The second book of The Way ~ Stephen Mitchell illuminates the Tao again.
Mmmmm… a day of cloudy wet so a retreat into a tub of hot water with salsa & tortilla chips and a good book about one of my favourite subjects, Stephen Mitchell’s The Second Book of the Tao (Dao, Tao, same thing, same pronunciation: Dao). Hmmmm… the liner notes of this book explain that the [...]
The Fool’s day in April
April is my month of the extraordinary. In April 1991, I took the first job I was offered after having been unceremoniously fired by my previous employer. A year later, I’d had enough of the computing industry and was poised to quit that job…when Microsoft bought the company I was working for and made me [...]
Courage is…: Joannie Rochette & Petra Majdič
The greatest achievement of this games wasn’t Canada’s first Gold medal, or its last, or any other Gold or Silver medal awarded in the Olympics. The two most courageous performances in the Olympics netted Bronze. One was a battle as much with emotional trauma as with any other competitor. The other was a battle through [...]
Quotes and notes regarding Gregory David Roberts’ Shantaram
A dream is a place where a wish and a fear meet. When the wish and the fear are exactly the same, we call the dream a nightmare. ~ Gregory David Roberts from Shantaram I love this passage from the spectacularly enthralling “Shantaram.” Nonetheless, I disagree with it. When the wish and the fear are [...]
Butterflies: Hope for the caterpillars
While we’re still fresh with images of butterflies… ‘How does one become a butterfly?’ she asked pensively. ‘You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.’ ~ Trina Paulus, from Hope for the Flowers
Winnie the Pooh and the Vinegar Tasters
The Vinegar tasters is among my favourite allegories and provides an excellent introduction to the three philosophies that dominated China through thousands of years: Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism. For me, the most important of these is Taoism, a gentle, soulful and luminous philosophy. I’m going to be lazy and let someone else explain it all. [...]
The Butterfly through the eyes of Zorba the Greek
The Butterfly I remember one morning when I discovered a cocoon in the back of a tree just as a butterfly was making a hole in its case and preparing to come out. I waited awhile, but it was too long appearing and I was impatient. I bent over it and breathed on it to [...]
Fugitive Peace
I watched the film adaptation of Anne Michaels’ novel, Fugitive Pieces today. One of the most achingly beautiful love scenes I’ve ever seen is followed, closely, by Michaela picking up Jakob’s journal, holding it, looking at it, quizzically, curiously. she seems to be asking of it, “what else might you reveal of the man I [...]
Contact: When science learns faith…
Following is some dialog from the film Contact, a film adaptation of Carl Sagan’s sci-fi novel of the same name. I had… an experience. I can’t prove it. I can’t even explain it. All I can tell you is that everything I know as a human being, everything I am — tells me that it [...]
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