Note to my loved ones: When I have discarded this mortal coil, please feel under no obligation to put cheesy seasonal decorations around my gravestone. Wherever I end up, I have passed beyond all interest in tinsel, foil and plastic fake trees. Thanks for understanding. (Seen at Mountain View Cemetary, Oakland.)
Category: The Spirit
“67 Sueños”: Pro-migrant Mural Unveiling on August 26 at SF Quaker Meetinghouse
I am happy to share that a really beautiful new mural on a pro-migrant social justice theme is being officially unveiled on Friday August 26 in downtown San Francisco. On the northern wall of the San Francisco Quaker Meetinghouse, the new mural is called "67 Sueños" (67 dreams). Created by muralist Pancho Pescador in collaboration…
My Quaker-inspired Solo Dance Piece “The Message” (video)
Yesterday at San Francisco Quaker Meeting, after the morning worship, I performed for the first time publicly my solo dance piece “The Message” before an audience of about 30 people. This is a personal piece that comes out of my experience at Quaker Meeting for Worship, particularly what Quakers refer to as “sharing a message”…
Tim Ferriss Tackles Spirituality in “The Four Hour Spirit”
For those of you who are die-hard Tim Ferriss fans, having quit your normal 9-5 to travel the world and live off of your mail-order oven mitt business, working on your killer abs and having great sex, you might be wondering what is next from the "4-hour" wunderkind? Well I have it from reliable sources…
Quaker Meeting, Instant Gratification, and the Value of Boredom
Here’s the gist of my message in Quaker Meeting today: I recently read an article on how the state of boredom is no longer a part of our daily experience. We have in our pockets small devices that allow us to entertain, amuse or at least stimulate us whenever we want, whether it is riding…
Digitizing Performance: Increasing Reach, Decreasing Power
Today at Quaker Meeting I was thinking about how the experience of any kind of performance is affected by the format that is received. A symphony listened to from the lawn in Central Park with thousands of other picnickers has little relationship to the same symphony heard from a video recording uploaded to YouTube. And…
Still Missing Bettina
In a few days it will be the birthday of Bettina Pruckmayr, an old girlfriend of mine who died a long time ago. I can hardly believe that it was 16 years ago that she was taken from us by an act of evil on December 16, 1995. Bettina was a young human rights lawyer…
Home Worship with the Oakland Quakers
Rounding out my tour of local Quaker meetings and churches, on Sunday afternoon I found myself at the simple home of Pam Calvert and Helen Haug in Oakland. Pam and Helen have been holding a Quaker worship group in their home on Sunday afternoons for several years now. I have been wanting to attend this…
San Francisco Quaker Meeting: Sublime Silence in Downtown SF
Today I finally got to check out the San Francisco Quaker Meeting, almost completing my tour of local Bay Area Quaker communities. A fairly nondescript building on 9th Street near Market, the San Francisco meeting gathers every Sunday at 11am for worship, followed by socializing and committee meetings. This morning there were about 30-40 Friends…
Glorious Timelapse of Milky Way from El Teide, Spain (video)
The most amazing time-lapse video ever. Photographer Terje Sorgjerd shot these amazing time-lapse images from El Teide, the highest peak in Spain earlier this month. I wish I had a better word than "awesome," but this simply inspires awe. Watch it in HD, turn up the speakers. Thanks for tweeting this out, Swifty!