Can you go to room 654?, someone said, the patient just died. Is the family still there, I wondered. No they’ve already said their good-byes; it all happened sooner than they’d expected. Off I went carrying a little wire-and-glass angel statue for hanging outside the door, signalling a departure. Entering the room, I felt drawn to the windows: opened both as wide [...]
holy jetpack!
Swiss adventurer Yves Rossy finally made his dream come true and flew across the English Channel with his own jet-propelled wing. “Fusion Man” finally had the perfect weather conditions to make the trip which took less than 10 minutes. Here he directs assistants in loading the jetback in a small plane near Calais, France prior [...]
enough yet?
Every day brings news of another bank implosion and of borrowed billions for the mother of all bail-outs. Meanwhile, those responsible continue to be rewarded for their greed and incompetence.
“[P]eople are angry about executive compensation and rightfully so,” said US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson (apparently missing the irony of his words, considering that as ex-CEO of beleaguered Goldman [...]
few words
There’s an elegance in Japanese death poems — a certain lightness, no clutter or multi-tasking. Writing such lines was the traditional parting act of a samurai, haiku poet, or Zen monk. Wish I could live (and die) like that.
This one’s by Manzan Dohaku 1635-1714):
Cargoless, Tsumimono ya
bound heavenward, nakute jodo e
ship of the moon. tsuki no fune
source: Hofffman, J. (1986). Japanese death poems. Boston:Tuttle.
just passing through
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A foreign traveller came to the house of the famous Polish rabbi Hafez Hayyim. He was astonished to see that the rabbi’s home was only a simple room filled with books. The only furniture was a table and a bench.
“Rabbi, where is your furniture,” asked the visitor.
“Where is yours?” replied Hafez.
“Mine? But I am [...]
do canadians support war resisters?
A federal court judge granted a reprieve to US Iraq War resister Jeremy Hinzman and his family who were to be deported yesterday. The ruling allows them to remain in Canada until the Federal Court decides whether it will hear an appeal of a rejection of the family’s request to stay on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.
In [...]
way past right/wrong
At the monastery we used to ask “Who’s your teacher today?” when someone bugged us or something pushed our buttons of reactivity. What if, so the saying went, we saw the “enemy” as our teacher?
After years of practicing I’m still surprised how long it takes me to make this shift. Again and again I find myself locked [...]
our 1st day of autumn poem
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by Mary Oliver
Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,
the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back
from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere
except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle
of unobservable mysteries – – – roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This
I try to remember [...]
the price of greed
The failures of global finance are truly alarming: from trillion-dollar collapses and Wall Street bailouts to threats to pensions and jobs and real fear of recession. I just signed an urgent petition to be delivered to European leaders, counting on their “old-fashioned” prudence and creativity. To make an impact we need a massive global outcry [...]
midwives to the dying
In late 2006 I graduated from the End-of-Life Care Practitioner Program with the Metta Institute in San Francisco. Participation in this year-long course was truly transformational–its effect continues to reverberate through me and inform my everyday practice as a person and caregivers. Applications for the 2009 program are invited. This may be what you (or [...]
seeing my/self
“To love is first of all to accept yourself as you actually are. ‘Knowing yourself’ is the first practice of love.” –Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Zen monk and teacher.
How many photos of yourself have you deleted as “not good”? How many time have we heard someone say ”I hate having my picture taken”? How often have I [...]
slim hope for peace
According to CBC News, Israel’s current foreign minister Tzipi Livni declared victory today in the race to replace the current prime minister and announced that she’ll try to cobble together a new governing coalition in Israel’s fractious parliament.
If she succeeds, she will become Israel’s first female prime minister since Golda Meir stepped down in 1974. A lawyer and [...]
all of us
“I believe deeply that we must find, all of us together, a new spirituality. This new concept ought to be elaborated alongside the religions, in such a way that all people of good will would adhere to it.”
Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama
on being ill (book review)
The latest on-line edition of The Yale Journal of Humanities in Medicine features this book review. (Excerpt only; the full review by Lisa Kerr, click here).
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In her 1926 essay On Being Ill, Virginia Woolf ponders why illness has been denied a place alongside “love and battle and jealousy” as one of the main themes [...]
