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Pagan

2016-01-18T14:38:36-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

One Thousand Punches, One Hell of a Bird

Last updated on: January 18, 2016 at 2:38 pm By Tom Swiss

Over the past few years my sensei has instituted a tradition of starting our kagami biraki class off with us all doing one thousand punches together. With each person counting off ten at a time, and novice students not being used to keeping the cadence for such drills, just going around and counting off 1,000 can be a challenge. At about one per second, it's almost seventeen minutes. Your arms get tired punching that long. If you're using proper form, your core musculature, your koshi, gets tired. Your throat gets sore from 1,000 kiais. Your brain wants to wander. It's a heck of a meditation. Read more

My Blogging Life and Times

Zen

martial arts

meditation

2016-01-14T01:19:52-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

David Bowie: One Wave Sets Thousands In Motion

Last updated on: January 14, 2016 at 1:19 am By Tom Swiss

I never knew David Bowie, was not even a devoted fan, and didn't really have a deep lifestyle connection with him. And yet his life touched mine deeply in two different ways. He transformed my relationships with music and with dance. I would be a quite different person if he had never been. Read more

Art

My Blogging Life and Times

Zen

David Bowie

2016-01-12T12:02:12-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Fun a Day Continues: Trusting Your Own Nature

Last updated on: January 12, 2016 at 12:02 pm By Tom Swiss

So to twist Pirsig: You want to know how to create worthwhile art? Understand that you are a worthwhile part of the universe and then just create naturally. Read more

Art

Ethics, Virtue, and Right Living

fun a day 2016

2016-01-10T17:01:33-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Defending the Non-Self

Last updated on: January 10, 2016 at 5:01 pm By Tom Swiss

So which self are you going to defend? This is our koan as martial artists, the unsolvable puzzle that is the object of our mediation: defending the non-self. To twist the words of Dogen: "To learn to defend the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by the myriad things." Read more

Ethics, Virtue, and Right Living

My Blogging Life and Times

Zen

martial arts

Zen

2016-01-06T01:41:30-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Fun a Day: “Beggars in the Streets”

Last updated on: January 6, 2016 at 1:41 am By Tom Swiss

Some days I feel like I'm in a Woodie Guthrie song Some men'll rob you with a ball point pen Little crooks they go to jail, big ones just get more rich Same as it was way back when Read more

2016-01-05T01:34:01-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Fun a Day: “Wood Eye” and “sometime well after midnight”

Last updated on: January 5, 2016 at 1:34 am By Tom Swiss

sometime well after midnight but well before the sun comes up I'm not quite sure of the numbers but there's a magic moment Read more

Art

Poetry

2016-01-04T01:50:14-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Divination and the Power of Story-Telling

Last updated on: January 4, 2016 at 1:50 am By Tom Swiss

Consciousness is story-telling. And the stories it tells are not just about the past, but about the present leading into future. Indeed, that's the evolutionary advantage, telling stories to ourselves to predict the future. Read more

Magic(k), Ritual, and Mysticism

consciousness

divination

Tarot

2016-01-01T20:02:45-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Creative Spirit and “Fun a Day”: “Black Hole Susan”

Last updated on: January 1, 2016 at 8:02 pm By Tom Swiss

And one concept, one motivating structure, I've found for that is the "fun a day", which was started (I think) by the Artclash Collective in Philadelphia. The idea is simple: every day in January, you make a piece. Since you're making one a day it follows that you're aiming for a reasonably small and simple piece. Read more

Art

Theology

fun a day 2016

2015-12-31T00:57:10-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Star Wars Holiday Special and the Banality of Evil

Last updated on: December 31, 2015 at 12:57 am By Tom Swiss

But in the Holiday Special we see stormtroopers ransacking Chewbacca's family's home, throwing items off shelves to the floor and tearing apart a kid's stuffed toy in apparent glee. It's a scene that in the 1970s was meant to show the evil of the Empire, but to anyone who's studied the militarization of American policing over the past few decades it looks like a kinder and gentler version of how police routinely act today -- trashing the homes of citizens, not to actually catch criminals but to demonstrate the power of the state and keep the people properly cowed. Read more

Religion & Politics

Seasonal Musings

Star Wars

2015-12-17T00:58:55-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Gifts in Hotei’s Bag — And In Yours

Last updated on: December 17, 2015 at 12:58 am By Tom Swiss

We forget that the things we do are special, because they are ordinary to us. Read more

Ethics, Virtue, and Right Living

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