When we saw this photograph of American abolitionist, former slave and women’s rights activist, Soujourner Truth we thought, ‘No description is necessary. There is a person who is completely herself, embodying strength, forthrightness, clarity’. Then we read the extemporaneous speech she gave in 1851.
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For a long time, I was hard-pressed to find a good definition of “blessing” that encompassed its quality of kindness, possibiity and transformative power without referencing formal religion. I found it in ‘To Bless the Space Between Us’ by poet John O’Donohue, and in one of his exquisite blessings.
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Our friend Ruth Kissane sent this message: “Have you heard this? The songs Brian Eno couldn’t live without?” The 8 songs come from a BBC Radio 4 show, Dessert Island Discs, which interviews people-of-note about what eight tracks they would take to a desert island, and WHY. We love how Ruth reframed the question.
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Sixty years after the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s first visioned wrapping the Arc de Triumphe I’m fabric, the project has come to fruition for all to e see, touch, interact with, for free. In this short video, Christo gives insight into the meaning of their unusual — and ephemeral — life’s work spent transforming huge outdoor spaces at great cost in money and time.
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Do you ever wonder why we humans tend to feel good in nature? Annie Murphy Paul’s scholarly The Extended Mind: the Power of Thinking Outside the Brain gives the simple, obvious gist. It’s message is surprisingly echoed in art…
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Michaela Coel won an Emmy for her fiercely powerful drama I May Destroy You which she created, directed and starred in. Her stunning 30-second acceptance speech offers remarkable counsel to writers and artists longing to make truly meaningful work.
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I don’t remember where I came across this perfect, short poem by Lucille Clifton, only that it had the effect that Emily Dickinson said made her know something is poetry…
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In This is Happiness, a beauty of a novel by Niall Williams, I found a nugget of gold that has been subtly transforming my view. It reminded me of Henry Miller’s radical philosophy of living.
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We’ve suddenly realized that we’re heading into the home stretch of summer, with September in the too-near distance, and feel, well, we really need to STOP. We are world-weary, still. So we’re heading OUT, to immerse ourselves in deep analog.
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Here’s a moment’s respite from the dire state of the world and the palpable feeling of fear that seems to permeate everything these days. It had us laughing out loud which, we discovered, keeps us right smack IN the moment
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Recently, several friends described themselves as unproductive in the saddest and most judgmental tones. How did it happen that we have learned to value only obvious tangibles and define our worth by them, to savage ourselves with opinions? I view THAT as a hyper-charged product of the Plague Years we are in. And I’m here to offer an respite.
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As many parts of the country, and the world, are in the grip of a fearsome heatwave, We’ve found ourselves hiding out, working at partial power, desperately needing restorative naps and ways to feel cool. We know that refreshing virtual pleasures CAN help us cope; they fuel breezes in our heads. So we rounded up our favorites.
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I was stunned recently when the morning light slanted across the leaves in the low shrubs across from me to reveal glittering spider webs woven throughout: an intricate network of homes carefully, miraculously forged. It reminded me of a perfect passage from H is for Hawk, and what it takes to see.
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Artist, composer John Cage was also a remarkably powerful writer. Over years of reading him we’ve found ourself transformed by even a sentence or two. This one landed in a similar way……We found that shifting the flow of words ever-so-slightly had a surprising effect.
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The other day in Central Park, I saw I guy lying in a hammock under the sweeping branch of an ancient tree. Nearby was heavy-duty dolly that he’d used to haul a hammock stand to the beautiful spot.
It got me thinking about personal rigs people devise for getting OUT unfettered by any ideas of embarrassment or propriety.
Instead of a mirror over the sink, this bathroom has a framed charcoal portrait. We wondered what it would be like to see an artwork and not dive right into our own image, as we all do first thing in the morning? So we tried it and found it to be a surprisingly potent guerrilla action…
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After being diagnosed with AIDS in 1986, filmmaker Derek Jarman bought an austere tar-painted fisherman’s cottage in sight of a nuclear power station in the bleak shingle landscape on the southeast coast of England. It would prove to be an act of creative vision as unique as those Jarman realized in his films.
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When uber-journalist Bibi Baskin was asked what she planned to be doing when she retired she replied, “Nothing.” It is a pursuit she has longed for. Still it is not always easy to do given the fierce demands of a society that values productivity above most else.
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Seeing a single firefly in a field in New York City sparked several haiku, and coincided with astonishing research on the magical insect.
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Texas Beeworks‘ Erika Thompson’s videos have become a sensation, documenting her adventures calmly moving whole colonies of bees out of hives that that have formed in the midst of people’s lives: under a pool umbrella, in a patio chair, an old tire, a water meter, compost bin, the walls of a house. They are mesmerizing to watch as much for the view into the workings of wild hives as for Thompson’s relaxed, fearless self-assurance.
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