Category: Philosophy

Eating Object-Oriented Thinking

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Last week at the Purdue Aesthetics Conference I spoke of four object-oriented thinkers who employ food references to demonstrate their defense of object wonder, vitality, complexity and gravity.

  1. Ian Bogost’s pound cake shows us complex “alien” encounters that yield a pound cake. He compares Alton Brown and Duff Goldman’s approach to cake baking.
  2. Jane Bennett’s berries and beef show us by comparison Nietzsche and Thoreau’s food preference as indicative of their philosophies.
  3. Timothy Morton borrows from the Shredded Wheat commercial slogan of “nothing added nothing taken away” to celebrate things as they openly announce their duplicity.
  4. Levi Bryant’s brazil nuts exemplify bright objects capable of exerting existential gravity on things around them.

My study of OOO was meant to help me develop a food-oriented strategy towards writing a cookbook. It is not about simply writing recipes for my daughters to follow but rather offer guidelines that might help them question all recipes (normative prescriptions) and find their own relationship with each dish (embodied and existential situation amidst other organic and inorganic things) in order to avoid living a correlationist life searching for correspondence to an abstract external “truth.”( I have to find a subtle way to insert the philosophy between the lines. Is there one?)

OOO offers strategies and orientations to think things, to speculate and imagine object lives and demands. I eat it…… is only one-half the story in any inter-object relationship. How it eats me…is the other half of the story…the more, imaginative, interesting, consuming part of any object story. And so, the task of Bittermelon and Brownies: Proclamations of a Philosopher-Mom is to show how we are ourselves ingredients in each recipe.

Now that I’ve announced the project I really have to do it! Yikes!

I’ve just started to work on the cookbook. Wish me patient consistent writing! I’m open to your advice and suggestions dear bloggers, hungry philosophers, food writers, chefs, and cookbook authors.

Here is a satirical example of a philosopher writing a cookbook that I find instructive and funny!

October 10

I find myself trying ever more radical interpretations of traditional dishes, in an effort to somehow express the void I feel so acutely. Today I tried this recipe:

Tuna Casserole

Ingredients: 1 large casserole dish

Place the casserole dish in a cold oven. Place a chair facing the oven and sit in it forever. Think about how hungry you are. When night falls, do not turn on the light.

While a void is expressed in this recipe, I am struck by its inapplicability to the bourgeois lifestyle. How can the eater recognize that the food denied him is a tuna casserole and not some other dish? I am becoming more and more frustrated.

From, The Jean-Paul Sartre Cookbook by Marty Smith, from the Free Agent, 1987

Wobblyogi Wednesday – ‘Nirodhah’ Finding Resolution

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“In yoga, philosophy, and practice are married,” says, Judith Hanson Lasater in the first Q&A section of her (and her daughter’s) course, Patanjali 101.

Further on, she explains that to understand Patanjali intuitively we have to feel moments of self-doubt, to feel how our memory pulls us away from the mat, to feel how our to-do races us forward, to pause when we feel a pose, to let go when we have difficulty in a pose, it is not only doing the pose but also “thinking” the pose. How do I feel, respond, and think as I’m moving on the mat and then maybe begin to think about how we move in the world.

During my graduate studies in philosophy, I was never asked how I “feel” about a particular philosophy. The prejudice against feelings in philosophy stems from a fear that feelings  are subjective, volatile and obstructs clear, rational thinking and most importantly dialogue. We cannot connect and converse with others through emotions. To someone who says ” I just love Plato,” I cannot respond or negate her/his emotions. I can’t say, “No you don’t.” I can only respond and argue with reasons. The philosophical primacy centers on sustaining dialogue.

The nature of dialogue in yoga is different. Instead of philosophical intersubjective, the yogic dialogue  happens within the self as an appeal to the inner divine. What some yoga practitioners share are the Patanjali’s practices, most share the asanas. As a philosopher, yoga helps me feel what I understand of the world, but most importantly how I feel about my own responses. For me, the co-action of breath, movement and thought is what attracts me most to the material spirituality of yoga.

I look forward to learning more during the next 5 weeks.

The first week of the course centered on the first three sutras of the Patanjali and the mountain pose.

Yogah Chitta Vritti Nirodhah.

In choosing a Patanjali translation, Ms. Lasater recommends noting the translation of the word, nirodahah. She likes the word “resolved”, and explains, “I no longer use my mind to get stirred up. I can stand back and feel resolved, feel free. From that space the freedom to choose my actions.”

Here are seven other translations of the sutra:

  1. Yoga is the stilling of the changing states of mind. – Edwin F. Bryant
  2. Yoga is the restraining of the mindstuff. – Swami Vivkeananda
  3. Yoga is experienced in that mind which has ceased it identify itself with its vacillating waves of perception. – Mukunda Stiles
  4. Yoga is to still the patterning of consciousness. – Chip Hartranft
  5. Yoga is the uniting of consciousness in the heart. – Nischala Joy Devi
  6. Union, spiritual consciousness, is gained through the control of the versatile psychic nature. – Kindle edition of Patanjali
  7. The restraint of the modifications of the mindstuff is Yoga- Sri Swami Satchidananda.

Here is a pdf that compares four translations of the sutras side by side in a chart for my fellow yoga-nerds.

May we all find our own translation through practice,

Wobblyogi

Wobblyogi Wednesday: Reading Autobiography of a Yogi

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Last week I watched the documentary and read, the Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa  Yoganada (1945). A book so life changing that it was handed out to each guest at Steve Jobs’ funeral. Widely read across the world and translated, it had a deep impact on Hollywood celebrities and everyday people alike. Among yoga reading lists, it tops the list.

This was the first yoga book I that disappointed me.

I wanted to like it. How often do we get a first person account of yoga mastery? The authenticity and sincerity of his voice are undeniable. And, yet, the too numerous to count accounts of yogis who can’t be photographed, who don’t sleep, who don’t eat, who have premonitions, who heal, who appear elsewhere, who can foretell the future, who tame lions and in general exhibit superhuman powers seem unhelpful to me, a suburban dance mom just trying to survive dinner and correct carpooling. I particularly disliked his use of yogic powers to help his sister gain weight so she might be attractive to her husband.

Maybe I don’t have the faith needed to believe in such extraordinary feats, maybe I just don’t see the value of these yogic powers for me and my family. Maybe I’m too much of an American yogi, corrupted by everyday banality, science, and technology. I just want to sit and breathe without feeling rushed or pulled apart. Perhaps, I aim too low.

I did enjoy learning about Yogananda’s struggles to establish his yoga centers, his travels and search to learn and share. I wish he wrote more about navigating his disappointments about schooling, organizational and management issues, money issues, travel constraints and living in America.

As you can imagine my favorite quote involves Yogananda describing the daily routine of his self-supporting guru, Sri Yukteswar,

Daily life at the ashram flowed smoothly, infrequently varied. My guru awoke before dawn. Lying down, or sometimes sitting on his bed, he entered a state of samadhi. It was simplicity itself to discover when Master had awakened: abrupt halt of stupendous snores. A sigh or two; perhaps a bodily movement. Then a soundless state of breathlessness: he was in deep yogic joy.

Breakfast did not follow; first came a long walk by the Ganges……..A bath, then the midday meal. Its preparation, according to Master’s daily directions, had been the careful task of young disciples. My guru was vegetarian. Before embracing monkhood, however, he had eaten eggs and fish. His advice to students was to follow any simple diet which proved suited to one’s constitution.

Master ate little; often rice, colored with turmeric or juice of beets or spinach and lightly sprinkled with buffalo ghee or melted butter. Another day he might have lentil-dal or channa curry with vegetables. For dessert, mangoes or oranges with rice pudding, or jackfruit juice.

Visitors appeared in the afternoon.

Even yogis with super powers had to eat (except for the lady yogi who went without eating).

Like yoga itself, we all have to find books that speak to us and resonate with our own experiences. I often find that I learn about myself from books I struggle with the most.  This was the case for Autobiography of a Yogi. Read it for yourself to decide if it works for you. There are no reviewed shortcuts to mindful awareness.

Wishing you happy reading,

The wobblyogi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Food Poem – Ice Cream Stop by Shel Silverstein

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The circus train made an ice cream stop
At the fifty-two-flavor ice cream stand.
The animals all got off the train
And walked right up to the ice cream man.
“I’ll take Vanilla,” yelled the gorilla.
“I’ll take Chocolate,” shouted the ocelot.
“I’ll take the Strawberry,” chirped the canary.
“Rocky Road,” croaked the toad.
“Lemon and Lime,” growled the lion.
Said the ice cream man, “‘Til I see a dime.
You’ll get no ice cream of mine.”
Then the animals snarled and screeched and growled
And whinnied and whimpered and hooted and howled
And gobbled up the whole ice cream stand,
All fifty-two flavors
(Fifty-three with Ice Cream Man).

“Ice Cream Stop” by Shel Silverstein from Falling Up. © Harper Collins Publishers, 1996.

From the Writers Almanac:  http://writersalmanac.org/

Image from: http://www.pbs.org/food/the-history-kitchen/explore-the-delicious-history-of-ice-cream/

Food Poem – My Mother Was a Brilliant Cook by Maria Mazzioti Gillan

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You know I had to post this! It connects the craft of cooking with contentment. May we all find a craft that helps us be so at home.

The first time my mother went out
to eat was on her 25th wedding anniversary
at Scordato’s in Paterson, and the second time
was for her 50th anniversary
at the Iron Kettle House in Wyckoff.

My mother said, “I could have cooked
this meal better myself.”
But I knew she was happy,
though she would have never admitted it.

Once my mother came to Paterson
from Italy in steerage,
she was content to stay there.
She was a brilliant cook,
and didn’t need to go to restaurants.
She loved her house, poor as it was,
and never stayed in a motel or took a vacation
or wanted to.

She was content to offer platter after platter
of food to her family gathered
in her basement kitchen, and to watch them
laughing and talking together,
while she stood behind them
and smiled.

“My Mother Was a Brilliant Cook” by Maria Mazziotti Gillian from What Blooms in Winter. © NYQ Books, 2016.

From the Writer’s Almanac

Wobblyogi Wednesday – No Front Door to Yoga

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This week I’ve been reading Yoga as Medicine: The Yogic Prescription for Health and Healing by Timothy McCall.

It makes a very useful reference book because each chapter about a given condition, briefly explains the condition,  offers a particular yoga practitioner’s approach to the condition, scientific evidence, strategies that practitioner uses and finally other approaches.

For example, chapter 8 about anxiety and panic attacks talks about, Rolf Sovik’s ( a yogi with a doctorate in clinical psychology researching breathing and anxiety treatment) approach in treating a patient at the Himalayan institute whose panic attacks resembled a heart attack.

The chapter offers an overview and range of panic attacks and then shows how yoga fits in, first in general, followed by scientific evidence and cases, then in terms of 12 particular poses like meditation, sandbag breathing, crocodile breathing and tree pose. The chapter ends with bullet points about other holistic approaches to asthma and panic attacks like psychotherapy, increasing omega-3 fatty acids in the diet, using aromatherapy, like lavender and German chamomile, regular aerobic exercise etc.

The combination of big picture explanation, case studies of treatment, scientific studies and specific strategies makes the book worthwhile. In terms of anxiety treatment and maybe yoga in general, I found it interesting that everyone needs to find their own “door” into treatment, through the mind or body,

“It’s worth noting that another study by Jon Kabat-Zinn found that patients whose anxiety manifested mainly in mental symptoms like constant worrying tended to find hatha yoga preferable to mindfulness meditation, whereas those whose symptoms of anxiety tended to manifest mainly in the body preferred the less body-oriented meditation. As Jon says, “people need different doors to come into the room, so to speak, of self-awareness and self knowing. Some people just can’t go through the mind door. They get the body door instantly.”

There is no front door to yoga. We all have to find our own entry. The house of yoga is a like a semi-open structure with a wrap around veranda and french doors all around, layers of openings that work differently for every practice.

May we each find our door today.

Thanking you for reading this,

the wobblyogi

 

Inorganic Recipes from Artist Charles A. Gick

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Don’t miss this extraordinary exhibition about ordinary things, like dirt and spoons. Here is why…

This local studio to gallery recipe grows out of a Catholic farming family in Indiana. Artist and inorganic chef, Charles Gick, has been perfecting the cracked earth recipe since his childhood on the farm, drawing with a stick on summer mud. The exhibition is a culmination of his first tastes of meditative marking, multi-medium expression and elemental reverie. His work is as primal as the first cave etchings and as contemplative as the black paintings in Rothko Chapel. Cracked earth, both atmospheric and sculptural, becomes the ground for offerings and incomplete messages that either hover above or sit unanchored. On the slabs of cracked mud we taste the farm in the collective labor that stretches between the trucks of earth, the mixing of wet mud, the drying until cracked. Through this strange and shared effort of working the earth Gick cultivates a meditative space. The broken earth’s hunger for the clouds reminds us of a simple farming truth: blooming requires others. Gick distills the bittersweet taste of this farming truth by framing raw, earthworm etched, air-dried, messy dirt with intentional clean clarity, like all sophisticated farm-to-table dishes that celebrate the ingredients. His skill as an inorganic chef finds full expression in his ability to balance the raw and the refined. Not only is he able to balance sorrow and delight, longing and union, vulgar and elegant, he is also able to offer these tastes in multiple mediums and forms. His work includes performance, painting, sculpture, photography, design and video, so people with diverse aesthetic palates can find something to savor. The slabs of cracked earth become meditative totems, prayers for clouds. It materializes, an ethereal longing for the other. Enjoy these recipes for cracked earth, empty… and full… and taste your own muddy and cloudy longings.

Ingredients

Makes 2 (16’X16’ Slabs)

  • Local dirt 10 tons
  • Water 850 gallons

Equipment

  • 1 Truck with a hydraulic lift bed to transport, deliver, and dump dirt
  • 3-5 Human beings to mix and transport the mud
  • 1 spade and 1 shovel to scoop dirt from dirt pile and place into buckets
  • 1 – 3’x3’ wire sifter to shift out dirt clods
  • Wheelbarrow to transport dirt to fill the buckets
  • 3 electric drills with dry wall mixing blades to mix the dirt and water
  • 25 – 5 gallon buckets to mix and hold the mud
  • A large cart on casters to transport the buckets of mud
  • 1 floor scraper to clean the floor of splattered mud
  • 2 commercial floor drying fans (additional small fans can be used as needed) to help expedite the drying and cracking process
  • 16 sheets of 4’ x 8’ – 5/8” plywood
  • 24 – 8’, 2”x6” pine
  • 8 – 16’, 2”x6” pine
  • 150 linear feet of pine screen bead board
  • 1 miter saw
  • 1 cross saw
  • 1 coping saw
  • 1 miter box
  • 150 – 7/8” metal brads to secure the screen bead board to edges of platform
  • 40 – 3” wood screws to secure the outside corners and end pieces of platform
  • 400 – 1-1/4” or longer wood screws to secure plywood to platform
  • 4 tubes of silicone calking and 1 calk gun to seal seams of plywood
  • 2 – 3 gallons of paint to paint the surface of the platform
  • Paint roller and paint tray
  • Wet/dry vacuum and a mop and bucket and broom to clean dust and water off of the gallery floor
  • 1 – 10’ x 100’ 6mil black poly sheeting to protect the gallery floor from moisture from pouring mud onto platforms
  • 4 – 16’, 1”x6” pine boards for the outer walls of mud mold
  • 2 – 8’, x 1”x6” pine boards to build a dam while pouring mud

Directions

  1. Build platform: First lay down a 20’X20” square of heavy plastic to protect gallery floor from the mud and water. It is imperative to be a considerate guest artist. Build platform, a 14’X14’ base with evenly spaced joists that can bear the weight of mud. Screw the 16’X16’ plywood top to cantilever over the base. Be sure to make the seams minimal. Each seam is an invitation for a water leak. Apply chalking over each seam in a futile nature-defying attempt at waterproofing.

Next add the 1” X 6” wood strip around the platform perimeter creating a frame to hug and constrict the mud. Apply black Gorilla Tape at the seam to prevent the escape of water to the floor. Now the platform is ready to receive the mixed wet mud.

  1. Mix mud: Ask politely for the dirt to be delivered and dumped outside. Shovel or spade scoopfuls of mud to be sifted and shaken. Much like baking a satiny smooth cake the sifting allows the removal of big clumps. If banana bread like texture is desired, leave dirt un-sifted. Note the difference in the two cracked earth slabs: The one holding the cloud dome is less sifted and has more texture while the slab under the earth and sky coat has less.

Using a wheelbarrow, transport dirt to the interior space closer to a water source. This transfer may also offer relief from hot Indiana summer days. Scoop dirt into 25 – 5 gallon buckets. Using a drill, mix 2 to 3 gallons of water to each bucket until a thick cake batter state is achieved. Relying on a table with castors and the energy of 3 people, push 25 buckets close to the platform in the gallery. Walk up onto platform as needed. Construct a sidewalk concrete pour-like dam that will permit a slow and controlled pour. Each dammed section will be limited by the stretch of your body. Pour mud until a thickness of 5” is reached. Repeat until the full 16’X16’ square pan is filled.

  1. Let dry: Do not be alarmed when water rises to top. The rising water allows for a brownie like crusty surface (a ¼ inch of water floating on top is fine). If a heavy spot of water develops use wet-dry vacuum to pull the water away without touching the surface.

Use commercial fans to hasten the drying process. Rotate fans around every couple days. Be sure to face fans in the same single direction so that air travels across the surface, like wind over the landscape. Do not create tornado conditions. Allow for 2 weeks of drying time.

For vulnerable and soft areas, mix thicker mud to make a stronger mold. Also note that the gallery will become humid as water escapes into the air, creating an invisible domesticated cloud.

The poured wet mud of 5 inches will shrink down to 3 inches. The mud will become hard enough to walk across and hang up watches or place a cloud dome. Limit walking to protect brownie-like crust. Once mud pulls away from the platform wall about a ¼ to ½ inch, lift the 1”X6” form away without hurting or pulling the slab. Now the cracked earth is ready, hovering over the platform, broken and waiting to receive.

Serve the Slabs of Cracked Earth with:

The Earth and Sky Coat

The Cloud Dome

Charles A. Gick’s Recipe for Empty…

  1. Locate 20 square feet of wall space
  2. 241 unfilled teaspoons will make 2-1/2 pints of absence. Gallons of restless meditations can gently perch on each cusp. Breathe deeply to give life to each possibility.
  3. Form a 5’ diameter circle filled with 8 concentric rings of emptiness

Charles A. Gick’s Recipe for Full…

  1. Locate 20 square feet of wall space
  2. 241 teaspoons of sifted dirt will make 2-1/2 pints of presence

Find a willing gallery director, not afraid of heights or dirt, to stand on a lift, hold cup under each spoon, sprinkle dirt over each until a tiny mountain forms within each cradle, let the dirt granules comfortably settle. Do not apply wind to the fragile dry earth. Hold your breath. The teaspoons cannot hold anymore.

  1. Form a 5’ diameter circle filled with 8 concentric rings of fullness

‘My fathers’ globe knocks on its nave and sings.’
‘This that we tread was, too, your fathers’ land.’
‘But this we tread bears the angelic gangs
Sweet are their fathered faces in their wings.’
‘These are but dreaming men. Breathe, and they fade.’

Excerpt from I fellowed sleep by Dylan Thomas

For recipes and tastes like, how to cage a cloud, how to sew an earth & sky coat and more, visit Charles A. Gick’s Dirt & Flowers: and other things we eat and breathe… at Wabash College.

Recipe developed by Charles A. Gick and written by the Hungryphilosopher

Wobblyogi Wednesday – Dueling Doshas

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According to Ayurvedic tradition there are three different constitutions: Vatta, Pitta, Kapha. Dietary and lifestyle prescriptions depend on each individual’s classification. For example the guidelines for a pitta constitution (according to the Complete Book of Ayurvedic Home Remedies) is as follows…. “Pitta individuals should avoid sour, salty, and pungent substances, which aggravate bodily fire. However, sweet, bitter, and astringent tastes are beneficial for pittas.”

There are several online quizzes that might help you find your dosha. Most of you reading this most likely know yours already. And, also as you experienced, following the guidelines for each dosha can be involved and daunting. Now, imagine the complexity of a dual constitution.

I am always suspicious of categories. We are all more messy. It is important to remember ayurveda and all of yoga involves guidelines not rules, suggestions not prescriptions. In the end the responsibility to listen to my body, is my own. Right? But, what if my body and mind and saying different things, have opposing needs? According to one quiz, my mind is vatta and body, pitta. So…I’m both anxious and “hangry.” To soothe my pitta, I’m supposed to eat less spice. That is not going to happen. I crave spice. On the other hand, maybe with this knowledge, I might be more amenable to sour, bitter and sweet tastes. I digress. There is a lesson to be learned from dueling doshas.  Context and seasons, play a large role in dual-dosha constitutions, and any constitution. Context, context, context.

“For individuals with a dual constitution (two doshas approximately equal), a little extra care is needed, but you can figure it out. For example, a vata-pitta individual needs to avoid vata-increasing foods in the fall and winter (but without increasing pitta too much) and minimize pitta provoking foods in the summer (but without aggravating vata). Stated in positive terms, favor vata-balancing foods in the fall, pitta-pacifying foods in the summer.”

We may at times suffer dual, conflicting needs, particularly, when we have immediate health or emotional concerns. Our mind may be anxious and in need of an active practice while our body may be fatigued and unable. Conversely, our body may feel active and energetic while our mind craves stillness.  In such cases, recognizing the split needs alone can be reassuring. Always balancing our needs.

In the end, that is what holistic wellness is about, balancing. Not sequential attention. Dueling-doshas show us that constitutionally we are balancing internally, as well as with external conditions, all the time.

Active words like practicing and balancing used in the context of yoga is not mere terminology but a commitment to mindful awareness regardless of assumptions of success.

Do we ever know if we are balanced? Does it matter?

May you stay in ease as fragmented, open, aware, dueling and split,

Wobblyogi

 

Wobblyogi Wednesday – Witness Consciousness

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“To me, witness consciousness represents the human capacity to experience a way of knowing that goes beyond the limitations of language. It’s the felt experience of holistically apprehending our being. For most of us, this sense of realization comes and goes in special, fleeting moments. But when we’re in touch with it, it liberates us from the boundaries that ordinarily keep us feeling divided within ourselves, form each other, and against the world. Witness consciousness is, I believe, a capacity of mind that we all have but normally don’t develop. Practices like yoga, meditation, and centering prayer work to strengthen our capacity to access it. If these are done consistently, our ability to tap into it grows over time. This is why experienced practitioners often refer to yoga as spiritual “practice.”

The quotes above and below are from Yoga PhD: Integrating the Life of the Mind with the Wisdom of the Body by ex poli-sci professor, activist yogi, Carol A. Horton.

By noticing our breath, our tense muscles, our moments of ease and stress we cultivate this sense of witness consciousness through our own bodies and experiences. Each pose becomes an invitation to really see ourselves moving and breathing as we struggle to stay in the present and to stay in our bodies.  Sometimes, I find myself, unknowingly, using this holistic witness consciousness to find ease when I’m tired or struggling.

Recently, I was at a football game volunteering. The noise, the crowd, the heat, the carnivalesque atmosphere was overwhelming. I found myself transfixed by the fluttering orange gosamer wings of a butterfly as it floated towards the cloudless, cereulean blue serene sky. Suddenly, the whole stadium dissappered and instead there was blue, orange, lightness, ease, air and space. I survived the rest of the day by taking my gaze up whenever I needed. Just by focusing on a larger picture that included the stadium but was not limited to the stadium, I found my witness consciousness experiencing a joyous crazy football game under a calm and resplendent fall sky. Yoga or connections off the mat can be so magical.

Speaking of magic …Dr. Horton talks about the benefits of contemporary yoga (a mix of physical and mental practice) as an “intuitive opening to the hidden magic of everyday life.”

In the end, what I love most about contemporary yoga is its ability to synthesize the everyday with the extraordinary, the practical with the visionary, the mundane with the sacred. I love that yoga can work to release my tense muscles, negative emotions, and pyschic detritus at the same time. That it can connect me to my body in ways that create new neural pathways in my brain. That it offers a practical tool for coping with everyday stress, as well as an intuitive opening to the hidden magic of everyday life.

Don’t we all need to find the hidden magic of everyday life, at the grocery store, pumping gas, hunched over our computers, loading the dishwasher, tossing a salad and wiping the counter? From this perspective of witness consciousness my suburban, cul-de-sac ordinary, existence becomes a gateway to a magical reality where I can see the lone fluttering butterfly floating above a college football stadium.

Wishing you all happy butterfly chasing,

Wobblyogi

Yoga Poem – The Shining Moment in the Now by David Budbill

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When I work outdoors all day, every day, as I do now, in the fall,
getting ready for winter, tearing up the garden, digging potatoes,
gathering the squash, cutting firewood, making kindling, repairing
bridges over the brook, clearing trails in the woods, doing the last of
the fall mowing, pruning apple trees, taking down the screens,
putting up the storm windows, banking the house—all these things,
as preparation for the coming cold…

when I am every day all day all body and no mind, when I am
physically, wholly and completely, in this world with the birds,
the deer, the sky, the wind, the trees…

when day after day I think of nothing but what the next chore is,
when I go from clearing woods roads, to sharpening a chain saw,
to changing the oil in a mower, to stacking wood, when I am
all body and no mind…

when I am only here and now and nowhere else—then, and only
then, do I see the crippling power of mind, the curse of thought,
and I pause and wonder why I so seldom find
this shining moment in the now.

“This Shining Moment in the Now” by David Budbill from While We’ve Still Got Feet. © Copper Canyon Press, 2012.

From the Writers Almanac