Nothing is born, nothing dies. Nothing to hold on to, nothing to release. Samsara is nirvana. There is nothing to attain. When we realize that afflictions are no other than enlightenment, We can ride the waves of birth and death in peace, Traveling in the boat of compassion on the ocean of delusion, Smiling the smile of nonfear. -- Thich Nhat Hanh You can tell … [Read more...]
Florilegium: Palestinian Walks
Palestinian Walks by Raja Shehadeh / Scribner (Simon and Schuster) / 2007 / 978-1416569664 Imagine the home you love despoiled by conquerors, who insist they are claiming only what is owed them. Imagine your freedom even to walk outdoors curtailed. Imagine the most powerful countries in the world refused to believe your experience, or blamed you for it when you dared … [Read more...]
Love Song for a River Bank
The great wall of ancient growth slides its shadow across the river. Alder-cedar-redwood are the color of the afternoon water: serpentine. A breeze sweeps up from the sea. It picks out the leaves of the tanoaks one by one in gold; it turns up the volume on the rapids just downstream. Wild azaleas bloom from the tangled bank, but the wind is wrong for me to catch their … [Read more...]
Book Review: Great Plains Bison by Dan O’Brien
Great Plains Bison by Dan O'Brien / University of Nebraska Press / 2017 / xiii + 111pp / Despite its variety in form, length, and genre, most writing seeks to explain why. Now, more than ever, we find ourselves searching for answers, yearning to explain how America could reach such dire straits—politically, racially, environmentally. In response, many writers have offered … [Read more...]
The Poetry of Walking
“Poetry is a life-cherishing force. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.” ― Mary Oliver Would you like to journey down a path that will help conjure creative insight? A common premise in Taoism is, in the literal sense, that Tao means Path, a road that … [Read more...]
Nature As Muse: The World of Fine Writing
The world is never “too much with us,” said Wordsworth, but not the wild glories, which he treasured, too. Natural gifts reflecting the gifts of the gods, or of Darwin’s insights and those of the plate tectonics wizards. Everything moves. All of this and running water and birds on the wing and paths beckoning us to follow are the inspirations for great writers who, over all … [Read more...]
