There is a Buddhist fable about a traveller who arrives at an enlightened sage. “Please, master,” he says. “Please. I want to know how to become enlightened.” “Are you sure?” asks the sage. “Oh, yes. Absolutely.” “Are you willing to go through whatever it takes?” “Anything. I’ll do anything.” The sage looked him in the [...]
Filed under: Essays and Musings, WorldView | Tagged: genius, good-enough, meditation, philosophy, work, Writing | 2 Comments »
I don’t know what comes next. I mean, I really have no idea what I’m going to do. There will be things that I’ve started (raising kids, building the greenhouse, making the beer) that need finishing. (And by “finishing,” I mean, “continued commitment over a period of days-to-months-to-years-to-TheRestOfMyLife without which all previous effort is wasted”) [...]
Filed under: WorldView | Tagged: good-enough, philosophy, self, truth, work | 14 Comments »
I read a short story this week about an utterly conventional and dull fellow who found himself hiking in the “wilds of Scotland” (his complaint, having been forced to go for a walk by his new wife while on their winter honeymoon). At the end of the story, while watching the sun set, they see [...]
Filed under: Essays and Musings, WorldView | Tagged: camus, philosophy, quantum mechanics, reality, truth | 10 Comments »
You might not be surprised to hear that I’m big on metacognition. It’s one of my things. It might actually be my thing. I have struggled with this, because in the academic world I was brought up in, one does not become an expert in process, one becomes an expert in object. The topics in [...]
Filed under: Essays and Musings, WorldView | Tagged: discipline, education, philosophy, storytelling, thinking, truth, work | 9 Comments »
This falls into the “tidbits from my notebook” category: “Our most important stories are silent, woven into the fabric of our language. (This is not a novel idea. There are no novel ideas, but paradoxically, each particular combination is unique.) “Everybody knows that ‘he’ includes women,” is only even available as a thought because somebody [...]
Filed under: WorldView | Tagged: feminism, language, philosophy, PostADay2011 | 7 Comments »
This is a post about structures. It is a post about illusions. It is a post about what lies beneath the apparent beauty of our privileged culture, and what else might be possible. It is a post about beauty as a way out of our current crises. What is in a rose? This flower that [...]
Filed under: WorldView | Tagged: ecofeminism, environment, feminism, philosophy, PostADay2011, storytelling | 7 Comments »
In the beginning… We start as a DNA blueprint, a set of instructions for how to construct the magic of consciousness from nothing more than the molecules that surround us. The environment is not just a soup that we swim in. It’s what we are made of. We are built entirely from materials that we [...]
Filed under: WorldView | Tagged: environment, philosophy, PostADay2011, science and religion, storytelling | 7 Comments »
I am gazing out the window at my cat. He is doing something in the snow. Sniffing, investigating. He sits and stares across the river. I wonder. How does he decide what to do next? How does he choose which scent to indulge, follow, investigate? Can he be said to have will? I turn to [...]
Filed under: WorldView | Tagged: philosophy, PostADay2011, self | 9 Comments »
Welcome to the March Carnival of Natural Parenting: Natural Parenting Top 10 Lists This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama. This month our participants have shared Top 10 lists on a wide variety of aspects of attachment parenting and natural living. [...]
Filed under: Family, WorldView | Tagged: CarNatPar, children, education, philosophy, PostADay2011 | 21 Comments »
Slowing Down
A radical, heretical proposal to our energy problems. Use less energy.
Filed under: WorldView | Tagged: discipline, good-enough, life, philosophy, PostADay2011, social commentary, storytelling | 5 Comments »