change therapy

an hommage to nancy white, one of my heroes. among a gazillion other things, i admire her for her graphic representation skills. this doodle here represents the stories of people who were talking about all the places they’ve worked.

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every month i delve into the buddhasphere to come up with interesting tidbits in buddhist writing. this time around i was interested in the concept of right action. the poem we start out with today is the famous shin jin mei poem the perfect way knows no difficulties except that it refuses to make preferences; [...]

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the lavender here in this desert-like town is long and hard and spiny. its smell is harsher here, more pungent. and with the heat and the dry air comes a rising moon that lifts itself pure over the hills. pure, white, into the azure it emerges – and azure, really, that’s the only word for [...]

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are you in vancouver and looking for something to do on saturday? how about going to salmon insanity, run by gallery gachet apropos their mad pride events. gallery gachet is a collective of vancouver artists who have been affected by mental illness. i like how they make the connection between mental health and ecological health. [...]

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image by jwinfred

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here’s another report from mental health camp. for some reason, i just can’t bring myself to get all official about it and write it from the point of view of the organizer, so i’ll write it from my personal point of view. so here are a few fragments, which do not do justice to the [...]

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i had this idea today. how about dedicating each day to a delightful word (or two)? and how about doing this for 40 days and 40 nights? my words yesterday were: singular and wondrous. these words helped me follow my true work today. want to join me? what are YOUR words? image by stephen poff

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do not act from ego. it is a sticky little mouse trap that begins with a wheel running us in circles. get off. (from full on arrival) today is a weird day for me, completely, it seems, driven by ego.  today is june 15, time for a buddhist carnival, like every 15th of the month.  [...]

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image by my new blogging friend, alcoholic outsider artist

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it’s a day late but here it is: my monthly buddhist carnival, serving up interesting little tidbits from the buddhist blogosphere. we always start with a poem. how bitter, how blue is the anger! at the bottom of the light in april’s atmospheric strata, spitting, gnashing, pacing back and forth, i am asura incarnate this [...]

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unable to hear internet legend’s bryan alexander’s keynote address at northern voice (the reverb was awful), i decided to turn it into an experiment. for about 15 minutes, i recorded the words i could hear (maybe every 10th word or so), then i categorized them and turned them into an improv style remix. here is [...]

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there’s so much “me” in this head so much “i know” and “you don’t” – this gestalt, this entity they call “i” is full up, like a closet whose owner refuses to take those old rags to the sally ann. where is the “you”? where is “would you like?” not “but you should” where is [...]

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white and open, this sheet for me. forty-four years now of fascination and no end in sight. every time i see an open field like this, it fills me with anticipation. dream landscapes, i’m sure, completely sure, are ready under this thick snow blanket, ready to form and roll and move at any time. all [...]

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when your voice doesn’t come out and you hear someone else sing and more voices run around in your mind when you see lights left right center when the rattling comes at you and the heat and the radiation when you keep beating up your head how can it work how are you supposed to [...]

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when i was in germany, i picked up a slim little book of poetry, die gebete der demut (prayers of humility) by french poet francis jammes.  he lived from 1868 to 1938.  the poetry foundation says about him that he was … best known for his poetry of the natural world, in which he praised [...]

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