Almost Composed

Meditation and curiosity

So you’ve wrecked the planet

August 16, 2019

As you may or may not be aware, life as we’ve been living it is probably over. Greenland and Antarctica are melting much faster than expected. CO2 is reaching levels at which, historically, there have been plants and trees at the South Pole. There is the threat of crop failures and food shortages in the […]

categories: essays, reflections

River – dream poem fragment

March 11, 2017

Imagine stillness— as when a river flows out under low-glinting sun. A tear track reflecting dusk, mirror white. No water between its banks only sky.  

categories: poems
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Memento

September 10, 2016

Who needs a skull grinning brightly on their desk when an apple core moulders so quickly? There’s no getting away from it. Leaves brown in the gutter. Blue islands form archipelagos in the bread. Walk through the cemetery. See how even gravestones, our markers of impermanence, decay. Then see wild grass rushing up their sides, […]

categories: poems

Turning points

September 6, 2016

So the nights are getting longer. I was doing walking meditation in the library courtyard, feeling relaxed and yet self-conscious enough to walk at such an angle that the late shift librarian couldn’t see me from the café. He didn’t care, he was playing an electric piano, though I couldn’t hear it through the glass. Libraries are […]

categories: essays, reflections

The Story of Stuff

July 27, 2015

The Story of Stuff is a powerful indictment of consumerism. In twenty minutes it paints a horrific picture of the planet-stripping supply chain that furnishes us with ephemeral gizmos. For instance, did you know that for every binload of recycling you put out, there are 70 bins of waste produced further up the chain? Most astonishing is […]

categories: reflections