Knowing how a long lineage of artists and writers have used rocks and stones in their work expands my pleasure in those I collect for their beauty and endless uses…
Read MoreViewing the Day as a Blank Canvas
Every morning when we open our office for work, we take a minute to look at this image of artist Lucio Fontana. We love its enduring message.
Read MoreFind Your Address As It Was Millions of Years Ago (+ Other Perspective Expanders)
Type in any modern address to see it on earth millions of years ago, for a powerful shift of view. Then read what poet Gary Snyder has to say…
Read MoreShort, Powerful Instruction for an Alternative Possibility of Being
We read haiku often for the power they offer in just a few lines; they are HELPFUL, always offering a shift of our thinking and deepening of the moment. Jane Hirschfield illuminated why.
Read MoreThe Hidden Life of Trees
The New York Times recently reported the research of Peter Wohlleben, a German forest ranger, whose book The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate Discoveries From a Secret World, has become a best seller in Europe. In it, Wohlleben, who has spent his life studying trees, describes trees as social beings with…
Read MoreShowing Up to Meet New Ideas
Every morning when we open up our office for work, we take a minute to look at this image taped on our wall, of artist Lucio Fontana approaching a blank canvas. We never tire of it. We think two things: That canvas is the day or a project or a new path, full of possibility AND… Look…
Read MoreThanksgiving Blessings, from Dylan to Neruda
At some point during the Thanksgiving meal (or any meal), taking a moment to acknowledge all we have with whoever we are with is a fine way to give thanks and climb right into the moment. Here are our favorite blessings — which all can be said/read aloud, as a grace or a toast — though…
Read MoreYou Are Not Lost + Beat Wisdom + an un-Kerouac Road Map
This great sign reminded us of the Gary Snyder Poem, Off the Trail, which we think is an essential place to be at times. It is the opposite of the 45-page manual of driving instructions to follow the EXACT 17,527-mile road trip that Jack Kerouac documented in On the Road, his great, transformative, UNPLANNED odyssey
Read MoreWhat Victor Hugo’s Manuscript Tells Us About Editing Work and Life
Victor Hugo’s handwritten manuscript of Les Misérables is full of crossed out passages, arrows and inserts of new text. It’s a fine symbol of the requirements for any inventive work.
Read Moregary snyder ‘don’t… be victimized by your lesser talents’
We were reading a packed-full-of-revelations1992 interview with poet Gary Snyder when we came across this amazing, of-the-cuff line. What a concept! The context is his answer to the question about whether he’d work as Secretary of the Interior or other political post if asked: I’ve never thought seriously about that question. Probably not, although I am foolish…
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