• Thoughts

    Get Behind Me

    Once again (twice? thrice? who knows?), I have come across the statement, “Get behind me, Satan.” It was there the night before last when I opened the pages of a notebook. “Get behind me, Satan”: those are the words Jesus…

  • Thoughts

    Learning New Languages

    After publishing last week’s post, I received an email from a reader, asking for clarification. I sent a response and would like to share and expand upon it here. I mean that the language we use—literally and figuratively—creates the world…

  • Thoughts

    Just Read the Book

    Well, I must say that I was surprised to find a (Collecting Thoughts Press) post from The Before Times (March 2019: remember what the world was like then?) that made me smile and made me think, Yup. Still applies. Since…

  • Thoughts

    Taking a Safety

    I got to the computer yesterday by way of Stephen Harrod Buhner’s Ensouling Language, a book I am still s-l-o-w-l-y making my way through (and now that I’ve shared it with Dennis, it’s often in his office, where I don’t…

  • Thoughts

    What is Your Name?

    Is name just another word for label? No. The two could not be more different, but we get lazy and interchangeably use words that are fundamentally incompatible. A name places you in the universe. It makes it clear that you…

  • Thoughts

    If You Want Dragon Smoke

    Could it be that Robert Bly’s Looking for Dragon Smoke is the book I’ve been looking for? And what did I do? I read a few pages after it arrived back in May, then put it on the shelf—always saving…

  • Thoughts

    With Intent

    Everywhere I turn, I come across messages on the importance of daily practice, and it leads me to a question: can I call it practice if I don’t consciously think in those terms? There is a difference between doing and…

  • Thoughts

    Of Men and Misunderstanding

    To Share or Not to Share Two days ago, I began thinking in earnest about the balance between silence and expression. I am coming to understand how essential It is to express oneself and to be free to express oneself,…

  • Thoughts

    Which Way?

    If Diamond had had to find out the riddle in order to see Mr. Raymond again, I doubt if he would ever have seen him. “Oh then,” I think I hear some little reader say, “he could not have been…

  • Thoughts

    Something Stronger Within

    How do we go about finding meaning in existence? Are we ever explicitly taught to do so? Where would one go for such teaching? Perhaps long ago, the answer would have been some form of institutional school, but that no…

  • Thoughts

    Know It All

    The Volume Library. God love you, Dad. When you signed on the dotted line for that scam, you were trying to do the right thing. Your blood sugar may have been on the way down and you just wanted your…