Zombies on the Couch

September 28, 2011

I’ve been writing a fair amount this year about fear, primarily because our unresolved anxieties can be a significant obstacle to both optimal parenting as well as a buzz-kill to a life richly and fully lived. While it’s often relatively easy to see other people’s “issues” in stark relief, it’s our own Shadows that lurk […]

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Peeling the Gibson (or, Why Brave Men Run in my Family)

September 21, 2011

“Gibson.”  Def.: A martini garnished with a cocktail onion. I heard that Mel Gibson is planning a movie about Judah Maccabee, the Che Guevara of Hanukah (click for an amusing interview with Mel by Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic).  I heard many Jews are outraged.  I hesitate to write about this because you don’t want […]

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A Supernova in my Backyard

September 14, 2011

My neighbor’s tree fell down some months back.  It was as if it had just gotten tired of standing there between our houses and leaned over onto our roof, filling the kitchen window with wet pine boughs.  After the gardener cut the spent leaner into logs the view was bleak stucco. And so we got […]

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Shadow Work

September 7, 2011

I was in a rather good mood on the way to work after chatting with Nate about On The Road, deeply appreciating his take on “rootless soul-searching” and the “selfishness of Beats who couldn’t deal with intimate relationships.”  I opened the top of my car to see the sky. I had dreamed of the bear the previous night—a recurring […]

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Courage

August 31, 2011

Greetings.  Now that we’re in that back to school time of year, I thought we might take a moment to consider the concept of courage, especially as it relates to parenting. In a sense, courage is the antidote to fear, or at least the opposite of succumbing to fear, and thus it is a “virtue” […]

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Dreamy Dog Days of August

August 24, 2011

Come September we’ll get back, perhaps, to the nuts and bolts of parenting.  But August is a hot and dreamy time, a strange and lazy time; no time for specificity, industry, clarity or ambition—rather a time of melting ice-cream cones and pool, lake, river and sea water drying on shoulders. A recent movie review of […]

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Petals falling from peonies

August 17, 2011

Scribbling notes on my “great works” In the quiet of the morning Petals drop At the perfect moment No intention whatsoever

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Lizards: waving, drowning, smiling, frowning

August 10, 2011

A few weeks ago two lizards appeared in our yard.  They seemed to be fast friends, even though one looked like Rango and the other like the typical lizards one finds in the gardens of LA.  The standard lizard did his customary push-ups while the escaped day of the iguana or rogue karmic chameleon with […]

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Brushstrokes and Butterfly Kisses

August 3, 2011

Do you ever feel like you’re getting the same message in stereo—from multiple sources, perhaps in Surround Sound or Dolby? Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor’s book, My Stroke of Insight was recommended to me by both my mom (for better insight into my dad’s stroke) and by Andy (who thought it rather interesting) and by Mark […]

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Together and Apart

July 27, 2011

Given my year’s theme of working to increase consciousness in order to ameliorate fear, my take on this week’s zeitgeist is that there is much astir in the collective corridors of rage and despair—and perhaps some opportunities for compassion, growth and healing at the micro level—the level that perhaps counts most in the final and […]

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