This is my latest horoscope from Rob Brezsny: Gemini (May 21-June 20) English model and TV personality Katie Price has been on the planet for just 37 years, but has already written four autobiographies. You Only Live Once, for instance, covers the action-packed time between 2008 and 2010, when she got divorced and then remarried in a romantic Las Vegas ceremony. I propose that we choose this talkative, self-revealing Gemini to be your spirit animal and role model. In the coming weeks, you should go…
Like most normal people with feet and sensibilities firmly planted in the 21st century, I am appalled by Indiana’s odious pile of caca that is the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. While proponents claim that the law will prevent the government from infringing on the peoples’ ability to exercise religious beliefs, anyone with opposable thumbs and a functional cerebellum knows the more egregious implication: The RFRA opens the door for businesses and other entities to legally discriminate against LGBT people. WTF, Indiana? During Sunday’s airing of…
It seems the world has gone mad. There are airstrikes (again) in Iraq. Brief, uneasy ceasefires notwithstanding, there is fighting (still) on the Gaza Strip. Ebola continues its somber rage across West Africa. Airplanes are blown from the sky or fall silently to points unknown and never found. Closer to home, frightened children are detained at the border. Mothers fall to their knees as senseless shootings crackle through summer nights again and again and again. Smart and willing souls struggle to find…
For a little over a year now, I’ve been writing a series on this blog called “Our Creative Lives,” which is an examination of the creative experience and a tender look at some of the things that we encounter along the path of our creative pursuits, both in our own psyches and also in the outside world. The response has been extremely positive and I think it's high time to open up the conversation to include other voices. As such, I am super excited to…
Courage According to the Cowardly Lion, courage is “what makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist or the dusky dusk.” John Wayne said, “Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway.” And the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as “mental or moral strength to venture, persevere and withstand danger, fear or difficulty.” Clearly, courage is a big subject. I think about it a lot. I have spent the better part of my life standing on the edge of a high dive…
Fear appears to be an ongoing theme in the lives of many creative people, or so it would seem judging from what I see out on the blogosphere. On any given day, I come across multiple posts on this topic. I’ve certainly written about it myself a time or two. (Here and here.) For as much as we go on and on about it, fear remains a curious challenge for most of us. We are perpetually trembling. SO, WHAT ARE WE SO AFRAID OF ANYWAY?…
A few months ago, I took on a new job that I knew wasn’t right for me. Fiscally-speaking, it offered low-hanging fruit, and my fears about economic insecurity won out over the small voice inside of me that kept whispering…..warning me…..that I was about to take a wrong turn. That small voice was right. This particular gig, while definitely enhancing my day-to-day financial situation, has become an enormous time and energy suck. It eats up several hours of my day, and when the time comes…
