Finding Wholeness through ArtTruth is found in paradox. Nature seeks balance. Where there is a push, there is a pull. We cannot come to a mature point of view without entertaining the opposing side; we cannot stand for something without standing against something else. As we know from many conflicting positions, truth often lies in the middle, partaking of both sides and fully embracing neither. Our perceptions and thoughts are […]
Gurdjieff
Lives of Quiet Desperation
:Healing our world for the childrenWe the people” begins the Declaration of Independence. I can think of no more relevant phrase today in response to the 27 victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Something unites us all: perhaps it is our common humanity, the similarity of our DNA, our inner spiritual roots. I really don’t know. But our collective body is palpable, real, and knowable as […]
The Yoga of Dying
If we want to be reborn—to be open to truth, to experience greater wholeness, and to awaken to the fullness of life—we must die to the known and the familiar, everything that keeps us enslaved in our present condition. As many of us find ourselves unwilling to let go and even cherish who we think we are, one of our teachers use to say that you cannot make an omelette […]
To Live the Question
A Conversation with Jacob NeedlemanWhat is the role of the philosopher in today’s world? We have an ever increasing need for someone to remind us of the important questions that call us, to renew the search for a deeper form of knowing amidst a cacophony of voices and a consumer culture addicted to superficial experience—to approach the great unanswerable questions that give dimension and hope and meaning to our lives. […]
Are You Afraid of the Dark?
Reconciling the Dance of OppositesInner work is paradoxical. We are asked to delve fully into ourselves to see the shape of our inner being and the myriad manifestations of our conditioned selves. Yet we are asked to transcend ourselves and the unconscious, habituated parts of our nature. We need both discipline and surrender, assertion and receptivity. We are guided by the force of great ideas, but growth of awareness moves […]
Diamonds and Rust: Art and Inner Life
A Conversation with David Ulrich Art is a non-verbal communication between artist and viewer, and yoga is a means towards connection and wholeness within a field of fragmentation. And from the simple act of conversation and creative collaboration between two people can emerge a completely new entity. David Ulrich and I have shared many conversations about art, yoga, and inner work over the past year, which is in fact, how The Slender Thread began. […]
Encountering the Teachings of Gurdjieff
A Young Man’s SearchOn my college campus in the late Spring of 1970, I witnessed the death of four Kent State students from National Guardsmen’s bullets. Something changed in me. I was snapped out of complacency, sharply distanced from my comfortable middle-class normalcy in one shining though painful moment. I was aflame, and opened to an elusive longing. I began to search for meaning and direction in my life, and […]
Creativity and Consciousness
Silence Bursting OutwardArt serves to reflect a society back on to itself; it reveals the shape of our inner and outer lives; and honors the beauty and contradictions of the world. Art can be an expression of our identity as individuals and as a culture. The arts of today reflect a myriad of social, natural, and political realities. However, beyond expressing what is, art may prefigure what can be. It […]