In a recent New York Times, 36-year-old Paul Kalanithi wrote How Long Have I Got Left about his diagnosis of terminal cancer, and coming to terms with his doctor’s inability to tell him how much time he had left. Kalanithi eloquently addresses how he learned to live aware of but NOT knowing, with the gravest of uncertainties, as did Stephan Girard.
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If we were looking for a stunning gift to give a friend, we would give the book Maria Robledo gave us recently: photographer Mitch Epstein’s incredibly beautiful New York Arbor, images of remarkable trees growing in New York’s parks, gardens, sidewalks, and cemeteries, amidst the life of the city. It is not JUST photographs of trees, but a truly transfixing and transformative work that seems as alive as its subjects.
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The Dish recently posted an excerpt of Cayte Bosler’s study showing “the residual health benefits of having your mind blown”. The gist: experiencing awe makes you feel like you have MORE time, makes you LESS impatient and MORE willing to help other people. And our favorite: it makes you more strongly prefer experience to material…
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Ever since we moved in view of massive old trees in a New York City park, and witnessed first-hand the devastation wrought on some of them by Hurricane Sandy, we’ve been obsessed with trees. Sandy woke us up, big time. We’d always enjoyed trees, but seeing the 150 years of rings in a downed oak…
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“Wake” by Michael McGillis is a 95-foot long pathway enclosed on both sides by brightly-painted cut logs; it’s on display at the Franconia Sculpture Park in Minnesota. Although the installation is apparently a commentary on humanity’s disruption of nature, for us (barbarians!) it’s an idea for embellishing the logs we hauled home after Hurricane Sandy, or still have our…
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Recently Brain Pickings‘ Maria Popova posted about Hermann Hesse’s Bäume: Betrachtungen und Gedichte [Trees: Reflections and Poems] (public library; it’s not available on Amazon). To us, the best part of the post was Popova’s own words used to introduce Hesse’s: I woke up this morning to discover a tiny birch tree rising amidst my city quasi-garden, having…
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