – if it is to be anything but futile – is another, How do we keep from cycling back around? Only to end up that much further down the same barren path?

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

Plasticity Takes Time

Our neural systems are not just like roots: growing, dying back, seeking nourishment, and succumbing to obstacles, poisons, pathogens. They are roots. They deal in connections, finding and bridging phenomena. How do we increase clarity and coherence?

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

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