I am 47 years old. I turn 48 late this month. I haven’t been someone who has ever given too much weight to birthdays or the passing of the years. But this year my impending birthday is hitting me some. I’ve really not thought too much about age until very recently, but at some time…
I haven’t been posting photographs on the blog mostly because I forgot I sometimes post photographs on the blog. I post some regularly on Instagram and Facebook, anyway, so this is what Eve once called low-lying fruit. Really I was about to post on Facebook the sleeping woman whose photo I took on Sunday underneath Whitewater…
What struck me first about Sakyong Mipham was his quiet, stealthful presence. Mipham serves as temporal and spiritual director of Shambhala, a global network of meditation and retreat centers. After waiting for the Sakyong — a ruler, or earth protector, who rules by balancing heaven and earth — to join me for an interview in April…
Dare 33 34 Peaches, peaches abundant, the fruit maturing. How to select the best one? Outside in the sun in the middle of an ancient desert, baking in oil with basil, vanilla, wine. The basting brush strokes, strokes painting into a corner that leads only to new rooms to fly out to and paint. So…
[This entry is the concluding post of a six-part series presenting my talk on autism delivered at the Autism and the Pursuit of Happiness conference at the University of North Carolina earlier this year. I invite you to read all the parts in the series — the entire talk. Please see the links at the bottom of…
[This entry is Part 5 of a six-part series presenting my talk on autism delivered at the Autism and the Pursuit of Happiness conference at the University of North Carolina earlier this year. I invite you to read all the parts in the series — the entire talk. Please see the links at the bottom of…
[Part 4 of a six-part series presenting my talk on autism delivered at the Autism and the Pursuit of Happiness conference at the University of North Carolina earlier this year. To read the other parts in the series, please see the links at the bottom of this post; the series starts with Part 1 here. Thank you!…
[I open this post, the third in a six-part blog series presenting a talk I gave at the Autism and the Pursuit of Happiness Conference earlier this year at the University of North Carolina, with a sensory break. I incorporated four videos into the original presentation, and hopefully I’ll be able to bring them all into…
[This six-part series is adapted from a talk I gave at the Autism and the Pursuit of Happiness Conference at the University of North Carolina Asheville.] In this talk, I’m discussing value contrasts to consider—hopefully to think about deeply—when parenting an autistic child. These value contrasts also have relevance for medical, educational, and therapeutic professionals.…
[This six-part series is adapted from a talk I gave at the Autism and the Pursuit of Happiness Conference at the University of North Carolina Asheville.] My son Nicholas is 14 and autistic. I’ll tell you just a little bit about him. When Nicholas was one and a half he lost speech and was nonverbal…
