ordinary Archives - The Dewdrop

Amanda Smith-Hatch's Redemption is an attempt to capture the profundity hidden within a seemingly banal moment in time.

The Great, Generous Laugh

November 9, 2020November 9, 2020 Vanessa Able

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.

Book Bits

The Sacred is the Everyday – Joan Chittister

May 11, 2020May 11, 2020 Vanessa Able

Benedictine nun Joan Chittister sees spirituality not as something contained in sacred places or practices, but as something deeply integrated into our daily lives.

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.
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.
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.
‘Simply Be Aware of the Oneness of Things’ – Lao Tzu’s Lost Teachings from the Hua Hu Ching
It is thought that in addition to the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu authored another text called the Hua Hu Ching whose full title translates as 'Lao Tzu's Conversion of the Barbarians.'

Pablo Neruda – The Sea
Pablo Neruda wonders at the draw that pulls us in to the unknown, shifting ablutions that are the action of the sea and of water.
Gary Snyder – For the Children
Gary Snyder's poem on the healing and enlightenment we need to find as a race in order to once again locate ourselves in earth's valleys and pastures.
William Stafford’s Last Poem
Written in the morning of the day he died, William Stafford's last poem rattles with augury gilded by a sense of acceptance.
Ellen Bass – If You Knew
What if you knew you'd be the last to touch someone? Ellen Bass draws us in to the brief moments of contact that fill our day and urges us to consider the fleeting nature of every life we meet.
Billy Collins – The Dead
Billy Collins runs with the folkloric notion that the dead are watching us and pushes the image all the way to a reverie of the departed 'rowing themselves slowly through eternity' in glass-bottomed boats.

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.

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.

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.

‘Simply Be Aware of the Oneness of Things’ – Lao Tzu’s Lost Teachings from the Hua Hu Ching

It is thought that in addition to the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu authored another text called the Hua Hu Ching whose full title translates as 'Lao Tzu's Conversion of the Barbarians.'

‘Your Job Is to Put On a Splendid Performance’: Epictetus’ Design for a Skillful and Happy Life

Epictetus' path to freedom attends to the aspects of life that can be controlled, while meeting with equanimity the things we can do nothing about.

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Tag: ordinary

Amanda Smith-Hatch – Redemption

The Great, Generous Laugh

The Sacred is the Everyday – Joan Chittister