à la carte spirit by ilona fried
Adventure
Now Playing: Spiritual Ping-Pong
My internal experience reminds me of Ping-Pong. On one side of the net is gratitude, well-being and acceptance. On the other is, as Zen monk Cheri Huber points out, ego’s insidious chorus of “something is wrong” or “not enough”. And my attention is the ball, bouncing over the net between the two sides, or flying … Continue reading
El Camino with a King Size Bed
“Life is a journey, not a destination.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson I thought of this oft-quoted phrase when, on a Thursday at the end of May, the final Delta flight on my route from Denver to Montreal was cancelled. That it was aborted after we had boarded the aircraft, taxied onto the runway and then, … Continue reading
Of Mountains and Mark Doty
Somehow, I managed to not know of poet and memoirist Mark Doty until Lighthouse Writers Workshop brought him to the Denver area over the weekend. Friends raved about him, so I attended a “Writers Studio”, a combination of poetry reading and interview on Saturday, and his craft talk on Sunday. That the first event took … Continue reading
Jerusalem from the Inside of a Pool
My Zen teacher likes to say, “How we do anything is how we do everything.” If the same can be said of a society, would the workings of a single pool reflect the culture at large? Last week I loosely considered this question while swimming almost every day at the Jerusalem Pool (it was closed … Continue reading
Wallet Analysis: Part II
Before I left for the Camino, I went to my bank’s main branch to exchange some dollars for euros so I’d have local currency upon arrival. At this Wells Fargo location, employees act as ushers and, with a huge smile, escort you to the proper line as if you were a celebrity or a member … Continue reading
à la carte spirit by ilona fried 
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