I’ve been quiet in my space1 here for several weeks for good reason. I’ve been reading and thinking a lot about the practice of mindfulness and Buddhism, which I hope to tackle more of in the coming weeks, but I also did something a little unexpected: I made a thing. I decided to take on a challenge being promoted by Gumroad [http://www.Gumroad.com], the online digital goods store. The challenge was to conceive, create, and publish something within ten days. I didn’t go as deep into this challe...
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All We Have Is Breath
> Breathing expresses the fact that you are alive. If you’re alive, you breathe. The technique is basic and direct: you pay heed to breath. You don’t try to use the mindfulness of breathing to entertain yourself, but you use the mindfulness of breathing to simplify matters. — Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Cool Boredom [http://www.tricycle.com/blog/cool-boredom] – Tricycle [http://amzn.to/1JtCpy0]1 The most important lesson from my readings into mindfulness and Buddhism so far has been how importa...
A Step With Buddha
> Enlightenment is awakening from the dream of being a separate me to being the universal reality. It’s not an experience or a perception that occurs to a separate person as the result of spiritual practice or cultivated awareness. It doesn’t come and go, and you don’t need to do anything to maintain it. It’s not about being centered or blissful or peaceful or any other experience. In fact, enlightenment is a permanent non-experience that happens to nobody. The separate person is seen through, a...
The Call Of Silence
> I think of my reading as drawing water from some bottomless, timeless well. In goes the bucket. The rope slides through my hands. I’m sitting on the couch in the living room, the French press on the coffee table, a book open in my lap, a chipped mug balanced on my knee. The city is asleep all around me. The sun is asleep beyond the earth’s curve. And now up comes a cherry tree in blossom, the tolling of a distant bell, a burning stick of incense, a small man in a wooden boat on a perfectly...
Summer Of DFW- Depression
Just over a week ago, I began my summer of David Foster Wallace [http://www.foursides.ca/summer-of-david-foster-wallace] with Infinite Jest. It is definitely a tough book to get into with chapters taking place in different periods of time, with characters that aren’t always named. There is a bit of mystery to reading it and discovering who is actually speaking. Thankfully, David Foster Wallace writes in such a way that you are able to tell who the action is focused around. Each character is sur...
Getting Out Of Jail
> Often, the psychological turbulence of those first days or weeks is so debilitating that recently incarcerated people can’t even navigate public transportation; they’re too frightened of crowds, too intimidated or mystified by the transit cards that have replaced cash and tokens. In a recent study, the Harvard sociologist Bruce Western describes a woman who ‘‘frequently forgot to eat breakfast or lunch for several months because she was used to being called to meals in prison.’’ I met one man...
A Summer of David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace has been an indirect influence on my writing for as long as I have been writing a blog. He was and still is a major influence on some of my favourite writers, primarily Bill Simmons [http://grantland.com/contributors/bill-simmons/] and Jason Kottke [http://www.kottke.org], with how they phrased things and their generous usage of footnotes. 1 The unfortunate thing for me has been a lack of reading the original source. The options to read his work are not limited to a few b...
Exit The Queen
You are going to die in an hour and a half. You are going to die at the end of the play. — Queen Marguerite, Exit the King My real introduction to theatre1 began with Eugene Ionesco’s, Exit the King. It was a small production at The Guild, in the early part of 1997, in Whitehorse, Yukon. I remember the time and year distinctly, because it was one of the first assignments to be done for my first semester in the MAD program. MAD stands for Music, Art, and Drama, a school-within-a-schoo...
The Pause That Refreshes at Sparkling Hill
Returning to Sparkling Hill Resort after years away: Vernon's crystal-studded sanctuary still dazzles. Rediscover world-class wellness, breathtaking Okanagan views, and unparalleled luxury in this BC gem....
An Afternoon in Fintry BC
> Serene He stands among the flowers And only marks life’s sunny hours For him dark days do not exist The brazen-faced old Optimist — George Allison1 In preparation for the coming summer season, I have been taking some time to explore the Okanagan more. Partially to satisfy my own natural curiousity about the historical background of the region, but also to provide ideas of things to do for the guests of the vacation rental [http://www.dosbalconeskelowna.com]. When I first arrived in the...
