I’ve just returned from four weeks travelling around the United Kingdom. The first 11 of those days were a pilgrimage to Iona – a tiny isle off the coast of Western Scotland, where I was helping facilitate a group of travelers for an SDI Journey – one of many spiritual travel experiences that we offer for people who want more… Read More »Pilgrimage to Iona
A few photos, with items I’ve written in my journal over the past few days in Iona, Scotland. “Does the road wind uphill all the way? Yes, to the very end. Will the journey take the whole long day? From morn to night my friend.” -Christina Rossetti “Welcome, O Life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality… Read More »Photos and Notes from Iona
Alternate titles for this drawing could also include The Face of God, Checkpoint, and 8000 steps is almost a badge. Because apparently, my current studio work involves subjecting myself to severe amounts of hand-cramping tedium. That by suffering through the process, a good artwork will result, and will offer me what I’m looking for. It’s like a self-sabotage of the… Read More »It’s Right Here
Blooming flower along the side of the road, after last evening’s epic lightning storm. “Contemplative spirituality is a call to being: to just be who we are in the deepest sense of our nature, our contemplative, mystical being. We all have this dimension of being by virtue of our humanity; everything else we do only adds to what we already… Read More »My teacher this morning
All the years I’ve read theology and aesthetics and philosophy, about how the world works, and what is real, and how we know things. These provided hints, but never satisfied the heart. What I really needed to learn to do all that time, is to just shut up! Knowledge of reality is never going to connect us to reality. It… Read More »Silence is Our Best Teacher
above – detail from a commissioned artwork for Westminster Chapel, graphite on paper, 2017. Map drawing of Bellevue area, drawings of handwritten notes from participants who live in the area and were asked to contribute short written meditations on how they love where they live. From Taking Our Places by Norman Fischer– “…the most effective form of having “beginner’s mind”.… Read More »On Listening