Division, a not-so-timely second look…

This post has sat in draft form for many months. It’s neither been published nor can I definitively side-line it. As time has passed, it seems unseemly to return focus to the event of Paul Kingsnorth‘s Apotheosis in The New York Times, but there are things here that still matter, that have grown in importance

Pattern Which Connects, Finding Community

One reason things have been a little slow here in the past few weeks has been the work involved editing this conversation with Jeppe Dyrendom Graugaard. It is now up on his site: Pattern Which Connects. Here is his introduction:

Is Wild Willful?

Is wild willful? This question came to mind reading this essay. Is it willful in the same sense as we know wilfulness to mean acting out however we please? I don’t know. I don’t think so. We used to talk about acting out of our “natures.” This seems closer, though whenever we turn to that

Jeppe Dyrendom Graugaard’s Conversation with Andrew Taggart

I’ve come across an opportunity to extend what goes on here by pointing you at another conversation. For me there is great Joy in being able to do this! It is a sign of the growth of community I’ve been experiencing lately after so many decades in the wilderness. Let me leave it at that

Rivers of Blood

Listening to much of the conversation between Paul Kingsnorth, Leire Keith, and David Abram in this podcast from Orion Magazine, I am left with a snippet, I’ve used as a title for this post. Rivers of Blood. I must admit, I can only intuit the context. After listening to most of the first half, I

Intertwined Time

A man and woman pose in Dagestan, ca. 1910 Following a link supplied by a friend, I found this series of photographs taken a century ago in southeastern Russia. The magic of these pictures comes in large part from their being in color. This was done with three b&w exposures using color filters, then projecting

The Trouble with Routine

Krishnamurti, So let’s come back to the realization that any activity which is repeated, which is directed in the narrow sense, any method, any routine, logical or illogical, does affect the brain. We have understood that very clearly. Knowledge at a certain level is essential, but psychological knowledge about oneself, one’s experiences, etc. becomes routine.

The Trouble with “Uncivilization”

There is a tremendous lurking flaw in any initiative that frames itself as a negative. We know that, yet we struggle with finding a framework, and a simple title for it, that denotes the activities around weening our attention from the grip of civilization without resorting to this awkward and negative term, Uncivilization. This may

Shaping Awareness, part II

This post has been pressing for the last few days. Of course so was the track of Hurricane Irene. Still not sure if I’m ready to proceed, but I would like to capture some of the conditions swirling around this situation. A giant storm like Irene is physically a dynamic interaction of air and water

Shaping Awareness

I began this piece sitting in an automotive dealership’s waiting area, a U of chairs arrayed around a television playing daytime tv at full volume. I shared this space with a handful of other inmates, all eying the screen in between looking at a magazine, or a best-seller, or texting on a mobile phone. The

Innovation as Impermanence

Watching this BBC documentary about the Islamic History of Europe I came across the Islamic roots of Convivencia, a term I’ve associated with Ivan Illich, perhaps its most recent heir, himself part of an Hispanic tradition going back to Al Andaluz. This film is a refreshing look at the contributions of Islamic Culture to the

Innovation, Creation, and Change

Sick as we are, finding further bad news of our diagnosis and prognosis at every turn; we look to innovation, creation, and change for some way to turn back the clock, or at least carve out some detour from the horrors we see in our path. This is understandable. Predictable. But is it good or