The Dewdrop
THIS WEEK'S BLOG
The Path that Goes Nowhere – Barbara Brown Taylor on the Practice of Labyrinth Walking
Barbara Brown Taylor reflects on her own experience of Labyrinth-walking and the significance of the path without a destination.
Kahlil Gibran – Fear
Kahlil Gibran’s poem on the fear of dissipation is a call to faith, to trust in the oceanic nature of the life-manifesting force.
What Can the Earth’s Crisis Teach Us About Ourselves? David Hinton’s Tao of Ecology
David Hinton on what Taoism can teach us about Deep Ecology and how we can reconnect with our own ancient Paleolithic roots.
Bewilderness Writing Workshops
INTERVIEWS
David Cravens – American Zen
Will Simescu – Agrapha
Emily Fernandez – Please begin
HR. Harper – The Way of Mountains
Read deep - breathe easy
Pigs in Winter
BY QUINCY MCMICHAEL
Snow is water, and water conducts electricity, but the electric fence will not fire as usual, buried three feet deep.
Observed by Deer
BY SARA MCAULAY
I’ve come here for raptors. Left my campsite at dawn, hiked down through blue shadows to the meadow.
MICRO GALLERY
Adam Powers – Relative
Adam Powers’ understated photographs draw out beauty from the forgotten corners of urban and commercial landscapes.
Passersby
BY JOANN STEVELOS –
What happens when an abandoned child grows up and one day buries her estranged father
To Walk the Stones
BY MATTHEW WILLIS –
What the stones at Kyoto’s Jishu Jinja shrine can teach us and warn us about love in our lives
FEATURED AUTHORS AND POETS
BOOK EXCERPTS
Working With the Soul Nerve – Resmaa Menakem on Grounding Our Bodies
Starting with the damage done by racism to human bodies, Resmaa Menakem presents a pragmatic approach to healing through the body.
What is Meditation? Shinzen Young on How to Deepen Our Focus
Shinzen Young on the most basic principle of mindfulness meditation: the cultivation of focus that can be practiced at any moment of the day, during any activity.
The Most Beautiful Thing We Can Experience Is The Mysterious: Albert Einstein’s Living Philosophy
Albert Einstein lays out his living philosophy and the set of ideals that he held in his personal, spiritual and political life.
The Full Awareness of Breathing
In the Anapanasati Sutta, the Buddha presents a visceral kind of practice with the breath, that illuminates the experience of joy, calm and impermanence.
The Self is Tied to This Body Like an Ox to a Cart
One of the most well-known sections of the Chandogya Upanishad is the story of Indra, King of the Gods, Virochana King, of the Godless and their encounter with the sage Prajapati.
Each Breath One Takes is a Step Towards One’s Destiny
Teachings about the cultivation of wisdom by the Sufi Master and the Prophet Muhammad’s cousin, Hadrat ‘Alî.
The Buddha’s Last Teaching: Be Your Own Island, Your Own Refuge
The Buddha’s final words of advice to his students before he died were to take refuge in the dharma and in themselves.
Dogen’s Seal of the Ocean: How Meditation and Life Can Flow Like Water
Japanese Zen Master Eihei Dogen invokes an oceanic state of non-identification as something that expresses the true Dharma, or our true nature, according to the teachings of Buddha.
Want More?
THE ALAN WATTS CORNER
Running With Life: Alan Watts on Freedom and Poverty
Alan Watts unpacks the imperative not to hold on to things, but to adopt a kind of psychological poverty—or simplicity— in which the mind is clear and unfettered in a way that allows it the space for true spontaneity.
Alan Watts and Divine Play
Alan Watts delves into one of his favorite and recurring subjects – the way in which we over-identify with the parts we play.
What Have You Left Out? Alan Watts on the Limits of Perception
Alan Watts often said that in order to come to your senses, you have to get out of your mind. Watts was emphatic about self-realization and breaking through cultural and psychic barriers in order to live as a fully-fledged, fearless human being.
Brahman, God, Allah and the Tao – Alan Watts
Among Alan Watts’ most compelling qualities was his fascination with different systems of faith and his
Why I Write: Christian Dillo
Christian Dillo on a contemporary Zen approach to awakening and what meaningful transformation actually looks like.
Gil Fronsdal on Immanent and Naturalistic Buddhism
Buddhist teacher and author Gil Fronsdal on the meanings of naturalistic Buddhism, religion, life and death.
Body Like a Rag, Mind Like a Mirror – Guo Gu Breaking Through Boundaries
Chan teacher Guo Gu on silent illumination, punk music and his teacher Sheng Yen’s legacy.
Surviving Intact – Norman Fischer on Zen, Language and Growing Old
Zen teacher and poet Norman Fischer on where and how poetry and Zen practice meet and interact.
Why I Write – A Conversation with Kathleen Dean Moore
Author and activist Kathleen Dean Moore on what inspires her, what drives her, and her struggle to write about hope.
‘Telling Stories is the Single Thing That Makes Us Human’ – A Conversation with Adam Mansbach
A conversation with Adam Mansbach about loss, grief, and the process of writing his new book, I Had a Brother Once, in the form of an epic poem.
THE BEATS
BROWSE BY THEME
MYSTICS
Eighteen Thousand Universes Through Eighteen Thousand Eyes
The Sacred is the Everyday – Joan Chittister
Thomas Merton on Solitude, Authenticity and Being
Gurdjieff and The Two Rivers
Blinded by the Sun – St Teresa of Avila
“Don’t Tell Me Who I Am Yet. It Is Still Being Spelled Out”
Kabir – The Moon Shines in my Body
Rumi’s Guest House
POPULAR READS
BROWSE SUBJECTS
FROM THE ZEN GARDEN
Marcy Rae Henry – start with looking
Marcy Rae Henry’s poem glitters with awareness, gratitude, and release. Each stanza highlights a moment or image that is, in fact, a gift.
Christy Allen – Meditation
Christy’s poem “Meditation” is a simple Zen-like offering, equating breathing with the tides, and also highlighting oneness and interconnection.
Nicole Grace – One Note
Nicole Grace’s “One Note” is a sensory exploration of contemplation, alive with natural and meditative imagery.
Kurtis Ebeling – Snowmelt
With the quietude of the rising sun and melting snow, Kurtis Ebeling’s “Snowmelt” serves as an ode to springtime and a requiem to winter.
Bradley Samore – After a Day of Others’ Demands
Zen-like in its purposeful simplicity, poet Bradley Samore has made us something humble and wholesome with his poem, “After a Day of Others’ Demands”.
Elisabeth Preston-Hsu – Kitsune Udon
Like a steaming bowl of delicious flavors, Elisabeth Preston-Hsu’s “Kitsune Udon” is a recipe of mythology, Zen simplicity, and storytelling.
Hiatt O’Connor – Waiting for Gravity
Seemingly a lesson in simplicity and silence, Hiatt O’Connor’s wonderful poem Waiting for Gravity is, in fact, a work of layers.
Suzanne Eaton – windchimes
Suzanne Eaton’s windchimes is a meditative discourse on wind and sound, and the tranquility and openness manifested by the simple act of stillness.
Spence Pfleiderer – A Simple Morning Prayer
The aptly-named A Simple Morning Prayer pleads for understanding and love, for connection and illumination in a handful of terse lines. This piece is evidence that a poem need not be complex or long-winded to be a thing of authentic beauty and power.
Vanessa Able – Bhakti
In her beautiful poem Bhakti, Vanessa Able gives life and imagery to action–specifically the action of the devotional philosophy of Bhakti yoga, which is focused on the love for a personal deity.
Gay Guard-Chamberlin – “Do You Have Any Advice for Those of Us Just Starting Out?”
In “Do You Have Any Advice for Those of Us Just Starting Out?”, Gay Guard-Chamberlin poses a common question with the poem’s title, which is then succinctly answered in the four brief lines that comprise the poem itself.
You Have To Say Something: Dainin Katagiri on What To Say When There Is Nothing To Say
According to Katagiri, it can be difficult to find the words or modality to enter back into the world from a place of silence, but it is something we ultimately have to do.
KEEP READING
Guo Gu’s Guide to Silent Illumination
The core of Chan meditation is the concrete experience of being in the present moment, not holding on to any mental concept or idea about oneself or one’s activity
‘Nature is Never Finished’ – Artist Robert Smithson on Cultural Confinement and Finding Real Freedom in Art
Robert Smithson’s brand of land art went against the hegemony of galleries and museums who he accused of dictating the context, meaning and value of art.
Keeping Silence of the Heart: Cultivating Attention and Sobriety According to the Philokalia
Philokalia means ‘love of the beautiful and the good’, and the writings that were added to this collection were mostly concerned with the importance of awakening and developing attention and consciousness.
La Mar, El Mar: Ernest Hemingway’s Kind, Beautiful, Cruel Ocean
Ernest Hemingway’s ‘The Old Man and the Sea’, has to be one of the most accomplished accounts of a lifetime’s intimacy with the sea.
Out Of the Body and Into the Mountain: Nan Shepherd’s Journeys Among the Scottish Cairngorms
Published thirty years after it was written, Nan Shepherd’s nature memoir describes a very physical intimacy that grew and developed through the author’s exploration of the Cairngorm Mountains.
FROM THE ARCHIVES
Giving Away More Than We Keep – Ayya Khema on Cultivating Generosity
Buddhist teacher Ayya Khema on the highest level of generosity: dedicating one’s own life to the service of others.
The Courage of Our Mistakes – Joan Didion on Self-Respect and Moral Nerve
In this excerpt from a 1961 essay titled On Self-Respect, Didion argued for a morally robust state of being and looked back a generation to a value that was once called ‘character’.
The Glimpse of Eternity – Martin Buber and Our Relationship With The Divine
One of the central themes of the work of the Jewish mystical philosopher Martin Buber was the question of understanding our relation to God.
The Expression of a Better World – Anaïs Nin on Transience and the Painful, Familiar Beauty of Music
Anaïs Nin on music, mortality, and what it is to glimpse a joyful vision of a land from which we came and which we have forgotten.
Outer and Inner Ecologies: Activist Satish Kumar on the Importance of Seeing Our Own Divinity
If we cannot see the fact of our own divinity and nurture that most immediate light, we can break down and burn out before we are able to effect any change.
Chris Abani on the Balance and Patience of West African Beauty
In West African thought, beauty surpasses the principles of symmetry and perspective and instead goes deep into the balance of being itself.
Letting the Old Thrills Die: C.S. Lewis on Being Alive to New Joy
Holding on to what is thrilling to us can be stifling and prevent us from paving the way for new experiences.
Working With the Soul Nerve – Resmaa Menakem on Grounding Our Bodies
Starting with the damage done by racism to human bodies, Resmaa Menakem presents a pragmatic approach to healing through the body.
Welcome to The Dewdrop! This little journal is a digest of reflective and powerful writing focused on reading, writing and being. Scroll on for poetry, essays, book excerpts and classic texts.
The Path that Goes Nowhere – Barbara Brown Taylor on the Practice of Labyrinth Walking
Barbara Brown Taylor reflects on her own experience of Labyrinth-walking and the significance of the path without a destination.
David Cravens – American Zen
David Cravens’ epic poem “American Zen” counts as one of the more ambitious works ever published in The Dewdrop.
Kahlil Gibran – Fear
Kahlil Gibran’s poem on the fear of dissipation is a call to faith, to trust in the oceanic nature of the life-manifesting force.
What Can the Earth’s Crisis Teach Us About Ourselves? David Hinton’s Tao of Ecology
David Hinton on what Taoism can teach us about Deep Ecology and how we can reconnect with our own ancient Paleolithic roots.
Will Simescu – Agrapha
Will Simescu’s “Agrapha” reveals a search for holiness, contrasting the gritty details of reality with imagery from the life of Christ.
Emily Fernandez – Please begin
The Dewdrop’s first Featured Poem of 2023, is an offering from poet Emily Fernandez. It serves as a perfect introduction to the year.
Naomi Shihab Nye – Burning the Old Year
Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem for the New Year is reminiscent of the tradition of ‘Año Nuevo’ in some Latin American countries.
Most Read on The Dewdrop: What We Loved in 2022
What we read, what stood out, in 2022. Thank you and a Happy New Year to all of our readers.
Editor’s Choice – The Pick of our Featured Poetry from 2022
Bestowing a little extra recognition to some of our favorite poems we’ve had the pleasure to publish this year.
‘When the Lights of Health Go Down’- Virginia Woolf on Being Ill
Virginia Woolf on our relationship to illness, its potential spiritual value, and the mysterious intelligence of the body.
HR. Harper – The Way of Mountains
HR. Harper, in “The Way of Mountains”, takes readers with a narrator on a pilgrimage in the unforgiving high country for atonement.
Sandra M. Castillo – Christmas, 1970
Cuban-born Sandra M. Castillo writes about her first Christmas in the United States, when she was just eight years old.
Kai-Lilly Karpman – Prometheus as Girl
In “Prometheus as Girl”, award-winning poet Kai-Lilly Karpman takes the violence and misogyny of the patriarchy to task.
Life Includes All Opposites – Alan Watts on the Oneness of the Tao
The psychology of acceptance and the understanding ‘that there is only one ultimate reality or source of activity in the universe.’
Sheila Lynch-Benttinen – December Solstice
There is something comforting and cozy in the gentle wintry rhymes of Sheila Lynch-Benttinen’s “December Solstice”.
Kathryn Weld – Is the Sun Conscious
In Kathryn Weld’s “Is the Sun Conscious”, readers are presented with a feminine and motherly sun, and the desolation of her absence.
Billy Collins – Shoveling Snow With Buddha
Collins’ outlandish and endearing image of the Buddha’s wholehearted snow shoveling, with thoughts of hot chocolate and an imminent game of cards.
John Paul Caponigro – Test for Echo
John Paul Caponigro’s “Test for Echo” is an ode to connection and communication in a world that feels as disconnected as ever.
Nadir Feroz – Doused
Penned while he sat by the Nile River, Nadir Feroz’s “Doused” carries the themes of time, eternity, light, and mortality in its currents.
Wendell Berry – To Know The Dark
Berry’s poem is a reminder that to truly know darkness and its divine power, we need the courage to step into and leave the light behind.