On our last visit to our nation’s capital & particularly our nation’s attic, very much a high spot for auntie, Jan & me was seeing the reconstruction of Julia Child’s kitchen. It felt like we were at a shrine. And maybe we were… Not only did she introduce a generation of Americans to real food, she opened doors that people have been walking through even since… Julia would have turned ninety-nine today… Read more

There’s an old Buddhist trope that we are woven out of three demons, greed and anger and delusion. But, we lead with one. Me, I’m greed. A long ways into greed. I want. These days as I age, the thing I most want with a burning passion is my morning coffee. A million years ago, or so, as a youth hanging out on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, I discovered espresso drinks at the Cafe Mediterranean. Not many years later Peets... Read more

We’ve now lived in New England somewhere in the vicinity of eleven years. While there is a part of me that will forever be California, I have to admit with the sole exception of weather (I will never accept that more than two seasons, one wet & the other dry are natural) I have found deep resonances with the culture and beauty of this region. One regular place we visit is Brattleboro, Vermont. It is a tiny town right at... Read more

I think one of the great moments in nearly every human life is that moment some night when we were outside and lay back for the first time and saw, really, really saw that night sky. And in a flash also perhaps, perhaps for the very first time, realized how small we are in relationship to it. How small I am in relationship to it. To it all… A moment to cherish, a gift of immeasurable value. This is a... Read more

ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia — For nearly two decades, Odsuren Baatar, a master of Mongolian throat singing, has been visiting China to teach his craft — making the human voice soar, quiver and drone, its pitches in eerie unison like a bagpipe. When he first started going there, his students were all beginners, because nobody in China knew much about throat singing. But they were eager to learn, and, after years of sharing his techniques, Odsuren took pride in having helped promote... Read more

I’ve heard it said that Francis of Assisi was the “only Christian.” Certainly as one reads the gospels there couldn’t be many who could be, really be. Too crazy… Way too crazy… And. So much in those “ands” we find in life, hey? Today is the feast of his friend and companion Clare. Maybe the only other Christian… Here’s a word from a Buddhist. I suggest it might well be worth taking a moment to notice Clare and her friend… Read more

For unaccountable reasons this little skit has been raised in several conversations of late… Read more

On this day in 1945 an atomic bomb exploded over Nagasaki. Some thirty nine thousand people were killed outright. Karma is complex, interdependent. No way to untangle ourselves from each other… Read more

It was strange going out this morning, the streets as empty as a Sunday. Rhode Island still observes the second Monday in August as Victory Day, as in Victory over Japan Day. Of course the complexity for many hearts is how this victory was achieved through the immediate cause of dropping two atomic bombs on the Empire of Japan. I am not one of those who enjoys the certainty that either the bombings were necessary or that they were unnecessary.... Read more

On this day in 1930 in Marion, Indiana, Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, two black men who had robbed and it seems shot a white man and who were also accused (it is almost certain falsely) of raping a white woman, were taken from their jail cell, beaten, and then lynched. It is the last confirmed incident of a racial lynching in the country. (Although by no means the last racially inspired murder…) A few months ago Jan & I... Read more