Category: personal growth and spirituality
-
Pendulum
I arrived at yoga class this morning with the hopes of losing myself in the pause. Of immersing myself in the kind of restorative quiet that is often necessary for the achievement of insight. For the mental clarity required to imbue this post, with which I’d been struggling for the past few days, with meaning,…
-
On Wisdom
It’s an ashen sky and lo-fi Sunday. Bone dreary and mellow with intermittent sunlight. The air is pregnant with repose. Heavy. Lingering with moisture, the kind that clings to your hair and drips off the edges of your windowsills. The temperature in a slow and steady climb, typical of spring afternoons in the American South.…
-
In Terms of Life and Death
I’m not sure when exactly I began thinking of creativity, generally, and of the dynamics of creative living, in particular, in terms of life force, or energy. Those activities and attitudes that are life-giving versus those that take it away. Indeed, I was, you might say, “smacked over the head” with an aha moment recently…
-
On Play
I was fascinated to learn that Carl Jung discovered the therapeutic benefits of creativity by, himself, re-enacting a form of childhood play. An attempt to uncover the roots of an early psychological conflict. To be sure, such a desire to experiment on oneself, to delve into one’s unconscious so rigorously and imaginatively, requires a playfulness…
-
On Being an Original
I view the striving for originality as, first, a struggle for life. To preserve, expand, and affirm oneself. To actualize one’s inherent, energetic potential. About a year ago, I published a post titled, When You Have Too Much Life…, in which I discuss what it feels like to have one’s creativity, attempts at expressing the…
-
On Introspection
Beyond myself, somewhere, I wait for my arrival. —Ocativo Paz I’ve always been an introspective sort. My mother occasionally likes to remind me of the time I spent as a child perched on the edge of my bed, reading whatever material I could get my hands on and subsequently reflecting on those readings for hours.…
-
Appearances Matter.
This isn’t a post about beauty standards or body image. It’s a post about coping with the reality that we—both women and men—are constantly subjected to an array of internal and external standards regarding our physical appearance. Some of those standards matter. Others aren’t deserving of our attention (even though ignoring them can be easier…
-
Fitness as Spiritual Quest
Many of the most valuable life lessons I have learned, I’ve learned from fitness. Whether I’m just working out for fun or sticking to a more arduous training schedule, I love every aspect of the process of bettering myself through physical activity. But, it’s not just a sense of self-improvement, or accomplishment, that drives me.…
-
Simplicity as Art and Spiritual Practice
It is often said that creativity manifests from chaos. I’d imagine that most creative individuals wouldn’t disagree. That chaos, whether it involves a flurry of contradictory emotions, the unrestrained proliferation of ideas, or that bizarre clashing of insight—a knowledge that far exceeds one’s years—with the playfulness of a small child, requires balance. I’ve written previously…
The Used Life 