August 2011
31 posts
5 tags
When Things Aren't Beautiful
Admittedly, I try to wake up every day on the “let’s see what happens” side of the bed. I try not to inject too much woo-woo into the day, or force things to be the way I want them to be. After all, this is the recipe for delusion, not happiness.
Some days start off OK, then get a little worse, and then devolve into little more than excuses for filling up the time until bed....
July 2011
31 posts
7 tags
But Wait, There's More
Much lip service is paid, among spiritual practitioners, to the idea of releasing. Releasing as in negative karma, bad emotions, crap that we’ve taken on from others, and even patterns of belief or behavior that no longer serve our greater purpose on earth. We try to do this with body or energy work, talk therapy, and even things like sweat lodges. But I’ve been reading a book by Ana...
7 tags
Working with Difficult Emotions
Have you ever experienced this? You’re humming along, thinking you’re doing a pretty good job at being aware, cultivating kindness and even exhibiting compassion more times than not … and then someone — or better yet something — comes along to completely test that?
I love it when that happens.
OK, maybe not in the moment. I get irritated. I get reactive. I think why...
8 tags
And So It Goes
Not 24 hours after I took down my “writing for other people” web site, I’ve been besieged with requests for, yes, writing and editing projects. I don’t mean to be ungrateful, but I’m pretty done with that part of my life. I have been published in over 30 publications, I’ve released two books with my name on them, and edited and ghostwritten dozens more....
5 tags
Tech Support Nightmare
When God thought about how to simultaneously screw with our realities and make us think we were talking to people who knew what they were doing, she invented tech support. It doesn’t matter what you know or don’t know about computers, web sites or really anything that falls under their purview. It doesn’t matter if you’re an empowered person, trying to do things for...
7 tags
Unbelievable Truth
Most of us claim to want the truth, which always caused me great confusion when I was little. Why, then, did no one want to listen to the child in “The Emperor’s New Clothes”?
As it turns out, very few people want the truth, especially when it relates to their own lives. That’s cool. It’s not my turn to watch them. But the spiritual path, as I have found, is not for...
4 tags
Sometimes You Have to Look
On certain days, the stuff I need to try and reframe is staring me right in the face. It pushes past the other things in my life and practically bitch-slaps me until I pay attention to it. Other days, things are a little subtler, and I have to look for them.
Today is an intentionally planned slow day, where I will do the mundane things my business needs to keep itself going — financial...
7 tags
Fierce Compassion
I’m a pretty peaceful person by nature. But sometimes, someone does something to someone I love, and the the claws come out. It’s not a balls-out, roller derby kind of throw down. I’m much more strategic than that. Though I’ve been a practicing Buddhist for nearly fifteen years now, I have to say that sometimes, I wish harm to others.
Case in point was today, when someone...
6 tags
Dreaming the Wrong Dream
Went to see Anna Deveare Smith’s new show Let Me Down Easy last night, and was immediately taken in by her broad range of characterizations, and the sheer amount of interviews and research she’d done. The piece is about the healthcare system in America, but to just think of it that way is to miss the lion’s share of its meaning. From boxers and sports reporters to Ann Richards,...
6 tags
Where is Love?
Today I’ve been thinking about love, and how it sometimes boggles even the most reserved of minds. Traditionally, we think of this in the romantic way, with hearts, candy, and flowers. For most people, just saying the word will evoke a red drawn heart (as opposed to the anatomically correct kind, admittedly not so appealing) and a welling of emotion. Scientists can actually measure this...
5 tags
Sometimes It's Good to Study
On certain days, it’s obvious from the first few breaths that productivity isn’t going to be the word of the day. Maybe I’ve not been able to sleep very well the night before, as I didn’t last night, or just be tracking wonky energy that’s still to come during the day. Whatever the case, today is a day of introspection rather than getting a lot of things done.
OK,...
5 tags
And What Do They Do Later?
Perhaps the most mundane of human pursuits has to be a trip to the mall. It’s meant to be an irresistible hymn to capitalism, complete with shop windows filled with Things You Can’t Live Without. But for me at least, it’s a dirge, a place you’re kind of forced to go when your sneakers finally give up the ghost, as mine did last week. I can be hard on sneakers.
To reframe...
3 tags
The Long Strand of History
The strangest thing happened to me today. I had been visiting with someone from out of town who I only see from time to time, but talk to relatively frequently. It’s always odd, like time has somehow been suspended, when this occurs. Your former relationship, established years ago, exists as it was then, with all the qualities that brought you together. But it exists in tiny fractals during...
6 tags
If You're Happy & You Know It
…clap your hands, right? Or maybe make up a silly rhyme or blab along to the radio or jump up and down for no other reason than you have energy running through your body and you have to find some purpose for it to exist.
If you’re happy and you don’t know it, what does it look like? Boredom? Anger? Frustration?
I’m going to go out on a limb here, but most people seem, at...
5 tags
Opening to New Horizons
I suppose I never know how open my horizons are. I may think they’re pretty good, but then come in contract with someone who wrenches my heart open a little wider, or just challenges my perceptions such that I’m forced to reconsider all I may have once held dear. Today was one of those days.
We all have people who push our buttons — who talk too much when the game is on, espouse...
9 tags
Right, Wrong or In Between?
Given that Carmageddon has taken over my city (for better or worse), and I live in a car culture (fact), I figured that a road trip was in the cards this weekend. I like to wander, especially if it involves some sort of weird Americana stuff that I hope never disappears from the planet.
This weekend, it was all about Route 66, as we headed to the Wigwam Motel in San Bernardino. For some reason,...
7 tags
Why is Mean So Cool?
One of my favorite lines in all of literature (at least the literature I’ve read), is this one, from Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find”:
“… the trees were full of silver-white sunlight and the meanest of them sparkled.”
She’s trying to create an air of menace, because a family is about to be taken into the woods and murdered one...
6 tags
Fixing It, A Little At a Time
Have you ever thought about what the world would be like if you weren’t in it? I don’t mean to be morbid — actually, I’m a pretty silly and happy-go-lucky person by nature — but sometimes I like to spend time thinking about what the world would be like if I stopped existing, or if one of my friends did, or a member of my family. No, it’s not a lame excuse...
6 tags
Gilt City LA & Gilt Group - Worst Decision I Ever...
I usually keep things to myself when they’re personal, or have to do with business practices. See, I’ve been in business for more than 20 years, longer than Facebook and longer than daily deal sites like Gilt City. I’ll probably be in business long after their “business models” and creative accounting cease to exist. I’m not really worried about that.
What I do...
7 tags
Who Sucks?
I was walking to a theater the other night, and saw this graffiti from the sidewalk:
Which of course makes me think, well, who does suck? It’s an ongoing question.
It’s easy to talk about politicians ( I mean, don’t even get me started on Michelle Bachman and her insulting, revisionist version of history — see her recent comments on slavery, if you don’t believe...
