Blog Posts

Further through the porthole

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 22nd 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

Continue Reading

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

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

Continue Reading

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

"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

Continue Reading

Both

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

Continue Reading

Bardo

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

Continue Reading

Site Footer

Verified by MonsterInsights