As I read the blogs and commentaries about the transition, I’ve been thinking a lot about John Friend’s exhortation that we should always start by looking for the good. This is a very unsettling time — economic and environmental crisis, two wars, etc, etc. I may disagree with some of the picks for cabinet, but…
Yesterday the mysterious beeping was beeping again in Studio 1B. I have all sorts of approaches to teaching with the beeping. One of them is to switch the attention of the ears to music. We flowed to Now by Bhagavan Das (because it was already in the CD player and I like it well enough)…
In November 2006, the New York Times published a recipe adapted from Jim Lahey’s Sullivan Street Bakery for “no-knead”bread. I immediately adapted it further (as did many of those who commented on-line). Many thought the NYT adaptation benefited from more salt. I also have made it much more energy efficient (the NYT recipe expects the…
11-11 is the eleventh day of the eleventh month of our calendar. It is Veterans’ Day (still on 11-11 and not on the nearest Monday). It is a day to contemplate what I, as a citizen, can do to invert a National policy of creating war and turning our young people into soldiers and then…
Yesterday (latest in the season ever — see interesting articles in the New York Times last month about Thoreau as a climatologist) I spent the morning bringing all my tropical plants inside. Part of the reason it was later is that I have learned that the orchids and night-blooming cyrius like nights in the low…
Now the real work begins! That is what President-Elect Obama, the headlines, the pundits, the commenters, all said, hardly pausing to savor “victory.” Unlike 1992, no one is suggesting that it is now time to party like it’s 1999. I am elated by the result, but personally most encouraged by the earnestness of the reaction,…
I was first taught that adhikara meant “studentship.” Although that is not a literal translation, adhikara implies a dedication and steadiness in the student that makes the student worthy of receiving the teachings (of yoga). As I was steadying myself during this momentous time and working in the garden, I was thinking about how the…
It’s no surprise: I find myself more and more consumed by thought and activity regarding the state of the country and what I can do as a citizen (including voting) to make things better. As I seek to stay engaged, but grounded and without anxiety, I find solace of the teaching in the Bhagavad Gita…
Each Willow Street session, I choose an overall philosophy topic or book to inform the themes for my classes. I choose them based on something that I believe is relevant to what is going on in the world, something that has captured my interest, or something that I believe supports the growth of the groups…
Last year, when it was dry and hot early, I had an extraordinary season of peppers, tomatoes, and cucumbers. This year, the peppers and cucumbers were not particularly abundant. The heat came too late and the rain has been too inconsistent for them to thrive. The eggplants, though, were ecstatic this year. Every week brought…