Strikes keep on going on in France. And we all keep on going on with daily life, too, amid the strikes and protests and governmental scolds and babble. Saturday was another national strike day. Arriving at the Opéra Bastille in the driving night rain, we learn that, because of a strike by some personnel, the [...]
Rainy Saturday afternoon during which I learn to repair a sitting cushion thanks to the kind guidance of a colleague/friend amateur seamstress who has stopped by with that purpose in mind. Quiet seems to fill the house, the garden, our talk, the cat curled on the back of the couch before the bay window. There's [...]
Back again from retreat in Portugal. Orange trees were bearing early fruit in the cloister that we rounded to and from sitting, over and over, around and around. We sat together, wind and rain whipping fierce outside, clouds hanging thick and heavy, then unexpectedly autumn light was cast pale yellow with shadows on the floor. [...]
ZEN ART Opening to the art of life a workshop with Amy Hollowell Sensei, poet and founder of the Wild Flower Zen Sangha Nov. 27-28 Paris Saturday: 14h-18 Sunday: 9h30-18h 75€ (85€ for registration after Nov. 10) (in French and English) Zen art is simply the expression of our natural presence, here and now. Starting [...]
In my inbox, an email from the Centre Pompidou promoting a coming dance performance. The title intrigues: "Nos Solitudes" (Our Solitudes). So I read on: "Chute perpétuelle ou travail sur l'envol, Nos solitudes de la chorégraphe Julie Nioche met en scène un corps en suspension retenu dans les airs par des liens multiples qui tissent [...]
What is it tonight? More fragments, the only thing possible. "Am I walking into eternity along Sandymount strand? Crush, crack, crick, crick," thinks Stephen Dedalus, on the beach in the morning in Joyce's Ulysses. This afternoon, I meet by chance someone whom I've not seen for some time. We talk at my kitchen table, exchange [...]
Streets are the theater of more protests today, youths confronting police armed for battle. At the place Denfert-Rochereau a stand-off is underway when I emerge from the Métro. The surrounding avenues are eerily vacant of traffic, cordoned off by the troops, and shops are closed. Here and there, people are huddled in little groups, murmuring, [...]
I see images tonight on the television of gangs of young men, boys even, in the streets of France smashing cars and windows, charging the police, throwing stones, bottles, sticks, lighting fires. Someone says its urban warfare. But these kids are not protesting the government's retirement plan. They are full of rage over the life [...]
Tonight, I'm ready to shut it all down and go to bed. The day was busy with the rigors of parenting, the grind of household duties. No time for "I"! So after the last dishes are finally done, the night is quiet, I sit down, put the words here. Whatever words come. I know they [...]
All these people in the streets protesting against the measures proposed by the French government to raise the retirement age... A journalist wonders in Le Monde how many writers were among the protesters. Good question. And how many Zen teachers? The writer's life knows no age. A Zen life, too, is ageless. What does it [...]