“What I want to paint are the things that have been seen so often that people no lenger notice them …” —Eliot Hodgkin morning walk in the woods “Insight comes, more often than not, from looking at what’s been on the table all along, in front of everybody, rather than from discovering something new.”…
Category: Mindfulness
A Palladian Odyssey
or: Seeing and drawing in Veneto with Liz Steel & a group of wonderful sketchers – If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path. –Joseph Campbell I…
chores: an excuse for not doing more important stuff
I read this interesting presentation of Svetlana Lilova’s : Metaphysical Dictionary (2016) over at Caroline’s a few days ago. Metaphysical Dictionary is a collection of “sort-of-poems” with illustrations by Graham Falk. I say “sort-of-poems” because, as the title tells us, this is also a dictionary – and as a dictionary; a rather untraditional & personal one. If everyone chose to write…
Awakening to this world
When I, a year ago yesterday, started my simple project AN IMAGE A DAY, I was – amongst other things – inspired by Cynthia Newberry Martin’s wonderful blog 365 TRUE THINGS . But instead of using my daily practice as a way of catching myself, I turned my gaze outwards. What I have discovered this last year, is that…
Fjøløy Lighthouse
Still testing my new camera, I decided to take a day off and visit Fjøløy Lighthouse, a 45 minutes drive from where I usually spend my days. Fjøløy Lighthouse was built in 1849. The lighthouse station comprises the light, the engine house, a house, an outhouse and a boathouse. The lighthouse was automated in 1977, but the…
What is Contemplation?
Contemplating Thomas Merton, contemplating contemplation: Nothing could be more alien to contemplation than the cogito ergo sum of Descartes. “I think, therefore I am.” This is the declaration of an alienated being, in exile from his own spiritual depths, compelled to seek some comfort in a proof for his own existence (!) based on the observation that he “thinks.”…
The point where the sky and the earth touch…
I am doing a little research on the firmament, that is; the concept of it. It’s common knowledge – but still worth a second thought: The word firmament comes from the Latin firmus, or “firm,” and this description of the sky as something solid reflects ancient ideas of the way the universe was constructed. The…
How do you think one gets to be a Nobel laureate?
It’s been a while since I last posted about mindfulness. But some of you might remember me having a few gurus: Jon Kabat-Zinn: for his down-to-earth practical approach to emotional life. (“As long as you’re still breathing, there is more right than wrong with you, no matter how ill or how hopeless you may feel.”)…
how to be alone
Some years ago I read Sara Maitland’s book A Book of Silence. It’s a beautiful book based on Maitland’s own experiences of living alone in the Scottish highland. Now she is out with a new book, in a way it’s a continuation of the first, but How to Be Alone is also an attempt to…
The Inner Landscape of Beauty
you should always carry something beautiful in your mind — Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) John O’Donohue in conversation with Krista Tippett Some of you might already know the words and writings of the late Irish poet and philosopher, John O’Donohue (1956-2008). I must admit: I don’t. All I know is a few passages from Longing and Belonging, which I have been…
sub rosa 