Tag: buddhism

quiet secular spaces for life’s unfolding

Geographic Pragmagics

Driving south from Tempe to Tucson on a familiar road, I noticed for the first time two of my sisters’ names on street signs. They weren’t placed there for me, per se. But, any reminder to call my sisters is a clue. Universal or coincidental, it serves.

Later in Tucson, I found myself wandering around the precise location of my brother’s Bike Church brick memorial. I stumbled upon it on my way out of town. Lingering in the last hours of my visit and looking for breakfast, I landed in a local neighborhood where stores were closed and streets haunted by living ghosts, the kind of folks at the center of Paul’s mission.

I walked for a while looking for a broom to brush silt and sticks off the named bricks at the Church, all here to remember but looking a bit forgotten. I saw a school nearby, but I didn’t dare breach the daunting fence or cause a confusing concern with my presence or request. No people were out in yards or welcoming doors open. I had a chat with the shop owner, but alas, no burrito to buy or broom to borrow.

I managed to clean my brother’s space with a tissue and tears. Years of missing him melting into memories, inside jokes, and a celestial conversation nearing on two decades.

All logics are not analytical. Patterns and memories make internal architectures and neural topologies. Maps of a terrain that projects before, now, and hereafter on the people and landscapes around us. The internal connected to the external and situated at intersections of magic, matter, and meaning.

Moving in pragmagic flow is an embodied and integrated experience. I accomplished the practical efforts of my days (Tucson trip very productive!) and ticked them off the list. I also inevitably encountered unmissable magic that improves my perception and experience, sometimes transformatively.

We’re just about to start another loop in the creative cycle. Conversations and quiet parallel play pointing in all the sacred directions and expanding the circle.

One way to locate in abundance is to turn the senses appreciatively to what was, is, and is becoming. Then, walk around a bit.

On the Tucson trip, I called my sisters, had a chat with the divine folks upstairs, cleaned up around me, and left 20 bucks under a rock at the church. Driving north, like magic, the coordinates for this next loop and lap in the journey appeared on the horizon ahead.

Old Tools

I’ve come into a curious batch of old hand tools recently. One my mom calls the egg beater is a hand crank drill that would actually work in the kitchen. Also, a soldering kit and some tin snips. Old saws that tell stories of a different time. Some that still cut wood.

I like the familiar phrases that come from times past, too. Measure twice, cut once. Each day, a task has me whispering righty-tighty, lefty-loosey.

Song lyrics, too. Dad and I made our way through big band, swing, and all the classic crooners. Singing along, I hear all those lyrics again, differently.

Belting out Sinatra’s My Way at a friend’s karaoke night was one of the Completing releases I needed that year. Singing in public meant conquering a lifelong fear. Embodying the accountability of my self-directed path through those classic lyrics was magic.

Over dinner the other night, we talked about the curious metaphysics of cultural transmission. For example, how did the life-saving island wisdom of Bob Marley make it on cassette tape to tiny me in the 1970s desert southwest?

One love, one heart, let’s get together and feel alright

The Completing and Creating prompts often reveal what we say to ourselves. Lately, I notice how what I say comes from what I sang over the years.

Old tools (and tunes) that work better over time.

Wordless Wandering

Here I have for you the ultimate wet blanket, an essay on the blissful states of wordlessness. It will be brief.

I’m on a park bench. Ducks gliding across the pond. Warm sun and crisp fall air around. Ambient activities abound. Dog walkers block by block, and a distant dump truck. Life’s surround sound. Right now, enough for me to get quiet.

Studio circles have been rich in conversation so far. What I thought was a big spend – three whole hours – quickly melts away in the company of cultural theorists, public artists, a mad neuroscientist, and my mom.

The social exchange has inspired a deeper insight in me, too, about the joys of being alone in the studio or working wordlessly side-by-side.

Something sacred holds that silence.

Hush. Walls do talk, just like an old oak if you linger long enough. A quiet key unlocks our family stories. Rescued relics that need tending.

The Completing and Creating prompts summoned up some mental mayhem in me lately. They do that. This week, my hands hold the muscle memories to make peace with myself. The postcards are my material.

A special shout out to those who are working along at pace. The free slides are frequently downloaded. Not entirely wordless, but a hopeful whisper. Not one of us is in this alone.