January Cold
Here’s a picture of the chard I harvested last Wednesday. I don’t usually harvest that much at a time just to feed myself, but it was harvest Wednesday or let it die back. I have most of my chard plants… (READ MORE)
Advance thoughts on the inauguration festivities
The picture on top shows police blockades put up on the west side of the Capitol for inaugural preparations. The bottom picture shows a bandstand erected at the extreme west end of the Capitol lawn looking over the reflecting pool… (READ MORE)
“This confused war”
My dear friend from college, Dan Harper, just posted the following on his website. I feel fortunate to have a friend who inspires me to me more learned and more concerned. Martin Luther King would have been 80 today. On… (READ MORE)
Hot Water Bottles and Wristwarmers
One of my father’s joke bits of wisdom is “everything in moderation, including moderation.” When I first studied philosophy academically, I was very much taken with Aristotle’s concept of the “golden mean,” which (this is a gross oversimplification) advocates living… (READ MORE)
Akasha (space)
When we can connect to the essence of the element of akasha, space, within ourselves, we feel less crowded by things pressing in on the outside, whether it be actual confinement or overcrowdedness or the sense of crowding from having… (READ MORE)
Hard Freeze Forecast (Heyam Dukham Anagatam)
My favorite sutra in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra’s is, II.16, “heyam dukham anagatam.” This translates roughly as “the pain that is yet to come can be avoided.” What does this have to do with a forecast of a hard freeze? My… (READ MORE)
Winter Reading on the Tattvas (the elements)
I am returning to a contemplation of teachings about the tattvas (the 36 elements in Kashir Shaivism; in Vedanta only 25). Each time I go back to study, practice, and contemplate the tattvas, a new understanding arises about how I… (READ MORE)
A Hawk
I saw a hawk when I was walking to work this morning. It was in one of those stately oak trees in the park just north of the US Capitol. I have occasionally seen hawks in the neighborhood alleys, but… (READ MORE)
Cold, dark, and rainy
It is always a temptation for me to stay home when it is cold and dark, to miss yoga class (when I am student, not teacher), to do my own practice and read and cook and play with the cat,… (READ MORE)
Perihelion
Yesterday was this year’s perihelion — the day of the year the earth is closest to the sun in the earth’s annual orbit around the sun. I find in interesting that the perihelion is at the coldest and darkest time… (READ MORE)