Tell me, men of learning, what is Longing made from?
What cloth was put in it that it does not wear out with me?
Gold wears out, silver wears out, velvet wears out, silk wears out,
Every ample garment wears out — yet Longing does not wear out.
Great Longing, cruel Longing, is breaking my heart every day;
When I sleep most sound at night, Longing comes and wakes me.

–Excerpt from an old Welsh poem

I picked up this verse from The Mist Filled Path. The Longing described by the poet can be a powerful force for personal growth. Cultivated properly, trimmed and clipped at intervals, Longing and other semi-painful emotions can add a lot of character and vitality to the garden of your soul. But they can take over and strangle the other flowers if you don’t keep them in check. In this post and a couple later ones I want to present my favorite meditation for finding respite and peace. Read the rest of this entry »

A big part of my candidate year for the AODA is poetry — learning to read it, write it, and appreciate it. I admit that when I was younger I considered most poetry that I read to be too old, too pompous, too idiotic, and too cynical; but now that I am getting older, more pompous, more idiotic, and very slightly more cynical, — well, I admit it, most poetry still seems old, pompous, idiotic, and cynical. Read the rest of this entry »

I have lined up a whole lot of little black letters talking about the structure of consciousness, and I imagine that a broad cross-section of both of my faithful readers wonder why on earth I’m wasting so much time on it. The simple answer is that the structure of consciousness is the structure of our experience. Read the rest of this entry »