in homage to my mother, Faye Markin and my godmother, Millie Barry….
Read More“Come, let us talk about that slumber and the lazy pillow that’s been swimming in the moon next door…”
Read More“I have decided to include the ten oxherding pictures, a well-known Zen representation of training of the mind, so basic that it could be considered fundamental to all schools of Buddhism…” - Chögyam Trungpa
Read MoreWhen he was 25, it occurred to him to ask his grumpy, anti-introspective grandfather an unlikely question,
“Gramps, do you dream?”
Calmness of mind does not mean you should stop your activity. Real calmness should be found in activity itself. - Suzuki Roshi
Read MoreHave I read all these books? NO!
Read MoreThe only mind you can ordinarily read is your own.
Read MoreThis poem was evoked by a deeper exploration of my participation in the August, 28, 1968 protest in Chicago and by the poignant synchrony of a hospital visit that day and my mother’s passing soon thereafter. It also was amplified by the recent unrest in our country.
Read MoreDuring the second Zero Balancing Teacher Training Program, I found myself rooming with Giovanni Pescetto, from Baltimore, a big, tall, irrepressible man of Italian descent, acupuncturist and long-time ZB student…
Read More"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand." ~ Henri Nouwen
Read MoreI was checking out on my back yard greenery when I saw amidst the unruly Mess two large stones close together, one obviously paying a lot of attention to the other and the other shyly accepting it.
Read MorePablo Neruda said, “Hands make the world each day.” Naturally they have made for songs as well. “Sing me a new song; the world is transfigured and all the heavens rejoice.” - Friedrich Nietzsche Here’s a selection of songs for hands:
Read MoreThe old testament is certainly wrong with its the contention that “In the beginning is the word.” Feet certainly are older than any words. So more accurately we could say, “In the beginning are the feet.”
Read MoreThe downside of the separation of church and state is the separation of spiritual integrity from political action. What is more important than regaining our integrity in body, mind and spirit?….
Read MoreAgain and again the song takes over the body of the singer, and after a while the body of the circle of listeners…
Read More“The future’s always been envious of us. We get to exist. It has to live in the confusing world where every dream
comes true…”
40 years ago I worked at Lake Bluff Health Center in a Chicago suburb for a year. There I met the understated, surprising, and lovable character, Joe Vecchio.
Read MoreThe graphic forms of the circle and the letter “O” have remained fairly constant from Phoenician times until the present day. The name of the letter for “O” was ʿeyn, meaning "eye"; the letter (and possibly the shape of a circle and the numeral for Zero) - all may have originated as a drawings of a human eye….
Read MoreI am continually exploring the notion and concept of zero and that of “being” present;, all my work has a common theme, that of letting go of all unnecessary tension so we can experience the power of just being, embodied and present…
Read MoreGrowing up in Chicago, my family early on was friends with the Sahlins – Bernie Sahlins, his wife, Fritzie and their daughter, Lee. Bernie Sahlins became well-known for being, with his wife and others, a founder of “The Second City,”
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