tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-363943982011-10-10T18:59:21.674-05:00Learning To StayDaronnoreply@blogger.comBlogger18251100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-70440369033788794592011-06-03T06:25:00.001-05:002011-06-04T06:46:08.454-05:00Check Out My New PlaceIt’s time to better integrate my mindfulness site and my blog. I hope you’ll visit my new Squarespace site at www.attentional-fitness.com. That’s a lot of letters to type, but I’m working on it. I’ve got several variations that will eventually all be aimed to the same location. Click on DISCOVERIES to find all the content from the Learning to Stay blog along with new things I find. The Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-65875361220008111512011-05-26T16:36:00.001-05:002011-05-26T16:36:32.271-05:00Seeing Clearly What Is HappeningMark Williams from “Mindfulness is Happiness,” WealthWise Magazine, May 16, 2011: Mindfulness simply means being aware — seeing clearly what is happening in our minds and in the world, from moment to moment, bringing a sense of kindness to our experience rather than getting caught in judging it. The methods used to cultivate mindfulness were first recorded over two thousand years ago. It has Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-21388672033567502812011-05-21T16:21:00.001-05:002011-05-21T16:21:56.223-05:00Travel Safely You’ll Be Bright by Craig Minowa All the things you'll love, All the things that may hurt you, All the things you shouldn't do, And all the things you want to, They're calling your name — travel safely. Every first kiss, every crisis, every heartbreak and every act of kindness, They're calling your name — travel safely. Every empire, every monument, every Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-25037205571322818942011-05-20T10:19:00.002-05:002011-05-20T21:43:58.211-05:00Acquiring Skills“I want to see wave riding documented the way I see it in my head and the way I feel it in the sea. It’s a strange set of skills to acquire and it’s only achievable through time spent riding waves.” ~ Mickey Smith [Thanks, Kit!] Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-25427639351845326782011-05-19T19:10:00.001-05:002011-05-19T19:26:06.241-05:00Prayer About Everyone and EverythingRoger Ebert, from “A Prayer Beneath the Tree of Life,” Chicago Sun Times, May17, 2011: “Terrence Malick's new film is a form of prayer. It created within me a spiritual awareness, and made me more alert to the awe of existence. I believe it stands free from conventional theologies, although at its end it has images that will evoke them for some people. It functions to pull us back from the Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-81010887340533218312011-05-19T18:45:00.001-05:002011-05-19T18:52:04.065-05:00The Self as Both a Thing and a ProcessExcerpt from “Psychological Self vs. No-Self,” by Ron Crouch, Buddhist Geeks, May 19, 2011: The self in Western psychology is viewed as that function of the mind that helps us to organize our experiences. It takes raw sense data, memories, and other cognitive functions and turns them into recognizable narratives. It is critical for everything that we do. Without a strong sense of self, we Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-50294483286834384622011-05-19T18:26:00.001-05:002011-05-19T18:26:46.476-05:00A Little Tolerance for Ourselves and Others “Instead of waging war on himself, it is surely better for a man to learn to tolerate himself, and to convert his inner difficulties into real experiences instead of expending them in useless fantasies. Then at least he lives, and does not waste his life in fruitless struggles. If people can be educated to see the lowly side of their own natures, it may be hoped that they will also learn to Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-41229104010331246642011-05-19T18:11:00.001-05:002011-05-19T18:11:07.854-05:00We Will Protect What We Fall In Love With“I've been filming time-lapse flowers 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for over 35 years. To watch them move is a dance I'm never going to get tired of. It fills me with wonder, and it opens my heart. Beauty and seduction, I believe, is nature's tool for survival, because we will protect what we fall in love with. Their relationship is a love story that feeds the Earth. It reminds us that we Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-33808523092022740222011-05-18T18:56:00.001-05:002011-05-18T18:57:40.574-05:00Let’s Not Speak Keeping Quiet by Pablo Neruda, from Extravagaria Now we will count to twelve and we will all keep still. For once on the face of the earth, let's not speak in any language; let's stop for one second, and not move our arms so much. It would be an exotic moment without rush, without engines; we would all be together in a sudden strangeness. Fisherman in the cold Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-83158520308194755712011-05-15T10:17:00.001-05:002011-05-15T10:19:45.319-05:00Reasoning Is Suffused With EmotionExcerpt from “The Science of Why We Don’t Believe Science,” by Chris Mooney, Mother Jones, April 18, 2011: The theory of motivated reasoning builds on a key insight of modern neuroscience. Reasoning is actually suffused with emotion (or what researchers often call "affect"). Not only are the two inseparable, but our positive or negative feelings about people, things, and ideas arise much more Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-26567962732896049912011-05-15T09:08:00.001-05:002011-05-15T10:11:24.777-05:00It’s The Movement Toward Something Or Away From Something That Stops Excerpts from Emptiness Dancing by Adyashanti: Ego [the perception of a self] is a movement. It’s a verb. It is not something static. It’s the after-the fact movement of mind that’s always becoming... The sense of “me” is always becoming, always moving, always achieving. Or else it is doing the opposite—moving backward, rejecting, denying. So in order for this verb to keep going, there has Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-12204973305789628562011-05-14T21:40:00.001-05:002011-05-14T21:40:58.850-05:00The Origin of Change Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction by Wallace Stevens IV Two things of opposite natures seem to depend On one another, as a man depends On a woman, day on night, the imagined On the real. This is the origin of change. Winter and spring, cold copulars, embrace And forth the particulars of rapture come. Music falls on the science like a sense, A passion that we feel, not Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-84131383743779058622011-05-14T21:36:00.001-05:002011-05-14T21:36:07.062-05:00I Will Be Who I Will BeExcerpt from “Exodus: Cargo of Hidden Stories,” Being, April 14, 2011: Krista Tippett: Let's talk about also the very mysterious name of God when Moses encounters God in the burning bush. He says, "Who should I tell them I saw?" And the name that comes back now, or the way it's often translated in English is, "I am who I am." I've also heard it translated, "I am becoming who I am becoming." Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-7363833998829266572011-05-14T11:02:00.001-05:002011-05-15T10:14:27.580-05:00Beyond the MindExcerpts from Emptiness Dancing by Adyashanti: The mind can’t fathom that there can be a true intelligence, a transcendent intelligence, that isn’t the product and outcome of thought and conceptual understanding. It can’t fathom that there could be wisdom that’s not going to come at you in the form of thoughts, in the form of acquired and accumulated knowledge. The true spiritual urge or Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-2570456877511915492011-05-12T09:19:00.000-05:002011-05-14T11:05:56.474-05:00Quickly, Before I Forget Naked by Jennifer Michael Hecht, from The Next Ancient World The reason you so often in literature have a naked woman walk out of her house that way, usually older, in her front garden or on the sidewalk, oblivious, is because of exactly how I feel right now. You tend to hear about how it felt to come upon such a mythical beast, the naked woman on the street, the naked man in aDaronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-63148152821683852602011-05-12T07:26:00.000-05:002011-05-13T15:26:37.633-05:00Paying Attention to AttentionExcerpts from "Redesigning Zen," a Buddhist Geeks interview with Taiun Elliston (Mar. 28, 2011): My view of Zen is it can impact every field; medicine, it can impact education, on and on and on, I see no limit to it. But in terms of design, art, music, the plastic in performing arts, dance and so forth and martial arts, of course. Zen, I think you could say, is the heart of creativity. It mightDaronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-69429137034195595232011-05-11T07:17:00.001-05:002011-05-11T07:17:15.696-05:00So Much More Than NothingExcerpt from This is a Book by Demetri Martin (New Yorker, Feb. 28, 2011): Who am I? That is a simple question, yet it is one without a simple answer. I am many things—and I am one thing. But I am not a thing that is just lying around somewhere, like a pen, or a toaster, or a housewife. That is for sure. I am much more than that. I am a living, breathing thing, a thing that can draw with a pen Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-14410488203018323742011-05-10T13:28:00.006-05:002011-05-11T07:24:00.743-05:00Frequent Intermittent RewardsExcerpt from "Fixated by Screens, but Seemingly Nothing Else," by Perri Klass, M.D., The New York Times, May 9, 2011: Is a child’s fascination with the screen a cause or an effect of attention problems — or both? It’s a complicated question that researchers are still struggling to tease out. The kind of concentration that children bring to video games and television is not the kind they Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-15658273265780012882011-05-08T14:09:00.001-05:002011-05-08T14:09:36.122-05:00Live It Yourself “My mother should love me—is that true? This is the death of a dream. Can you see one good reason to keep the story that anyone should love you, ever? Have you ever tried to love your perceived enemy? It’s hopeless. Who would you be without this story that your mother should love you? You’d be you, without all the efforting. Without the mask, the façade. It feels like freedom to me. Wanting Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-63919923723988591192011-05-07T21:39:00.001-05:002011-05-07T21:39:33.230-05:00Direct Contact From “Purpose and Method of Vipassana Meditation,” by Shinzen Young: The essence of this practice can be stated as a simple formula: ordinary experience plus mindfulness plus equanimity yields insight and purification. In this formula, each term is defined very precisely. Ordinary experience is defined as hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, the feeling body and the thinking mind. Mindfulness Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-91148267321907393102011-05-07T20:31:00.001-05:002011-05-07T20:31:20.955-05:00One’s Own Perception From “Ratmechanics,” by Katy Bowman: We humans may not whisk, but we do have a very similar system in our body. It’s called the proprioceptive system. Proprioception means “one’s own perception.” No, it’s not like your opinion or anything like that, but it is the ability for one part of your body to know where it is relative to the other parts. Unlike the rat, who is using the Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-17544492137923597372011-05-07T16:09:00.001-05:002011-05-07T20:33:13.227-05:00We Create the World "When you have an awareness of anything internally, you perceive that externally. We really do, I believe, create the world that we live in. The word ‘eye’, in its Sanskrit and Hebrew root, means fountain. In other words, this is not an organ that's receiving vibrations from what's out there going through the brain and being interpreted. It's a projector." ~ Hubert Selby, Jr., from Memories, Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-19909743220725291322011-05-06T12:13:00.004-05:002011-05-06T12:19:02.095-05:00Blessing the WorldSylvia Boorstein lead a impromptu loving-kindness exercise during her recent conversation with Krista Tippett, "What We Nurture," about loving and teaching children in our complex modern world.Lovingkindness (Metta) Meditation with Sylvia Boorstein from On Being on Vimeo.Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-44329557621937542412011-05-05T21:12:00.001-05:002011-05-05T21:12:13.803-05:00Spring Out What I most want is to spring out of this personality, then to sit apart from that leaping. I've lived too long where I can be reached. ~ Rumi Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-33698842100773316782011-05-05T07:51:00.001-05:002011-05-05T08:25:29.350-05:00Noise-Canceling Life's Din With MeditationNoise Canceling, Without Headphones by Roni Caryn Rabin The New York Times May 2, 2011 Studies have found that meditation helps prevent the recurrence of depression, perhaps by producing changes in parts of the brain associated with learning and anxiety. A new study suggests that meditation may modulate brain waves called alpha rhythms, whichDaronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-67468185509057607302011-05-03T07:51:00.001-05:002011-05-03T07:51:42.015-05:00Body Building for the BrainExcerpt from “Management as Meditation,” by Dominique Haijtema, Ode Magazine, Spring 2011: More and more businesses and managers are becoming interested in meditation, according to Rob Brandsma, founder of the Dutch Institute for Mindfulness and Management. The word no longer conjures images of vagueness or flakiness, but is increasingly seen as a practical method for stress reduction. And thatDaronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-4444836790860004732011-05-02T11:53:00.004-05:002011-05-02T11:58:35.115-05:00A Daughter and a SisterI am by eight-year-old Ava Schicke from Omaha, NebraskaI am a daughter and a sister. I wonder when I will die. I hear the warm weather coming. I see stars in the day. I want to learn my whole ballet dance. I am a daughter and a sister. I pretend to be a teacher at home. I feel like I am a teacher. I touch hands that are growing. I worry that I will never change. I cry when Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-72407423926394969992011-05-02T07:53:00.001-05:002011-05-02T07:53:10.929-05:00Benefits Beyond RelaxationExcerpts from “How Meditation Might Ward Off the Effects of Ageing,” by Jo Marchant, The Guardian, April 24, 2011: The assumption that meditation simply induces a state of relaxation is "dead wrong", says Charles Raison. Brain-imaging studies suggest that it triggers active processes within the brain, and can cause physical changes to the structure of regions involved in learning, memory, Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-4062187177913477312011-05-01T17:27:00.001-05:002011-05-01T17:27:50.894-05:00No Idea“To know how good you are at something requires the same skills as it does to be good at that thing. Which means, if you’re absolutely hopeless at something, you lack exactly the skills that you need to know that you’re absolutely hopeless at it. And this is a profound discovery, that most people who have absolutely no idea what they’re doing have absolutely no idea that they have no idea what Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-4379017753611289132011-05-01T08:34:00.001-05:002011-05-01T08:34:59.832-05:00Before & After: My Imperfection is My Nature From “Last-Minute Doubts, New York City,” interviews by Joanna Miller, The New York Times, May 1, 2011: ANNA MEDVEDEVA, 24: The photo was taken the night before my breast-augmentation, chin- and neck-liposuction surgeries, and I was very confused and was thinking, What are you doing with yourself, girl? I spent all that day at home preparing for surgery. I was alone with my fear that night, Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-86385531756272145702011-04-30T20:46:00.001-05:002011-04-30T20:46:47.718-05:00Coping with Chaos by CategorizingExcerpt from “Chaos Promotes Stereotyping,” by Philip Ball, Nature.com, April 7, 2011: A study shows that messy surroundings also make people more likely to stereotype others. Diederik Stapel and Siegwart Lindenberg, social scientists at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, asked subjects in messy or orderly everyday environments (a street and a railway station) to complete questionnaires Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-68896124707640655692011-04-29T08:32:00.004-05:002011-04-29T08:40:41.491-05:00Daybreak in Alabamaby Langston Hughes, from The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes When I get to be a composerI'm gonna write me some music aboutDaybreak in AlabamaAnd I'm gonna put the purtiest songs in itRising out of the ground like a swamp mistAnd falling out of heaven like soft dew.I'm gonna put some tall tall trees in itAnd the scent of pine needlesAnd the smell of red clay after rainAnd long red Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-83234583186933493392011-04-28T07:26:00.001-05:002011-04-28T07:26:11.391-05:00Fear is a Natural ReactionExcerpt from When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön: Fear is a universal experience. Even the smallest insect feels it. We wade in the tidal pools and put our finger near the soft, open bodies of sea anemones and they close up. Everything spontaneously does that. It’s not a terrible thing that we feel fear when faced with the unknown. It is part of being alive, something we all share. We react Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-5693666495266309732011-04-27T07:03:00.001-05:002011-04-27T07:03:48.497-05:00Paradise “Paradise may be the time when we finally turn to our past and see that its beauty was there despite our being there. In fact, its beauty can finally be seen because we aren't there.” ~ Fanny Howe Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-16768093456783335372011-04-24T10:28:00.001-05:002011-04-24T10:28:16.938-05:00Life In Itself Is Nothing Spring by Edna St. Vincent Millay To what purpose, April, do you return again? Beauty is not enough. You can no longer quiet me with the redness Of little leaves opening stickily. I know what I know. The sun is hot on my neck as I observe The spikes of the crocus. The smell of the earth is good. It is apparent that there is no death. But what does that Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-33137323855667585452011-04-24T08:45:00.000-05:002011-04-24T08:25:10.839-05:00Aesthetically Pleasing Balance See also: Desperately Seeking Symmetry Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-20776726894004411352011-04-24T08:23:00.001-05:002011-04-24T08:23:41.493-05:00The Psychology of Belief and Compassion “I think that these three habits of mind, animisms, creationism, dualism, are present in all of us. They're not biological adaptations, they're accidents. But I think they're what make religious belief attractive and plausible and universal.” ~ Paul Bloom, from “Hardwired for God?” Big Think, Dec. 22, 2009 “When people are less focused on self and the problems of the self, there is a kind Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-59811981310163833322011-04-24T08:04:00.001-05:002011-04-24T08:32:34.646-05:00Searching for Heaven"Heaven and earth don’t exist anymore. The earth is round. The cosmos has no up and down. It is moving constantly. We can no longer fix the stars to create an ideal place. This is our dilemma. It is natural to search for our beginnings, but not to assume it has one direction. We live in a scientific future that early philosophers and alchemists could not foresee, but they understood very Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-37246109914748252602011-04-23T21:00:00.000-05:002011-04-23T22:13:20.480-05:00Signs“There are many doors to the spiritual and they don’t all have a big sign over them saying SPIRITUAL.” ~ Shinzen Young, from Working with the Dying Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-81263483375887664992011-04-23T14:48:00.001-05:002011-04-23T14:48:41.178-05:00Have MercyPetition by Franz Wright, from God’s Silence Kneeling at the foot of the universe I ask from this body in confusion and pain (a condition which You may recall) Clothed now in light clothed in abyss, at the prow of the desert killed into everywhereness — have mercy Mercy on us all Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-56480204636894971942011-04-23T12:50:00.001-05:002011-04-23T12:50:08.586-05:00Finding New Ways to Speak "It is human nature to look at someone like me and assume I have lost some of my marbles. People talk loudly and slowly to me. Sometimes they assume I am deaf. There are people who don't want to make eye contact. It is human nature to look away from illness. We don't enjoy a reminder of our own fragile mortality. That's why writing on the Internet has become a life-saver for me. My ability toDaronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-67959231100057331372011-04-23T09:20:00.001-05:002011-04-23T09:30:40.726-05:00To Cultivate AttentionExcerpts from "Buddha Nature: Living in Attention," by Ken McLeod: "It seems to me that the intention of all these practices is to cultivate attention, either by practicing attention directly or by removing what prevents attention from developing. Once attention is present, appropriate action, skillful means, bodhicitta, everything else flows quite naturally. There is no need for minute Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-41513218325434250252011-04-23T08:59:00.001-05:002011-04-23T09:02:33.069-05:00Silence No One HearsPoem with No Speaker by Franz Wright, from Earlier Poems Are you looking for me? Ask that crow rowing across the green wheat. See those minute air bubbles rising to the surface at the still creek's edge— talk to the crawdad. Inquire of the skinny mosquito on your wall stinging its shadow, this lock of moon lifting the hair on your neck. When the hearts in the cocoonDaronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-46212559719178206032011-04-21T19:54:00.001-05:002011-04-21T19:54:36.143-05:00Uncoupling Negative Emotional Reactions from BehaviorFrom the abstract of a recent study looking at the impact on meditation practice on the decision-making process: “Human decision-making is often framed as a competition between cognitive and emotional processes in the brain. Deviations from rational processes are believed to derive from inclusion of emotional factors in decision-making. Here, we investigate whether a group of experienced Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-46913905067971907712011-04-20T21:17:00.001-05:002011-04-20T21:17:27.039-05:00Darkness Flooded in LightThe Avett Brothers There was a dream One day I could see it Like a bird in a cage I broke in and demanded that somebody free it And there was a kid, with a head full of doubt So I scream till I die Or the last of those bad thoughts to find me now There’s a darkness upon you that’s flooded in light In the fine print they tell you what’s wrong and what's right And it flies by Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-45732314377282609572011-04-20T17:35:00.001-05:002011-04-20T17:35:32.884-05:00Poetry Doesn’t Need Music; Lyrics DoGreen Finch and Linnet Bird by Stephen Sondheim, from Sweeney Todd Green finch and linnet bird, Nightingale, blackbird, How is it you sing? How can you jubilate, Sitting in cages, Never taking wing? Outside the sky waits, Beckoning, beckoning, Just beyond the bars, How can you remain, Staring at the rain, Maddened by the stars? How is it you sing Anything?Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-83777274625334588542011-04-20T08:00:00.001-05:002011-04-20T08:03:08.627-05:00Feeling Emotion Conveyed by a Performer Chopin’s Étude Op. 10 No. 3, Tristesse, performed by Derek Wang (11 years old). The Musical Brain The brain processes musical nuance in many ways, it turns out. Edward W. Large, a music scientist at Florida Atlantic University, scanned the brains of people with and without experience playing music as they listened to two versions of Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-53311055880234511752011-04-19T08:36:00.008-05:002011-04-19T08:50:10.716-05:00Open and ListeningExcerpt from "Corner Office: Mark Fuller," by Adam Bryant, New York Times, April 16, 2011:Improv, if properly taught, is really about listening to the other person, because there’s no script. It’s about responding. I was noticing that we didn’t have a lot of good communication among our people (WET Design). If you think about it, if you have an argument with your wife or husband, most of the Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-20805837906911585222011-04-18T19:30:00.000-05:002011-04-18T19:30:00.051-05:00You Don’t Have That Kind of Time "When I was 38, my best friend Pammy died, and we went shopping about two weeks before she died, and she was in a wig and a wheelchair. I was buying a dress for this boyfriend I was trying to impress, and I bought a tighter, shorter dress than I was used to. And I said to her, 'do you think this makes my hips look big?' and she said to me, so calmly, 'Anne, you don't have that kind of time.' AndDaronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-54582524186011464332011-04-18T18:46:00.001-05:002011-04-18T18:46:19.910-05:00Animated Prose Using around 3,000 still images, Andersen M Studio has animated an extract from Maurice Gee's novel, Going West, for the New Zealand Book Council... Colenso BBDO commissioned Andersen M Studio to create this stop-frame animation, which took around eight months to complete. The film was designed and animated by the studio's Line Andersen and photographed by her brother, Martin, who set up Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-54866929896615126152011-04-18T07:26:00.001-05:002011-04-18T07:26:12.434-05:00I Don’t Know Dawn by Cloud Cult, from Light Chasers The airport's clear for a landing. The snow is melting on the garden. All our anxieties are in a box I mailed to Pluto. And I feel like the sun. Gonna burn it all away. We rest our heads upon one pillow. Beg for falling stars to break in our window. Outside the evergreens are blowing out their birthday candles. And I feel Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-25371705995351218212011-04-17T10:07:00.001-05:002011-04-17T10:07:46.534-05:00To Think Oneself into the Minds of OthersExcerpt from “Only Love and then Oblivion,” by Ian McEwan, the Guardian, September 15, 2001: I suspect that in between times, when we are not consuming news, the majority of us are not meditating on recent foreign policy failures, or geopolitical strategy, or the operational range of helicopter gunships. Instead, we remember what we have seen, and we daydream helplessly. . . This is the Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-52668184654722152712011-04-17T08:34:00.000-05:002011-04-17T08:34:00.269-05:00Redefining ApathyDave Meslin identifies seven barriers that keep us from taking part in our communities, even when we truly care. Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-64948054935514200702011-04-16T15:48:00.001-05:002011-04-16T15:48:54.528-05:00Guide Her, Protect HerA Mother’s Prayer for Its Child by Tina Fey, from Bossypants First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches. May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty. When the Crystal Meth is offered, may she remember the parents who cut her grapes inDaronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-64966292661528857802011-04-16T10:39:00.008-05:002011-04-16T21:40:39.238-05:00How Is It That the Innocent SurviveExcerpt from "Wicked’s Gregory Maguire on What Turns a Story into a Fairy Tale":You might say that every fairy tale at its heart is the story of growing up, of a protagonist successfully navigating the treacherous path through the woods from innocence to experience without being eaten by the wolves. For children a fairy tale is about hope. They don’t yet know if they are going to make it. They Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-30003697530956842382011-04-15T07:30:00.001-05:002011-04-15T08:08:15.866-05:00Real LifePhil Stutz describing the 96 Hour Academy Awards Principle to Kim Masters on KCRW’s The Business (April 4, 2011): My rules of life are there’s uncertainty, there’s pain and it requires constant effort. You can’t abrogate those rules. I don’t care how many Academy Awards you’ve won. I find the high lasts roughly 96 hours. After that, the person’s a little bit stunned because life is going on Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-52724437179163965712011-04-13T08:00:00.000-05:002011-04-13T08:00:13.344-05:00You Will See “Go into your own familiar yard. It may be a beautiful garden. It may be only a weedy lawn with a few half-dead shrubs. No matter — if you throw back your shoulders and look up into the sky, you will see what else is yours.” ~ Evelyn Corley Buzbee, lifelong gardener See also: Cabin Tiger Studio [Thanks, Pat!] Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-51199393022758822762011-04-12T20:30:00.000-05:002011-04-12T20:58:06.074-05:00Compassion for Fun and Profit “The first step is attention training. Attention is the basis of all higher cognitive and emotional abilities. Therefore, any curriculum for training emotional intelligence has to begin with attention training. The idea here is to train attention to create a quality of mind that is calm and clear at the same time. And this creates the foundation for emotional intelligence.” ~ Chade-Meng Tan, Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-63989184508482246802011-04-11T19:20:00.001-05:002011-04-11T19:24:04.957-05:00Still Not Found A Buddhist priest prays for the souls of the victims still not found in the rubble, Yamada, Japan. (New York Times) See also: To Be Bothered and Perception, Intense City Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-64050875641007846192011-04-11T11:36:00.000-05:002011-04-11T11:36:00.059-05:00Virtual Choir “In a moving and madly viral video last year, composer Eric Whitacre led a virtual choir of singers from around the world. He talks through the creative challenges of making music powered by YouTube, and unveils the first two minutes of his new work, ‘Sleep,’ with a video choir of 2,052.” Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-32160209404224532932011-04-11T07:28:00.001-05:002011-04-11T07:28:14.557-05:00Looking for Meaning in ObjectsExcerpt from “Alive Enough?” on Being, April 7, 2011: Krista Tippett (host): I'm utterly intrigued just by the way you describe your passion, your interest and concern, that you study this objective side of our encounters with technologies, that I'm concerned with— the human meaning of the objects of our lives. And just as we start, I wanted to ask you a kind of question I ask everyone, which Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-91899707099638163622011-04-09T21:35:00.001-05:002011-04-09T21:40:34.528-05:00Wherever They Are “Wildflowers don't move to find the sun's rays. God makes them fecund wherever they are.” ~ Frère Christian de Chergé, from Of Gods and Men Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-7641508278955149362011-04-08T07:31:00.006-05:002011-04-08T07:43:43.987-05:00To Increase FlourishingFrom Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being by Martin Seligman:When I started my work in Positive Psychology, my original view was closest to Aristotle’s—that everything we do is done in order to make us happy—but I actually detest the word happiness, which is so overused that it has become almost meaningless. It is an unworkable term for science, or for any practicalDaronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-16606770274243854572011-04-08T06:48:00.001-05:002011-04-08T06:49:08.836-05:00Room to Grow “Loneliness is the human condition. Cultivate it. The way it tunnels into you allows your soul room to grow. Never expect to outgrow loneliness. Never hope to find people who will understand you, someone to fill that space. An intelligent, sensitive person is the exception, the very great exception. If you expect to find people who will understand you, you will grow murderous with Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-38178429072556424752011-04-06T20:34:00.001-05:002011-04-06T20:34:25.913-05:00Maybe We Try Too Hard "Maybe we try too hard to be remembered, waking to the glowing yellow disc in ignorance, swearing that today will be the day, today we will make something of our lives. What if we are so busy searching for worth that we miss the sapphire sky and cackling blackbird. What else is missing? Maybe our steps are too straight and our paths too narrow and not overlapping. Maybe when they overlap Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-61652214205549897632011-04-06T11:45:00.000-05:002011-04-06T11:45:01.068-05:00Narratives of Grace “We normally think of history as one catastrophe after another, war followed by war, outrage by outrage — almost as if history were nothing more than all the narratives of human pain, assembled in sequence. And surely this is, often enough, an adequate description. But history is also the narratives of grace, the recountings of those blessed and inexplicable moments when someone did something Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-76767505930211944092011-04-06T06:50:00.000-05:002011-04-06T06:50:01.240-05:00No More Goals for YouHoroscopes For the Dead by Billy Collins, from Horoscopes for the Dead: Poems Every morning since you fell down on the face of the earth, I read about you in the newspaper along with the box scores, the weather, and all the bad news. Sometimes I am reminded that today will not be a wildly romantic time for you, nor will you be challenged by educational goals nor will you Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-2986559284671313652011-04-05T19:14:00.000-05:002011-04-05T19:14:00.438-05:00Bach in the Forest To showcase Japan's NTT Docomo's Touch Wood phone, a giant wooden xylophone was constructed in the woods of Kyushu, Japan to play Bach's Cantana 147 with a wooden ball. [From DEVOUR] See also: Lego Ship in a Bottle Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-55748434286757182612011-04-05T09:17:00.004-05:002011-04-05T09:22:34.154-05:00Who's This?Disappearing Act by Elizabeth Ross Taylor, from Blackbird, Spring 2002No, soul doesn't leave the body.My body is leaving my soul.Tired of turning fried chicken andcoffee to muscle and excrement,tried of secreting tears, wiping them,tired of opening eyes on another day,tired especially of that fleshy heart,pumping, pumping. More,that brain spinning nightmares.Body prepares:disconnect, unplug, Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-18835023733563763572011-04-04T18:05:00.001-05:002011-04-04T18:05:22.087-05:00Seeing a Song, Dripping with Color“What happens during a Cloud Cult show is that I start with a blank canvas and the idea is that it is a visual instrument and that people get to see a song being visually rendered on stage each night.” ~ Scott West, Visual Artist & Live Painter for Cloud Cult Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-83050554229994918162011-04-04T07:49:00.000-05:002011-04-04T07:50:07.363-05:00The Only Life You Could Save The Journey by Mary Oliver One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice — though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. “Mend my life!” each voice cried. But you didn’t stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-39369156522477418672011-04-02T15:40:00.001-05:002011-04-02T15:40:45.459-05:00Just Another Phenomenon of ConsciousnessExcerpt from “Just One Breath: The Practice of Poetry and Meditation,” by Gary Snyder, Tricycle Magazine, Fall 1991: Traditions of deliberate attention to consciousness, and of making poems, are as old as humankind. Meditation looks inward, poetry holds forth. One is private, the other is out in the world. One enters the moment, the other shares it. But in practice it is never entirely clear Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-24521659177762288562011-04-02T07:18:00.001-05:002011-04-02T07:18:58.250-05:00Lost & Found See also: Todd Bieber Finds Owner Of Missing Film From NYC Blizzard [Thanks, Scott!] Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-11744074612177978232011-04-02T06:35:00.001-05:002011-04-02T06:35:07.120-05:00Avoiding Interesting Jobs p schmidtt "I consider myself kind of a reporter — one who uses words that are more like music and that have a choreography. I never think of myself as a poet; I just get up and write. For most of my life, I haven't had the structure of an actual job. When I was very young and decided I wanted to try to write as well as I could, I made a great list of all the things I would never have, because Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-79156352478637087482011-04-01T17:35:00.000-05:002011-04-01T17:35:00.215-05:00To Really See It Official site Reviews Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-87070271659589966992011-04-01T06:34:00.010-05:002011-04-01T08:19:21.671-05:00Wherever We Are Residence/Inn by Daron LarsonThe hotel room is roomiernow that we’re older,largely because of your frequent business travelwhich rewards loyalty with extra comforts.There’s even a small kitchen,though nothing to eat,and a living room with a couchthat can become a bed for guests.I pull back the curtains to let the light in.You’ve already managed to unpackeverything we’ve broughtand sort it all Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-51114350916559545772011-03-31T20:54:00.001-05:002011-03-31T20:54:04.396-05:00Within this Structure, One is Free “And in that moment I understood that everything I had gone to Thailand to look for, to search for, I had it already in my singing — the calm, but alertness,the focus, but awareness, and being totally in the moment. When you're totally in the moment, when I'm totally in the moment, the vessel of expression is open. The emotions can flow from me to you and back. Extremely profound experience.” Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-51785059767384187552011-03-31T20:28:00.001-05:002011-03-31T20:29:08.586-05:00Infinitely Tiny Increments Naked: A Gallery View from Eiko and Koma on Vimeo. “A naked man and woman moving with glacial slowness on a mound of earth, feathers, sticks and vegetation doesn’t sound at all like an enthralling theatrical experience. But such is the almost inexplicable magic of ‘Naked: A Living Installation,’ by the Japanese-American duo Eiko and Koma, that watching two bodies inch toward and away from eachDaronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-59435418621484143032011-03-31T18:35:00.001-05:002011-03-31T18:35:18.966-05:00Once Again Trees “When you start on a long journey, trees are trees, water is water, and mountains are mountains. After you have gone some distance, trees are no longer trees, water no longer water, mountains no longer mountains. But after you have travelled a great distance, trees are once again trees, water is once again water, mountains are once again mountains.” ~ attributed to Ch'ing-yüan, from The Way Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-86810038630566776882011-03-31T07:26:00.004-05:002011-03-31T18:32:22.179-05:00People Perform Better When They Feel Committed and EngagedRich Fernandez, the Head of Learning and Organization Development at eBay, in conversation with Vince Horn, “Optimizing Awareness in Organizations,” Buddhist Geeks: Episode 211, March 14, 2011: It’s almost as if with the evolution of technology and how we’ve optimized our machines, our software, our algorithms, our databases and data analysis capabilities. What comes next is optimizing our Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-72081917986416737162011-03-29T08:41:00.001-05:002011-03-29T08:41:25.755-05:00Just Looking(Thanks, But I’m) Just Looking Peggy Levison Nolan Dina Mitrani Gallery, March 10 — April 23, 2011 “Continuing her search for beauty and poetry in life’s ordinariness, Nolan exhibits various photographic formats illustrating her almost obsessive act of observing what is around her on a daily basis. She explores the concept of narrative in her series of photographs of the amaryllis Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-69519624988185523702011-03-27T19:27:00.008-05:002011-03-28T18:16:52.805-05:00Each Unhappy Family is UniqueThe Hedgehog (France) was my favorite film of the eight we saw over the weekend at the 36th Cleveland International Film Festival. Other favorites were Special Treatment (France) and Illegal (Belgium). My favorite documentary was The Children of Chabannes. See also: The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery The Children of Chabannes Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-56548482796756224022011-03-24T18:00:00.001-05:002011-03-27T19:33:46.637-05:00Humans TogetherCleveland International Film Festival March 24 — April 3, 2011"In a world where there are no longer books we have almost all of us read, the movies we have almost all of us seen are perhaps the richest cultural bond we have. They go on haunting us for years the way our dreams go on haunting us. In a way they are our dreams. The best of them remind us of human truths that would not seem as true Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-53028860400836583812011-03-24T13:29:00.001-05:002011-03-24T13:29:09.219-05:00Kindness is ContagiousDaronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-60206861731052796812011-03-23T21:35:00.000-05:002011-03-24T06:06:36.139-05:00Temporary Custodian of Beautiful Things “I’ve been lucky all my life. Everything was handed to me. Looks, fame, wealth, honors, love. I rarely had to fight for anything. But I’ve paid for that luck with disasters. . .I’m like a living example of what people can go through and survive. I’m not like anyone. I’m me.” ~ Elizabeth Taylor, quoted in “A Lustrous Pinnacle of Hollywood Glamour,” New York Times, Mar. 23, 2011 And this from a Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-13940925859809130302011-03-23T20:40:00.001-05:002011-03-23T20:40:45.122-05:00Using Technology to Humanize the Classroom “By removing the one size fits all lecture from the classroom and letting students have a self-paced lecture at home, and then when you go to the classroom, letting them do work, having the teacher walk around, having the peers actually be able to interact with each other, these teachers have used technology to humanize the classroom.” ~ Sal Khan, of Khan Academy Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-44347898546005816592011-03-23T19:07:00.001-05:002011-03-23T19:07:54.214-05:00What’s Always HereExcerpt from Natural Awareness: Guided Meditations and Teachings for Welcoming All Experience by Pema Chödrön: There are various ways to say what we’re doing here. One of them is uncovering our natural wakefulness or open awareness. Not attaining it or achieving it, but relaxing enough to experience it—to tune into it. What’s always said is like tuning into what’s always here. When you listen Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-11738034475756167802011-03-22T08:21:00.001-05:002011-03-22T08:21:01.817-05:00Experimenting with Forms “We are the miracle of force and matter making itself over into imagination and will. Incredible. The Life Force experimenting with forms. You for one. Me for another. The Universe has shouted itself alive. We are one of the shouts.” ~ Ray Bradbury Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-77043053344238113762011-03-21T07:29:00.000-05:002011-03-21T07:29:00.128-05:00Listen to Your Life "Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and the pain of it no less than the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace." ~ Frederick Buechner, from Now and Then Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-48202043590478630832011-03-18T07:56:00.007-05:002011-03-18T08:16:06.271-05:00Who Needs Them?Religious Consolationby John Updike, from Americana and Other PoemsOne size fits all. The shape or colorationof the god or high heaven matters lessthan that there is one, somehow, somewhere, hearingthe hasty prayer and chalking up the mitethe widow brings to the temple. A childalone with horrid verities cries outfor there to be a limit, a warm wallwhose stones give back an answer, however Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-49406473071881933472011-03-15T08:06:00.001-05:002011-03-15T08:07:16.530-05:00A Philosophy of the PresentFrom “In Search of the Present,” by Octavio Paz (translated by Anthony Stanton), Nobel Lecture, October 8, 1990: Reflecting on the now does not imply relinquishing the future or forgetting the past: the present is the meeting place for the three directions of time. Neither can it be confused with facile hedonism. The tree of pleasure does not grow in the past or in the future but at this very Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-65666431969903638902011-03-15T07:16:00.001-05:002011-03-15T07:16:31.610-05:00Please The Word That Is a Prayer by Ellery Akers, from American Life in Poetry: Column 321 One thing you know when you say it: all over the earth people are saying it with you; a child blurting it out as the seizures take her, a woman reciting it on a cot in a hospital. What if you take a cab through the Tenderloin: at a street light, a man in a wool cap, yarn unraveling Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-13160403828963546922011-03-14T07:54:00.003-05:002011-03-14T09:16:36.538-05:00Listening to Pi on 3-14See also:How To Transform The Number Pi Into A Song (NPR)Celebrating Pi DayPi on WikipediaClip from Pi by Darren AronofskyDaronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-90624906480407970882011-03-13T19:55:00.001-05:002011-03-13T20:43:16.504-05:00The Surprising Interplay of Basic ForcesA collection of direct quotes from reading today. Found Poem March 13, 2011 I hold the cigarette in my mouth the entire time, and with the feather boa involved, there's a sense of danger. Architects all want to be philosophers or artists now. I think they love to hate me. It was an emotional catastrophe at the time, being conceived from the inside out, the fashion industry's Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-35716698036824626322011-03-13T19:27:00.001-05:002011-03-13T19:27:10.001-05:00Seeing with SoundExcerpts from “Blindness No Obstacle To Those With Sharp Ears,” All Things Considered, March 13, 2011: Meet Daniel Kish. He's a man of many talents. He likes to hike, make music and write. He enjoys children and loves nature. He's an avid biker. He's also completely blind. How can Kish bike if he can't see? The method is called echolocation — Kish calls it "flash sonar." As he speeds along Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-40299706686359762692011-03-13T17:50:00.001-05:002011-03-13T17:50:07.464-05:00Typical?National Geographic: Seven Billion Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-32820932412294590062011-03-12T18:02:00.001-05:002011-03-12T18:02:41.601-05:00Let the Love Begin Happy is the heart that still feels pain Darkness drains and light will come in again Swing open your chest and let it in Just let the love, love, love begin ~ Ingrid Michaelson Ingrid Michaelson’s YouTube Channel Rekindle Warmth Toward Yourself and Others Mindfulness Strategies for Unpleasant Feelings Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-89910154794041037222011-03-12T13:27:00.001-05:002011-03-12T13:27:38.966-05:00The Best Fashion Show is on the Street Bill Cunningham New York a film by Richard Press On the Street with Bill Cunningham, New York Times Wexner Center Member-Only Screening, April 14, 2011 Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-29408089498837933412011-03-11T12:20:00.002-05:002011-03-11T12:20:00.686-05:00Be Alive if You Can"You are seeing everything for the last time, and everything you see is gilded with goodbyes — the child's hand like a starfish on the pillow, your hand on the doorknob, the dachshund's lurching off the forbidden couch when you come through the door. . . You are seeing everything for the last time — the room where for years Christmases have happened, snow falling so thick by the windows that Daronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36394398.post-45093633912709475982011-03-11T07:36:00.003-05:002011-03-11T12:55:23.495-05:00Losing Our Tolerance for Vulnerability“In our anxious world, we often protect ourselves by closing off parts of our lives that leave us feeling most vulnerable. Yet invulnerability has a price. When we knowingly or unknowingly numb ourselves to what we sense threatens us, we sacrifice an essential tool for navigating uncertain times — joy. This talk [explores] how and why fear and collective scarcity has profoundly dangerous Daronnoreply@blogger.com