Zosima’s Two Tweets Today Aren’t Trending
Above all, avoid lies, all lies, especially the lie to yourself. Keep watch on your own lie and examine it every hour, every minute. And avoid contempt, both of others and of yourself: what seems…
Category: Wisdom Traditions
Friday 9 September 2022
… Later I’m back in New York sitting around with Irwin and Simon and Raphael and Lazarus, and now we’re famous writers more or less, but they wonder why I’m so sunk now, so unexcited…
“Observe What’s Vivid”
1.“There is a story in the Jewish tradition about a student going to see a great rabbi, not principally to study Torah or Talmud, but to watch how the rabbi ties his shoes.”–Eboo Patel 2. “I…
What Rubem Said to Maria Evelina
Yes, Raquel’s birth was a purifying experience in that it empowered me to say, “this is important,” and the rest becomes blurred. Her birth re-integrated things in my life. For example, when she was born…
A Merton Hour with Liz Burkemper: Fourth and Walnut
In the waning light of the Buck Moon, let us read and reflect together on Thomas Merton’s moment of enlightenment at the corner of Fourth and Walnut (from Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander). What is a…
Yoga Sutras Exchanges with Yael
Concentration, meditation, and pure contemplation focused on a single object constitute perfect discipline. 3.4—Barbara Stoler Miller, translation of Yoga Sutras Notes/Connections 1.Ekāgratā, noun, Sanskrit. One-pointedness, doing only one thing at a time, concentrating upon a…
“Concentration Is Consecration”
Yulia and I are meeting weekly to discuss Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. I found the following insightfulg passages from Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood’s translation. 1.2 Yoga is the control of thought-waves in the mind. 1.13 …
Coming in Two Weeks! Liz Burkemper on Thomas Merton
Liz is generous enough to host a “Merton Hour” for us to be better acquainted with the prolific and prophetic monk Thomas Merton. Details soon!
A Woman Who Is Part of the Proletariat of Billions of Artists
For Elizabeth Jane Burkemper This week I took a couple of days to read David Stephen Calonne’s new collection, Conversations with Dianne di Prima. In fall 2018, several friends and I explored di Prima in…
Keep Going
He used to say,“It is not your dutyTo complete the work, But neither are you freeTo desist from it…” –Rabbi Tarfon, Pirke Avot, 2.21