The Dewdrop
THIS WEEK'S BLOG
Emily Dickinson – I Died for Beauty, But Was Scarce…
Emily Dickinson’s allegorical reflection on the relationship between beauty and truth.
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.
Tishani Doshi – Hope is the Thing
Tishani Doshi’s poem pays homage to a twelve-year-old girl who died of exhaustion last year during the Covid-19 lockdown.
INTERVIEWS
Spence Pfleiderer – A Simple Morning Prayer
Violeta Garcia-Mendoza – Seasonal Affective Disorder
Antoinette Kennedy – Soul in the Sky
Read deep - breathe easy
Gully and Bayou
BY NEIL ELLIS ORTS
This farm boy wandered the acres of woods and explored the gully. I sat under the cedar that grew on a high bank, roots exposed, waiting for the right number of rains to let go.
Remember the Bear
BY JENNIFER CHRISTGAU AQUINO
When the fall the sky turned orange from fire, and a pandemic roared, and the children lay in bed all day, and cancer took residence in your armpits, you found a bear in your basement.
MICRO GALLERY
Tamerlie Philippe – Fading Memories
Inspired by memories from her country of origin, Haiti, Tamerlie Philippe’s faceless paintings are an ambivalent, diminishing recollection of home.
The Curse
BY CHRIS JANSEN –
The default state of all intelligent human beings is confusion. And what if ‘living your truth’ is just flinging yourself into another delusion?
Between Writers
BY OCTAVIA ROSKO –
Modern romance isn’t Shakespearean declarations of unrequited love, it’s mostly people who just don’t text back.
FEATURED AUTHORS AND POETS
T.S. Eliot – The Journey of the Magi
Philip Booth – First Lesson
June Jordan – Poem for a Young Poet
Marie Howe – Death, the last visit
John O’Donohue – Beannacht / Blessing
Emily Dickinson – I Died for Beauty, But Was Scarce…
Tishani Doshi – Hope is the Thing
Anne Hillman – We Look With Uncertainty
BOOK EXCERPTS
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.
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
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.
Embodying Grief – A Conversation with Liz Tichenor
Author and priest Liz Tichenor talks about her book The Night Lake, about dealing with loss and what the topography of grief looks like after seven years.
Why I Write – Nicholas Trandahl
Religion and faith are two of the most difficult subjects to write about according to Nicholas Trandahl, author of the poem, The Chapel.
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
The Koan of Baso’s Very Mind
Baso’s Very Mind is the 30th case or koan in the Mumonkan, The Gateless Barrier, a collection compiled in the 13th century by Rinzai master Wumen Huikai.
Anger Is Me and I Am Anger
Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh on how we can become intimate and compassionate with our own anger and even transform it into love.
Dave Sims – Watercolors
Dave Sims’ watercolor paintings are a submission to the chance of creation and a surrender to emptiness.
Buddhism’s Most Basic Teaching: Everything Changes
Shunryu Suzuki on our inability to accept the truth that we and everything around us are in a state of constant flux.
Improvisations in Jazz – Bill Evans’ Kind of Blue Liner Notes
Bill Evans on Miles Davis’ vision of the direct deed, and how they improvised something that evaded explanation.
You Have to Have a Cup
The Empty Mirror is Janwillem van de Wettering’s memoir of his time at a Japanese Zen monastery where he stayed for over a year in the late 1950s.
The Moon in the Water, the Body in the Mirror
Samurai Yagyu Munenori uses the popular Zen image of the moon reflected in the water to explain its application in martial arts training.
How to Dance? Lessons from a Zen Master
Jundo Cohen paints a picture of the universe as an integrated and indivisible dance, in which certain elements temporarily swirl out then return to the whole.
Bodhidharma’s Bloodstream Sermon
Bodhidharma’s fundamental teaching was that the Buddha can only be found in the mind since its essence is mind itself.
The Great, Generous Laugh
Susan Murphy’s book, The Red Thread, addresses the guts and gore of the flesh-and-blood humans who sustain spiritual practice in the midst of desire, mortality and heartbreak.
Kodo Sawaki Gathered Together: Arthur Braverman’s ‘Discovering the True Self’
Arthur Braverman gathers all of Kodo Sawaki’s teachings together in his impressive new book on the Zen Master.
Returning Home – From Keizan Jokin’s Zazen Yojinki
The Zazen Yojinki, written by 14th century Japanese master Keizan Jokin, covers the fundamental aspects of zazen, the form of Zen meditation.
KEEP READING
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.
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.
Joseph Campbell On Experiencing Mystery
Joseph Campbell takes on the notion of experiencing mystery and considers how religious narratives can actually stymie the expansive human experience of transcendence.
FROM THE ARCHIVES
Astronomer Pippa Goldschmidt on Seeing Far and Seeing Up Close
Astronomer Pippa Goldschmidt on working in the starry deserts of Chile during a time when new technologies meant a more remote relationship to the act of stargazing.
Carl Jung and The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man
Carl Jung knew that the sense of something important missing from our lives would eventually lead to the search for a path back into ourselves.
‘A Heart Slowly Reduced to Embers’: W. G. Sebald on the Fires That Burn Inside and Outside
“From the earliest times, human civilization has been no more than a strange luminescence growing more intense by the hour, of which no one can say when it will begin wane and when it will fade away.”
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.
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.
Gully and Bayou
BY NEIL ELLIS ORTS
This farm boy wandered the acres of woods and explored the gully. I sat under the cedar that grew on a high bank, roots exposed, waiting for the right number of rains to let go.
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.
Violeta Garcia-Mendoza – Seasonal Affective Disorder
As the Northern Hemisphere settles into another long cold winter, poet Violeta Garcia-Mendoza offers readers a rather appropriate piece about winter itself, and the gloom that so often seeps into the spirit with the frigid climate.
W.S. Merwin – Rain Light
Lifelong environmentalist W.S. Merwin said about his poem, Rain Light, ‘this is not a rational poem at all.’
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.
Remember the Bear
BY JENNIFER CHRISTGAU AQUINO
When the fall the sky turned orange from fire, and a pandemic roared, and the children lay in bed all day, and cancer took residence in your armpits, you found a bear in your basement.
Rose Strode – Saint Cuthbert Proclaims the First Sanctuary for Birds, 676 A.D.
Alive with enchanting imagery, Rose Strode’s exquisite Saint Cuthbert Proclaims the First Sanctuary for Birds, 676 A.D. details moments in the life of that saint.
Antoinette Kennedy – Soul in the Sky
Antoinette Kennedy has blessed readers with a poetic juxtaposition of Paradise–one of golden civilized grandeur with nothing natural, and one hoped for by the narrator, consisting of earthy goodness and authenticity.
T.S. Eliot – The Journey of the Magi
The Journey of the Magi was a poem that T.S. Eliot wrote shortly after his own conversion to the Anglican faith.
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’.
Salamander
BY ELANA MARGOT SANTANA
Yesterday I found a salamander resting or dying in my garden. Translucent blood red skin with yellow speckles, big black bulging eyes…
Carolyn Decker – An Approximation
An Approximation, by Rhode Island scientist and poet Carolyn Decker, is an ode to the interconnectedness of everything and a clarion call for wisdom in a world of desires.
Philip Booth – First Lesson
A father teaches his daughter the art of buoyancy and incants a blessing for her survival.
Discourse on the Absolute Truth
According to Buddhist teaching, clinging to views is an empty and futile way of interfacing with the world.
Samantha Wright – And Again
Samantha Wright’s And Again is a fluid study of nature’s blessings and miracles, and humanity’s struggle to comprehend those humble quiet blessings.
Ode to the Radio Telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, Before its Collapse
BY MARY DINGEE FILLMORE
You listen all the time to the whispers of faraway stars’ radio signals. They barely flutter, but you’re more sensitive than any other telescope in the world.
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.
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.
June Jordan – Poem for a Young Poet
A poem expressing the desire for love and connection, going deeper into the shared essence of being that underlies difference.
The Curse
BY CHRIS JANSEN –
The default state of all intelligent human beings is confusion. And what if ‘living your truth’ is just flinging yourself into another delusion?