Category Archives: attention

First clothesline day of 2016!

Posted on February 28, 2016 by

Clotheslining is a big deal here in Cheapskate-Intellectual-land, so the first warm and windy day is a big deal too.  As soon as I saw the sun and smelled the breeze, I knew it was time.  So familiar and delightful … Continue reading →

Posted in attention, home, seasons | 2 Comments

Ownlife vs. Internet?

Posted on November 15, 2014 by

“…at the same time I felt so strongly the pull of another thing, a thing having to do with music, freedom, the future, individuality.  This is an important reason why I became a writer, I think, for in everything I … Continue reading →

Posted in attention, corporations, technology | 3 Comments

Harpooning the comet.

Posted on November 13, 2014 by

Struggling to absorb the wondrousness of Philae, the observatory device shot into space this week to stick to and photograph a comet, I can only fasten on the verb: harpooning.  It’s a suitable invocation of an attempt to fasten ourselves … Continue reading →

Posted in attention, mystery, technology | 3 Comments

If that don’t beet all…

Posted on October 22, 2014 by

Benjamin Franklin once remarked, “Experience is a dear school, but a fool will learn in no other.”  Put another way, knowledge can be expensive, but a little pain can make it stick.   Put a third way, I will never again … Continue reading →

Posted in animals, attention, food, gardening, self-reliance | Leave a comment

Yo, Thoreau.

Posted on June 23, 2014 by

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that … Continue reading →

Posted in attention, conservation, politics, self-reliance, technology | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Dreams of sun.

Posted on May 2, 2014 by

There’s a particular kind of sleep that waits for you when you’ve been outside working all day, especially in a garden: a kind of heavy, instant falling-off that nevertheless feels light, as if your sleep-sodden body might lift and rise … Continue reading →

Posted in attention, gardening, mystery, seasons, spirit | 4 Comments

The twentysomething brain (and beyond.)

Posted on January 20, 2014 by

(from my manuscript-in-progress) Significantly, Buddhists call looking at an object or emotion steadily for some time and processing the emotions that arise “sustaining the gaze.”  The ability to “sustain the gaze” without distraction from within or without is the ability … Continue reading →

Posted in attention, home, money, resilience, stuff, technology | 6 Comments