Mike MacLeod's Blog (6)

My father used to make wood sculptures by taking a large chunk of wood with a heavy grain and burning its surface with an acetylene torch. He then took a wire brush and scraped away the charcoal, leaving the grain of the wood, the bones of the wood, exposed with great beauty.… Continue

A man is standing in the middle-point of a small river, waist-deep, looking downstream. He can see, from this vantage point, the water flowing past him, and the banks of the river on each side. Downstream, he sees several smaller creeks emptying into it on each side. The waters meet the water in "his" river and color it where they enter, but they mix into the greater river. After a while the man wonders where the creeks come from, and with monumental effort turns around and sees creeks flowing… Continue

For a good long time I have struggled with the concepts of belief, disbelief, skepticism, knowledge, understanding, and others that orbit around what we call epistemology. My main interest is in belief. I have passionate feelings about it, dating back to the rabid atheist days of my youth, and I have somehow managed to preserve my dislike for the concept through many intellectual twists and turns. A comprehensive essay on its interrelationships with human psychology is beyond the scope of a bl… Continue

I thought it might be appropriate to revisit this lovely poem. I forget who brought it here first, but thank you again. The Traveler A hundred years I slept beneath a thorn, Until the tree was root and branches of my thought, Until white petals blossomed in my crown. A thousand years I floated in a lake Until my brimful eye could hold The scattered moonlight and the burning cloud. Mine is the gaze that knows Eyebright, asphodel, the briar rose. I have seen the rainbow open, the sun cl… Continue

The dervish looked at his Shaykh uncertainly. "O, my Shaykh, you know best. Can you tell us what is wrong with mankind in a single sentence?" The Shaykh looked out the window into the November evening as the line of cars and their headlights disappeared into the smoggy evening murk. "Yes, I can. Men are starving and they tear pictures of food out of magazines and eat them." Continue

The first book about Sufism I read was the groundbreaking - perhaps icebreaking is a better word - The Sufis from Shaykh Idries Shah. After digesting it, I headed to my local (but extensive) New Age book store to see what I could find to dine on next. Then as now I preferred prima… Continue