A friend from Montana recently moved here to the Bay area. She’s having a time adjusting to the Bay area, of course, it’s so different from remote, spacious Montana. (After I moved to Montana, I understood more clearly what “Big Sky” country means. The mountains are so huge and dramatic, they make the sky look…
My friend Elka Vera just completed some wonderful water color paintings, where she attempted to capture the “essence” of a flower (rather than its form). They came out beautifully, as you can see. I like that notion of the essence of a thing. After many years of searching, I’m finally entering the essence of my…
I brought small pumpkins into Monday’s class at the Sophia Center. I had everyone close their eyes and hold out their hands to receive their pumpkin, so they wouldn’t immediately know what it was. Holding/touching something with eyes closed is evocative—we don’t immediately rely on our mind to recall pre-stored ideas about the object. We…
A book I’ve been working on for almost ten years was supposed to be published last February. At the last moment, the University that was going to publish it dropped their publishing program due to political issues between the departments. There I was, back at square one, not knowing if my book would ever find…
When I was in graduate school, I was expected to KNOW THE LITERATURE. But what I began to notice, was that slogging through reams of other people’s stuff felt dead to me. After all, I was slogging through it with the only purpose of trying to stick names and articles in my brain somewhere. It…
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