In your heart may there be a sanctuary

For the stillness where clarity is born.

May your work be infused with passion and creativity

And have the wisdom to balance compassion and challenge.

I love that loop. Write, revise, write, revise. It’s like doing reps in a gym. You can’t expect that 10 pull-ups will add any discernible new muscle. But 30 pull-ups, across three sets, done thrice a week, for a year? Yeah, you’re going to notice the cumulative results of that.

For humans to have been shaped long ago to treat the sacred in its appropriate sacred manner, the sacred must have been around long ago, and important enough then to shape our natures. That is, if the sacred is real, it must be big and ancient.

Don’t rely on someone else to give you what you need. Choose what nourishes you every day. See how strong you become when you remember that love is just reassertation, choosing something over and over. Do it one more time & watch mundane repetition become something transcendent.

It is said that traditions are answers to enduring questions, and so dispensing with them because we do not understand them (or "see the point of them") is an unfortunate way to squander this inheritance.

The parable of the second arrow is a well-known Buddhist story about dealing with suffering more skilfully. It is said the Buddha once asked a student,

‘If a person is struck by an arrow, is it painful? If the person is struck by a second arrow, is it even more painful?’

He then went on to explain,

‘In life, we can’t always control the first arrow. Ho... See more

Creativity has two parts:- Creative discovery mode: shuffling things around, exploring. Playful.- Implementation mode: creating something robust and concrete.- Revisit the work the next day in an alert state and assess whether it is ready for linear implementation.

Very little grows on jagged rock.

Be ground. Be crumbled,

so wildflowers will come up

where you are.

You have been stony for too many years.

Try something different. Surrender.

How to describe the music? Avant-garde, ambient/downtempo, experimental dance music with unusual instruments and sounds drawn from traditional Chinese music. This is a useful description, but it also feels a bit keyword -y, like I’m describing the album for a search engine and recommendations system.

Let me try again. It’s music you can dance to or ... See more