Do You Believe in Magic?

Once in a Blue Moon

Tomorrow in the offices the year on the stamps will be altered;
Tomorrow new diaries consulted, new calendars stand;
With such small adjustments life will again move forward
Implicating us all.
--Philip Larkin, "New Year Poem"

On My Son's Birthday

Even after all this time
the sun never says to the Earth,
“You owe me.”
Look what happens
with a Love like that –
It lights the whole sky.

--Hafiz

Christmas Cheer

Peaceful before, fun during--and the inevitable aftermath.

Winter Solstice: In the Bleak Midwinter

Moments of Being

Virginia Woolf asserts that moments of being are those flashes of awareness, revealing a pattern hidden behind the 'cotton wool of daily life': that we, "I mean all human beings--are connected with this; that the whole world is a work of art; that we are parts of the work of art." But the individual artist is not important in this work. Instead she says of all people, "We are the words; we are the music; we are the thing itself."

"God is in the Roses and the Thorns"

'Tis the Season for Preparations

This time of year calls for preparations of all sorts. A year ago we were preparing for Rebecca's trip to India, where she still abides. And I was preparing for my own journey there, which was full of wonder. This year it's the more traditional kinds of preparations, especially for the holidays. Thanksgiving was full of rest, good friends, and good cheer.

Things are already active on the cul-de-sac, our own neighborly social commons, as families

begin a series of annual migrations and transmigrations.

Late autumn meanderings

My life lately has been full of all of the energies and anxieties that accompany any fulsomeness. And so I have neglected my blog with the inevitable excuses and rationalizations.

All I have to show for what I've been up to are some photographs that perhaps will capture the essence of some of the actions, emotions, accidents, and intentions.

Words of Tea Wisdom

"Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the earth revolves - slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future."
— Thich Nhat Hanh

Perception and Reflection

The work of Anne Truitt is on exhibition at the Hirshhorn Museum. While in DC, in between meetings, I made a mad dash on the metro to get there. Well worth the effort.

About her works on paper, in her journal Daybook: The Journey of An Artist, Truitt writes, "I use only pencil and very little paint against a field of action I render at once active and inert. . . . In these paintings I set forth to see myself how they might appear, what might be called the tips of my conceptual icebergs in that I put down so little of all that they refer to. I try in them to show forth the forces I feel to be a reality behind, and more interesting than, phenomena."

Among other qualities, her works are characterized by their very poetic names: "Spring Dryad," "Morning Choice," "17th Summer," "Evensong," "First Requiem," all very quiet yet substantial.

Road to Dharmasala

The Dalai Lama will be returning to Emory in just over a year. I'm hoping that when he comes, there may be an opportunity to participate in a 'creativity conversation' with him. Between now and then, I'm intending to go on a pilgrimmage. It will have several different dimensions, including perhaps an actual visit to Dharmasala, India, his home while in exile.

I've been thinking about this for a while. And it feels that this path for me has been pre-determined--by fate? by circumstances? by conditions? It's hard to know except that it feels inexorable, which is not the right word. Nonetheless it feels that way to me.

Probably I mean inevitable.

Learn more about the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative here.

"Wander Aimlessly About"

A recent issue of The Smithsonian magazine is devoted to travel writing. In the introduction to this section, Jam Morris reminds us:

"When in 1922, the novelist E.M. forster set out to write a guidebook to the Egyptian city of Alexandria, his most memorable advice was 'to wander aimlessly about.' In that one famous phrase, he was admitting that the subjective means more than the objective."

Writing about travel, Morris further asserts, requires: "the alliance of knowledge and sensation, nature and intellect, sight and interpretation, instinct and logic."

I frequently am disappointed with myself when I visit a new place that I haven't done more research in preparation for the trip and that I haven't pursued a rigorous itinerary. However, I find I'm even more disappointed if I'm overly prepared and intentional. My approach to travel is pretty consistent with my primary philosophy of life: drift and intention. Only by allowing oneself to drift, it seems to me, can real intentionality become revealed.

True Journeys

I'm aware that my blog of late has been primarily a place to post photographs from various ramblings, near and far. This is not such a bad thing as the photographs serve to invoke something of the memories and the experience of such ramblings. However, I really want more from this experience. And so, for now, while there's a lull in my recently intense travel schedule, I'll try to remember to post a bit of commentary: the purpose of which is to affirm that true journeys involve the inner life.

End of Summer

Wonders to Behold:

A trip to L.A. followed by a visit in Florida: from the Getty Museum to the Grapefruit Spa.

Something: My Date with Paul McCartney

Let it be, Let it Be!

Form and substance

Celebrating our 33rd anniversary with Henry Moore!

Postcard from Nova Scotia

Realm of Enchantment:


Halifax, Evangeline Beach, Fundy Bay, Lunenburg, Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, Cavendish, Peggy's Cove . . .

. . . ice cream, lobster, lighthouses, mussels, maritimers, mermaids, and more . . .

. . . . getting lost and finding our way again.