leaping + flying

Awaken the ‘Skylike Nature of the Mind’ (Parking Lot Tree)

We recently read: The purpose of meditation is to awaken in us the skylike nature of the mind…Beautiful. We can think of no better inspiration for that idea than these images, poem, music…

Leaping in Poetry, Art and Life (Robert Bly + Maria Robledo)

Leaping In Poetry, Art And Life (Robert Bly + Maria Robledo)

10.17.16 | 2:38am
Maria Robledo, from the Schneider Collection
Maria Robledo, from the Schneider Collection
While we were researching how we often don’t know just how big the leaps we take are, we came across poet Robert Bly’s theory of leaping poetry. He says that leaps are inherent in many works of art

Leap (William Wegman) with Haiku

One of the best titled leaps we’ve seen (in our vast collection): William Wegman’s For a Moment He Forgot Where He Was a Jumped into the Ocean. THAT is how we would love to live our life:

The Magnitude of Our Leaps Eludes Us (Simone Biles)

This astonishing composite photo of gymnast Simone Biles performing a difficult vault at the Brazil Olympics exemplifies the LEAP as visual metaphor for risk taking, having faith, taking on challenges, attempting to FLY. We wondered what such leaping and flying was like from Biles’ point of view. This insight applies to many of us.

Freedom Means Letting Go of Shame

From very early on in my life as an amputee, I’ve loathed using crutches or a wheelchair. I am a very autonomous person. I have blue hair and tattoos. I don’t think too much about the opinions or stares of others, but put me in a wheelchair and all that rebel-heartedness melted into shy shameful…

‘You’ve got to Jump’ via Annie Dillard and Ray Bradbury

For years writer Annie Dillard’s “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek“, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize, shaped our thinking and way of seeing — observing — the world around us. With her new book ‘The Abundance“, she has entered our minds again and is actively in the zeitgeist; her original, quirky, daring view of life continues to surprise, resonate…

Big Picture Reminder from Heliotown

Our friend Thomas Ashcraft is an artist, naturalist, Electroreceptor, scientific instrument builder and radio astronomer who spends his time looking UP, recording the activity of meteors, fireballs, space dust and Transient Luminous Events — lovely and mysterious emanations of light — that have gained him some renown (bottom image) Here’s a wondrous accidental avian moment Tom’s…

DIY Magic Carpets

It’s curious how themes appear in our lives. We find a kernel of one and start thinking about it…and before we know it, we begin to find evidence of it in the most unlikely places. So it happened with Mo Khan’s charming vine of a diy magic carpet with power to transport. (It’s the only really good…

Kanya Sesser: ‘I Do Me. I Stick to Positive Energy”

(Video link here.) This video about 23-year-old Kanya Sesser, born without legs and abandoned as a child, says it all. She’s a wise woman. Here are our favorite bits:

Why A Skateboarder Fell (Failed) 160 Times for a Single Flight

In the New York Times Magazine, Bret Anthony Johnston described the video a friend made for him on his 41st birthday, of him falling off his skateboard nearly 160 times during his four-year quest to successfully execute a trick. Falling is a wonderful description of the grueling process of mastery that we’ve so often written about using a…

A Mentor’s Wisdom: ‘Jump back and kiss yourself and count the blessings’

(Video link here.) In 1983, James Brown and band were playing the Beverly Theatre in Los Angeles with legendary blues man B.B. King. Halfway through the set, Brown asked “another fantastic people” to join him onstage: 25-year-old Michael Jackson watching the show ignognito in the audience. Brown’s words are as astonishing as Jackson’s 30…

Start the Week Flying…Over a Moon for a Cosmic Perspective

(Video link here.) NASA recently released beautiful enhanced color images of Pluto‘s largest moon Charon taking during the New Horizon mission’s approach to the Pluto system last July. They used the images create this astonishing flyover video of Charon. It definitely gives us an expanded view…

Cloud Therapy via the Cloud Appreciation Society

(Video link here.) We found this lovely video at The Cloud Appreciation Society’s website. We’ve long been a fan of Cloudreporter, where people post wondrous sightings of clouds from all over the world. Who knew there was a SOCIETY, with a very wise and useful Manifesto?:

Arlene Gottfried on the Benefits of Wandering

For over forty years, Arlene Gottfried has photographed the people she meets in her journeys around New York City, revealing its diversity and heart through her extraordinary images. The very personal moments she captures call to mind Diane Arbus and Viviane Maier. The roots of her work, which includes assignments for The New York Times Magazine and Life Magazine, lie in her…

We’re Back, Fly with Us!

(Video link here.) A friend sent us this video of Domenico Modugno singing Volare – Nel blu dipinto di blu, a song we’ve heard (and disliked) a million times; we just couldn’t get with Dean Martin. But Modugno’s 1958 version of the song HE wrote is pure joy. It made us look up translations of…

I Believe I Can…..(Gif-Inspiration)

One of the best gifs we’ve seen of late is I Believe I can… We know about flapping our arms hard to barely keep from falling in the water after we’ve stepped OFF the diving board BELIEVING WE CAN. Perhaps if we try a little harder, and shift our attitude slightly …

Stick your Head in the Clouds!!

One of the most wondrous website’s we’ve seen lately is Cloudreporter, a site of cloud images that readers have submitted, with an unobtrusive sliding note that tells who took it, the location and date. Some of them have titles like Clouds Hanging Low or Summer in SF, or a poetic notation like “evening sky over…

Into the Unknown, Back in a Week

When we heard the news that a dear one had entered hospice, we booked a flight, packed our bags, and started on the long journey to her, not knowing what the path ahead might bring.

Chris Burden: “”Limits’ is a Relative Term”

(Video link here. We recommend watching with the sound OFF.) We were stunned to hear that artist Chris Burden died last week at the age of 69. Known for pushing limits, Burden used his own body as art material in extraordinarily violent and shocking ways, until he moved into other forms of sculpture. Just two months ago, when we…

Emerge into a New Week

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