Creating beauty requires love, skill, and craftsmanship. Displaying beauty well requires a good eye, appreciation, and adequate raw materials. Copying beauty without keeping its essence requires none of the above. What is beauty? Half my library is devoted to this discussion. We all know beauty when we see it, but pinning it down is problematic….
Beauty vs. Making a Statement
There is a very excellent house in my neighborhood. This house sits on a corner lot between two busy-ish streets. Many a house in such a setting goes for privacy, quiet. But not this house, oh no. The house is yellow, with purple trim – and the picket fence around the house is purple too….
Two Dimensional Strangers
Modernity, and life in an urban (or even suburban) context offers a world full of strangers – two dimensional beings, known and categorized in seconds. It is said that you have only seven seconds to make a first impression. So too do all the humans you see around you – seven seconds. How could they…
Soma
In Brave New World, soma is the government supplied drug that numbs and offers blissful escape from any unpleasantness, whether great or small. Modernity has built up her offerings until it is nearly impossible to avoid dusting oneself with our own versions of soma. One starts with the obvious – the internet. But it is…
Spaces
Spaces in our lives create aeration, room in the soil around us for growth, for us to send roots in all directions, not just one. The roots stabilize us, but without the space, we only grow a taproot. The tiny sideways roots hold us together, stabilize us as a whole, and make the soil itself…
Arrow People
Modernity has an ideal. Young, healthy, independent. Oh, it’s not a secret… the secret is the extent to which this ideal has overtaken. Let’s discuss the modern ideal, or as I call them, the arrow people. Physical youth is not necessary for an arrow person, but the trappings of youth are. Excellent health, adventurousness, and…
Today’s Fashion Has Nothing To Say
Fashion is not merely clothing, fashion is a way for the time and place you live in to identify itself through clothing. Today’s fashion has lost its ability to communicate, because today’s fashion has nothing to say. We exist on a merry-go-round of fashion, where one can wear a dress from the 1970s one day,…
Defining the Terms
To speak clearly, one must think clearly. To think clearly, one must know what one is speaking of. Defining the terms is important – especially as I’m going to turn some common use on its head. Community: A) A locale (e.g. town, neighborhood) B) A group of people in your local area with whom you…
The Blanket That Made Me Angry
This blanket makes me angry. It hasn’t done anything to me, there are no hidden agendas hiding in the scrollwork. But if you put a bloodpressure cuff on me and made me stare at this picture, you could watch it tick upward. Why? I’m affected by color. And apparently I really hate old-gold. The burgundy…
Living Systems Require Stewards, not Masters
Living things require stewards, not masters. Why? Because living things cannot be mastered wholly – and attempts that are semi-successful ruin their objects. It is time that we gave up the idea that we can be in complete control of that which lives. Land, animals, societies and ourselves – we are far too complex to…