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The dawn was rosy on the bayou this morning, and the temperatures are already peaking. Guess it’s time to leave New Orleans and head to the coast – well a far away coast, but a coast nonetheless. Tin’s hair was cropped short last night, and mine hasn’t grown since I shaved it back in March, and Tatjana got her summer beach cut – so it looks like we’ve lost a pound or two of hair.…
I was coming out of Canseco’s the other day and in front of me was a woman a bit younger than me wearing a house dress – yes that’s right – and she was talking, I thought on the phone, but no she was just talking, loudly, to herself. And I couldn’t help myself, I just thought, FREAK, and then I had to evaluate the situation – here I was carrying 12 bottles of grapefruit…
I wrote the penultimate post about all the wonderful things that have happened in my life since my life became not so wonderful and it dawned on me, yet again, that there are no coincidences. I didn’t come to where I am by virtue of not being aware, or with eyes open, quite the contrary, in order to hear the message, you have to be prepared, and so it is that having gone through the…
So yes, it’s weird, but as soon as my income started receding, my riches started growing. Weird, huh? It started with a friend that I hardly see despite her living within blocks of my house – call it the way it is – she gave us a chest, which led to our European kitchen and made our transition so bearable. Then other friends began plowing me with books – my friend in Boston recommended Ram…
Thought for the day: What if everything worked out in the end, and there was nothing to worry about at all; what if everyone forgives you and you forgive yourself; what if you had a chance to revise and regroup and begin again; what if it was all going to be okay? Da Capo Take the used-up heart like a pebble and throw it far out. Soon there is nothing left. Soon the last ripple…
Every year on the eve of St. John’s Day, a voodoo priestess and her followers gather on the Magnolia Bridge over Bayou St. John to offer blessings for the crops. It used to be Marie Laveaux, the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans, now it’s Sallie Ann Glassman, the Voodoo Priestess of New Orleans. Michael Domenici, WWOZ host of the New Orleans show took some cool photographs this year.
I thought of this poem today when we were having a dharma talk after meditation. My question is why does it seem natural to seek permanence when truly we live in an impermanent world? The desire to fix things in a time continuum is a survival technique, but it might also be what is helping us to die – wars are fought over people trying to keep possession of a thought, creed, or place that…
After meditation this morning at the small Zen center down the street, we talked about the Genjo Koan again and of course, read it aloud again in the odd soto zen way of reading – a rush of words. What stood out – this time, “Do not suppose that what you realize becomes your knowledge and is grasped by your consciousness. Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be distinctly apparent. Its appearance is beyond…
On March 12 my hair started falling out and on March 14th my stylist told me I had alopecia and it looked to him like alopecia areata by the circular bald spots developing on my head. It turned out to be alopecia universalis, which means all the hair on my body fell out. After dermatologist and primary care, and lots of blood work later, I wound up at an endocrinologist who informed me that I…