#45 Asana: Life As Asana (Part Six)
"Obviously I’m being dramatic, but dramatic is the new rational, and the new dramatic is likely WW3."
Sweat Drenched Writing (music blog + playlist)
As I am writing this, I'm lying on the floor of a sun beaten Dutch monastery's attic, August-hot, all fans on. Around me sit about six writers I just danced with. Equally sweat-drenched, they're pouring what's left of them on paper. It's a jaw-clenchingly beautiful thing, the mix of sweat and words and bodies and minds.
A Cure for Sadness: on Mira’s ‘A Hundred Objects Close By’
I know a cure for sadness:/ /Let your hands touch something that /makes your eyes /smile.
Music & The Age of Everything (music blog + playlist)
Even though I love writing, there is a language I love more, and that is music: the most direct, ancient and universal way of telling a story. Like most of us, I’ve been listening to music all my life.The playlist that awaits you is like Spring itself; bursting with surprise. Enjoy, don’t forget to dance right in the middle of your Age of Everything.
When Your Blood Boils: on Chögyam Trungpa’s ‘for Anne Waldman’
Sometimes, there’s a poem that skips your brain and enters right into your bloodstream. Before getting it, it gets you. It becomes part of your cells and organs. You instantly forget how on earth you managed your life b.P. -before Poem.
Animal Song: On Maya Angelou’s ‘Caged Bird’
14 and clueless, I had no idea why the caged bird sings, but Maya Angelou seemed to, so I started reading and never stopped. Her stories expanded my world considerably and ingrained in me the importance of virtue. Of dignity. And maybe most of all, a sense of inner freedom. Or at least its possibility.
Age-Asana: Life As Asana (Part Three)
Remember telling me about things that happen to your body past 40? Nobody warns you was what you said? I was ambivalent to be initiated, but somehow ever since our conversation, I’ve felt more prepared for the moment I find my first grey pubic hair, and when that day comes, I’ll think of you, my friend.
Savasana: Life As Asana (Part Two)
G-sparkle-dog! That’s your gangster name. You can name me. Then we need a name for our gang. And of course, we’ll need a handshake, and either satin or leather jackets embroidered with our name and logo too. So, we also need a logo. And a mascot. Okay?
Us-Asana: Life As Asana (Part One)
Dear Kate, Remember when we first met? On retreat in France with our fabulous writing teacher — in silence and surrounded by things simmering in that silence? You wore cowboy boots and marveled at the rain — because Arizona hardly sees any.
on Mary Oliver’s ‘in blackwater woods’ and the Four Noble Truths
The first in a series of essay I'll be writing for The House of Yoga on the poetry and Buddhism. Kicking off with Mary Oliver's 'in blackwater woods' and the Four Noble Truths.