My Blog

My posts are personal reflections on being mindful, inspired and curious.

Everyday Magic

“Rituals are the formula by which harmony is restored.” Terry Tempest Williams – As a sea of autumn clouds began to slowly gather over the Pyrenees and roll down to the valley below, I took my ritual visit to a new village, a weekend drive to St. Seve. The village crowns a hill overlooking the

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The Mundane As Art

“Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing.”   Camille Pissarro – Perry Taylor’s drawings are a fusion of the droll cartoons of Sempé and the burlesque films of Jacques Tati. His humor ranges from wry amusement to riotous laughter. Perry has the uncanny ability to capture the whimsical

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Black and White

‘“Surely the day will come when color means nothing more than the skin tone, when religion is seen uniquely as a way to speak one’s soul; when birth places have the weight of a throw of the dice and all men are born free, when understanding breeds love and brotherhood.” Josephine Baker I have always

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A House in Auvers

“What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?”   Vincent Van Gogh Today is Mother’s Day in France, and I’ve been thinking about my mother. She was less than loving, but fortunately, my grandmother loved me with abandon. It was she who gave me the courage to attempt anything, from leaving home

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The Better Angels…

“Sometimes from sorrow, for no reason, you sing. For no reason, you accept the way of being lost, cutting loose from all else and electing a world where you go where you want to. Arbitrary, a sound comes, a reminder that a steady center is holding all else. If you listen, that sound will tell

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Refuge in Gascony

How swiftly the strained honey of afternoon light flows into darkness. And the closed bud shrugs off its special mystery in order to break into blossom: as if what exists, exists so that it can be lost and become precious.                               

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The Balancing Act

I choose to close the door today on hate, and violence. On deliberate “misunderstandings”, and on a closed mind. These things tempt me at times to retreat Into an enclosed fortress where I am right and others are excluded. So I close one door in order to open another…Yet I wonder…Do I have the right

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The Journey

Letters swallow themselves in seconds. Notes friends tied to the doorknob, transparent scarlet paper sizzle like moth wings, marry the air. So much of any year is flammable, lists of vegetables, partial poems. Orange swirling flame of days, so little is a stone. Where there was something and suddenly isn’t, an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a

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An Inside Story

“Sometimes you will come face to face with the sudden and shocking realization that you are completely crazy. Your mind is a shrieking, gibbering madhouse on wheels barreling pell-mell down the hill, utterly out of control and hopeless.” Bhante Gunaratana. Journal from Provence – Most of the past 4 days have been exhausting. I’ve been

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