What a patch of roadside weeds taught me about paying attention. Bristle Grass (Setaria species) One of the world’s earliest grains, bristle grass sustained ancient civilizations in Asia, and served as a resilient food source in dry, marginal lands. Today, it serves as forage for livestock and seed for birds. Their hardy growth helps prevent […]
A quiet morning revealed the difference between doing and simply being In the wee small hours of the morning, while the whole wide world is fast asleep… The rain has stopped. The streets are fresh and warm. The sky is clear. The day begins to form… The opening lyric to these favorite songs conveys the sensibility […]
Finding Meaning, Purpose, and Wholeness Through the Evolution of Consciousness In The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness. Arthur C. Brook says many today, especially young people, are experiencing a growing sense of emptiness. There’s a lack of purpose and significance Loneliness, anxiety and dissatisfaction are on the rise I’s […]
Collaboration, Courage, and Consciousness are Shaping Humanity’s Future The spiral stairway in this image evokes in me considerations of the evolutionary spiral, the universe’s operating system, which scientists understand to “favor” increased novelty, diversity, adaptation, complexity and order. Along the bottom steps of the oil tank, I see the significant ordering that has already occurred. […]
What the Butterfly Reveals About Humanity’s Painful Transformation My contemplations tend to focus on the present. They’re usually prompted by one of my photographs, the social climate, or patterns in current events—what people are talking about online or in person. For these I generally write with a “closeup” or “normal” lens. This topic requires something […]
Part 2: Our Greatest Innovations Are Revealing a Crisis of Seeing Beyond appearances, every technology is an expression of human consciousness extending itself beyond limited thinking. What we’re witnessing today is not merely rapid innovation, it’s the emergence of certain technologies that transcend utility, developments that don’t just improve life, but reveal who and what […]
Part 1: What They Are Teaching Technologies are like “media,” they extend our senses beyond the limits of time, distance, scale, intelligence and life experience. What we’re experiencing today is not merely rapid innovation, but the emergence of technologies of transcendence, those that are not just changing the world. They’re teaching us something radical: that […]
How Our Purpose, Collaboration and Conscious Action can Help Heal a World in Metacrisis Crisis Precedes Transformation Socially, geopolitically and environmentally, humanity is in a state of metacrisis—a compounding of complex, interrelated challenges that seem unresolvable. Most troubling is that the mindset that created them—separation, materialism, domination—remains active. We can vote, protest and pray, but […]
Finding Trust, Meaning and Direction When Life’s River Turns into Rapids Train tracks at night—a metaphor for the lighted way At times, the placid stream of life suddenly turns into rapids. Then the rapids become a torrent. Linda and I, now in our mid-80s, have recently experienced how quickly this can happen. Within just a […]
How Love is Learned, Modeled and Shared From Early Childhood on Kinds Of Love Love is a family of capacities. Some forms occur through biology, others through relationship and still others through deliberate moral and spiritual cultivation. As a felt experience, many types have been identified. Eros is romantic or erotic; Philia is friendship and […]
Contemplative Photography 