à la carte spirit by ilona fried
Starting Over
Dispatch from Barcelona “Base Camp”
The films of Pedro Almodovar captivated me when I was younger, especially “Women on a Verge of a Nervous Breakdown”. The actresses he hired for that movie did not have traditional looks. One, whose name I can’t recall, had a slightly bent nose, a narrow face, and huge asymmetrical red lips. I remember being enthralled … Continue reading
Shambhala, Too
It’s been revealed that the Shambhala Buddhist “Emperor”, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, has no clothes. An in depth investigative report, spearheaded by a former member of the Shambhala community months before the #MeToo movement made headlines, has turned up searing and horrifying stories of abuse of power, including sexualized violence, over a period of decades. Sadly, I am not … Continue reading
What’s Scarier than Public Speaking? An Aikido Rank Test
It’s a truism that many people fear public speaking more than death. I can safely say that an Aikido rank test is more terrifying than addressing a group of people. When I began practicing Aikido in early 2017, I sought an intense physical and spiritual challenge to lift me out of a dark place. I … Continue reading
When Gratitude Turns to Greed in Less Than an Internet Minute
Just a week ago, I felt enormous gratitude that The Wisdom Daily decided to invest time and resources to adapt one of my articles to a short video. My essay about Moshe Feldenkrais, written six months ago, was no longer at the forefront of my mind. In the Internet age, most content arises and then disappears … Continue reading
Bringing Passover Consciousness to a Dojo and Finding More Freedom
Perhaps the desire to turn everything inside out and upside down, like religious Jews who remove every last crumb of hametz before Passover, is in my DNA. The impulse still arises even though, as an adult, I have never followed Jewish law impeccably around any holiday. Having wandered from Jewish observance, preferring to focus on essence rather than form, I wasn’t sure … Continue reading
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