I’ve been thinking about it steadily since a friend said it a week ago. “I know it sounds far-out, but I think they’re blackmailing Obama. I think they took him aside right after the election and said that if he wanted his family to live out his term, he’d better toe the line.” My friend …
Note to readers: This is the first in a series of blogs I am delighted to be writing for Harmony: The WomenArts Partnership Project. They will appear biweekly on the WomenArts site, and I will also reproduce each one here. Welcome to the first installment of The Harmony Project blog! Harmony: The WomenArts Partnership Project …
Here in Richmond, California, we have our official Independence Day fireworks on the 3rd of July, which I like. Not too many people, not as many drunks on the road as on the 4th. As it happens, I live on the harbor where the fireworks barge is anchored, so it as easy thing to stroll …
Last Sunday I read a piece on executive pay in the business section of the New York Times. Ever since, I have been wondering how to write about it. Here are some of the images I did not want to include: bad apples spoiling a whole barrel; pirates (and other types of marauding bandits); weeds …
The world didn’t end yesterday (unless the next world includes a bus from New York to Philadelphia equipped with the electrical outlets and wifi that enabled me to write this essay). Yes, I’ve been on the road all spring, a condition that tends to impair my ability to focus on a single topic long enough …
Lately, whenever I speak, I’ve been handing out small cards bearing two optical illusions. Last night, I handed them out at dinner. My friends hosted a lovely evening of teachings devoted to Passover’s theme of liberation. When I thought about what I wanted to share, these images came immediately to mind. Gaze at the image …
Do you feel like tucking your head under your wing and letting the world go by? You are not alone. When political discourse—such as the current combat over the federal budget—is this frighteningly unhinged from on-the-ground reality, a raw will to power is in play. Never mind all the spin, the carefully crafted arguments and …
Spring thrusts its face through the fog of war and disaster the way those delicious green fuses, asparagus spears, drive upward through the earth. Even in circumstances that beggar imagination, this season brings consolation, green shoots rising to the promise of renewal. Despite the blows it has sustained, the earth abides and grants us a …
Someone I know wrote the other day that his friends in Japan are “getting used to the aftershocks; they’ve become normal.” But of course, “normal” doesn’t quite describe what happens when we sustain repeated shocks, becoming inured. What actually happens has more to do with numbing, with defensive insulation, and with the denial or evasion …
I’ve been on the road for speaking engagements, the proximate cause of my recent blog pause. I tend to write here when something worth sharing crystallizes in my mind. But travels notwithstanding, the truth is that just lately, it’s been hard to find the crystals in the fog of reactivity. My subjects today are how …