“There is this cave / In the air behind my body / That nobody is going to touch: / A cloister, a silence / Closing around a blossom of fire.”* So wrote the American poet James Wright (1927-1980) in his poem “The Jewel.” Wright’s images are enigmatic, in the way dreams are, but their import [...]
Archive for November, 2011
95. The virtues of solitude
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged alone together, ichigo ichie, james wright the jewel, privacy, sherry turkle, Shinge roko sherry chayat roshi, thich nhat hanh, zuckerberg on 17 November 2011 | 4 Comments »
94. Contemplative memory
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Basho, contemplation, henri bergson, ichigo ichie, kyoto, memory, sven birkerts on 3 November 2011 | Leave a Comment »
In his essay “Reading Oneself,” the writer and teacher Sven Birkerts describes the experience of encountering a long-forgotten page of his own prose. As Birkerts tells the story, he agreed to read the book manuscript of a student whom he had taught many years before. When his former student arrived at their meeting, she brought [...]
