The Empty Path

Further through the porthole

Tags groundlessness, Hiroshi Sugimoto, spacious hearts09/11/20234 Comments

Still recovering from prostate surgery, I began this morning with another distressing incident of extreme urinary urgency. Very frustrating. But then….

I remembered that today is the 22^nd anniversary of the deaths at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and on Flight 93. And then I remembered Friday’s earthquake in Morocco and February’s earthquake in Türkiye-Sūriyā (Syria). And then all 2023’s fatal floods, wildfires, and armed conflicts around the world….

No one person can fix all of this suffering; no

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Stepping through the porthole: “Caribbean Sea, Jamaica,” by Hiroshi Sugimoto

Tags empty path, groundlessness, Hiroshi Sugimoto08/28/20234 Comments

Mike Shell

Introduction: The original version of “Life Without Backgrounds or Frames: ‘Time’s Arrow,’ by Hiroshi Sugimoto” (8/25/2023) was an email written for a young visitor to Quaker Meeting who was stuck in an overburdened local homeless shelter, having fled an abusive living situation.

He grasped the core message: that human beings reflexively construct backgrounds and frames around the fragment of reality that we perceive. Our brains do this quite naturally as a way to contain and attempt to control our

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Angry grief

Tags grief, mortality08/25/2023Leave a comment

Mike Shell

It’s so ridiculous,
+++comes over me suddenly
+++like a storm.

I want to fight with someone,
+++shout at them
+++to give him back.

Intimacy
+++on the order of
+++another husband lost.

Shadow cat, 5/30/2015 …

Life without backgrounds or frames: “Time’s Arrow,” by Hiroshi Sugimoto

Tags contemplation, empty path, Hiroshi Sugimoto08/25/20234 Comments

Mike Shell

"Time’s Arrow" (1987), by Hiroshi Sugimoto (seascape: 1980; reliquary fragment: Kamakura Period, 13th century) Gelatin silver print, gilt bronze.

I first saw “Time’s Arrow,” the 1987 photo collage by Hiroshi Sugimoto, as an illustration in the Spring 2018 issue of Buddhadharma: The Practitioner’s Quarterly.

The image grabbed me, and I saved it as an image for contemplation. It has taken me a while to grasp what the image suggests for me.

After a series of difficult personal losses and challenges over the past two months, I set the image as the lock screen for my laptop. It is the

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Shadow (4/8/2007 – 8/11/2023)

Tags faith, mortality, Walhydra's Porch08/11/20238 Comments

Mike Shell

When the body fails the person

What are we doing, what are we witnessing, when a dear one’s body fails?

Today we ended our cat Shadow’s life.

Since January he had been struggling

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Disgust

Tags communitas, Richard Beck, table fellowship07/14/2023

Mike Shell

Imagine swallowing
+++your saliva.
+++Do it.
Now imagine spitting
+++in a cup.
+++Imagine swallowing
+++that spit.
+++Do it.

Imagine hugging
+++yourself.
+++Do it.
Now imagine hugging
+++someone
+++you despise.
+++Do it.

It’s all in your mind.

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Both

Tags grief, presence06/08/2023

Mike Shell

We never know.
That morning

I kept my hand
+++on our ailing cat’s belly
+++as he purred.

In communion with him
+++even while
+++grief tore through me.

Some say not to borrow grief
+++before time
+++but to
+++stay in the moment.

Yet

…

Late afternoon

Tags groundlessness, waiting03/24/20232 Comments

Mike Shell

This is the time of day when
+++I almost always feel
+++aching
+++groundlessness

As if
+++nothing I have done this day
+++matters,

And I’ve left undone
+++everything
+++necessary.

"Negative space" by Mike Shell (2/14/2023) lampshade and shadow on blank wall …

On waiting and squirming — Revisiting 2007

Tags grace, grief, waiting03/19/20236 Comments

Mike Shell

On waiting and squirming

“On waiting and squirming” was my fourth post when I began The Empty Path in 2007, nine years after I lost my South Carolina prison counseling career to right-wing politics, seven years

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Bardo

Tags empty path, mortality02/11/2023

Mike Shell

Self-portrait (2/11/2023).

I’ve been trying to be immortal.

Now I can’t pee right,
and my foot is swollen.

Friends have died recently. Others are facing it first hand. My younger siblings have already experienced the death of a spouse or a stroke or

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On waiting and squirming