truthspiral

I never learned how to take the beautiful thing in my imagination and put it on paper without feeling I killed it along the way. I did, however, learn how to weather the death, and I learned how to forgive myself for it. . . Forgiveness. The ability to forgive oneself. Stop here for a few breaths and think about this because it is the key to making art, and very possibly the key to finding any semblance of happiness in life. Every time I have set out to translate the book (or story, or hopelessly long essay) that exists in such brilliant detail on the big screen of my limbic system onto a piece of paper (which, let’s face it, was once a towering tree crowned with leaves and a home to birds), I grieve for my own lack of talent and intelligence. Every. Single. Time. Were I smarter, more gifted, I could pin down a closer facsimile of the wonders I see. I believe, more than anything, that this grief of constantly having to face down our own inadequacies is what keeps people from being writers. Forgiveness, therefore, is key. I can’t write the book I want to write, but I can and will write the book I am capable of writing. Again and again throughout the course of my life I will forgive myself.'

In search of a good living

Suffering leads us to beauty the way thirst leads us to water. We make art because our lives are ungraspable, uncarryable, and impossible to navigate without it. Art isn’t a superficial ambition to our lives. It’s as necessary as oxygen. Art allows us to find a way to agree to suffer, to include it, and not be broken, to say yes to what actually is, and then say something more. Something that changes and opens the heart, ears, eyes, and mind

Treasure found on Facebook

The first question asked was, "What is the wound in our culture at this time?" to which the answer given was, "Ownership." The second question asked was, "What is the medicine that can heal it?" to which the answer given was, "Relationship."

What was it like to come out to yourself [as genderqueer]? When you hear the word and then you hear what it means, suddenly you’re a puzzle piece that fits in the universe. That’s the feeling, like you are a puzzle piece floating around without a home and you fit into the world and you plug in and this light just shines. You’re like, “ah ha, that’s who I am. There’s nothing wrong with me.” Which is a phenomenal realization. There’s nothing wrong with me. There’s nothing wrong with any of us in that regard.

I don’t know what people are going to do when they really lose all notion of one-pointedness. There’s no sense of focus. There should be for everybody a period in every day when you’re just free to sink into your own space, your internal space. And without that I think people have no true compass.

I don’t trust people who don’t love themselves and tell me, ‘I love you.’… There is an African saying which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt.

What’s radical is partly a matter of context, and as many Buddhist teachers and scholars have noted, the same individualism that made the Buddha’s teachings radical in his socially deterministic time, now play neatly into the hands of modern consumerist culture. We need less of the “Free-Yourself” type dharma, and more attention to “Free Us All” conversations. Rather than conflating personal and collective liberation, let’s connect the two approaches.

The shelf was filled with books that were hard to read, that could devastate and remake one's soul, and that, when they were finished, had a kick like a mule