Category Archives: Humanities

On Tact

Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.

–Isaac Newton

An Attempted State of Mind

“Placid” / 7 x 10″ sketch paper with colored pencil

I had no idea what I was going to make when I started. It seems now that it was an attempt at self-soothing or balance. I drew this while watching Eugene Jarecki’s movie, Why We Fight — a provocative, disturbing, multifaceted analysis of the U.S. military-industrial complex. There’s an interview with Jarecki via the link that will summarize the documentary better than I can. I learned that the term “military-industrial complex” was coined by Republican President Dwight Eisenhower in his 1961 farewell address to Americans. His warning, it seems, went unheeded.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

–Dwight Eisenhower

You can read the entire speech here.

Mushball

I swear, it doesn’t take much to make me all soppy and weepy. Some examples:

The nurse teaching the childbirth prep class mentioned that it’s such an overwhelming, momentous event that women often burst into tears when the baby is born. She said the fathers do too, and just wait, we will. Well, I had news for her. I tear up and can barely control myself when we see videos of live births. We watched a movie about epidurals last night; they showed several mothers laboring differently (with and without) and the final outcome. Yes, it’s messy to watch, but I can’t help but feeling such awe seeing the little body emerge, hearing the parental exclamations of joy, and watching the mothers burst into tears as they hold their child for the first time.
In the breastfeeding class, I struggled for composure watching a video of a mother learning to get her child to latch on and suckle for the first time after three days of difficulty. Hell, in the infant CPR class, I teared up watching a video simulation of a grandmother discovering her grandson (a plastic doll) in the crib not breathing and providing CPR.
I read the following and smiled through my tears at the end.

AN ACT OF KINDNESS THAT SHOULD OCCUR MORE OFTEN

My 17 year old daughter and I were standing in line at our local Pharmacy. Earlier in the day, we had, by chance, had a discussion on the high cost of medications for the elderly.

It happened that an elderly gentleman was in front of us in line and was discussing his wife’s prescription with the pharmacist. He seemed sad and somewhat agitated when he inquired as to the cost of the prescription. When the pharmacist shared that it was not as bad as could be at only $38.40. The elderly gentlemen nodded and said he would wander the store while the prescription was filled.

My daughter turned to me with tears in her eyes and asked if we could help. Of course we could! While by no means wealthy, we were not on a strict budget and could certainly do without a movie or lunch out that week. We quickly asked the pharmacist if we could pay for the prescription and he smiled and agreed to allow us to do so. We asked that he tell the gentlemen that it was a “random act of kindness.”

We completed our shopping and happened to be leaving the store at the same time as our new “friend”. We were further blessed with getting to see him greet his wife, who had been waiting in the car, with a box of chocolates. (Presumably his act of kindness…passing it on.)

It is not possible that he was given more joy than we were that day!

–Submitted by Debbie, in an email from the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation
There’s a song by Colbie Caillat, Bubbly, that’s a happy little love ditty. It’s got a catchy tune, too. Her voice is sweet. When I hear the song I feel cheerful and teary all at once. It’s hard to appreciate the song unless you’ve actually heard it; however, it begins:

I’ve been awake for a while now
you’ve got me feelin like a child now
cause every time i see your bubbly face
I get the tinglies in a silly place

It starts in my toes
makes me crinkle my nose
where ever it goes I always know
that you make me smile
please stay for a while now
just take your time
where ever you go

I’m going to buy stock in Kleenex.

Sensibility

This brought a chuckle. I’m not a fan of opera, and perhaps this is why.

No opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.

–WH Auden

I’m Not Convinced That I Agree

What do you think? Do you agree?

It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it.

–Arnold Toynbee

Heat and Pregnancy Don’t Mix Well

In Santa Clara the temperature reached 93 degrees. I drove south to Morgan Hill to visit a friend. It was 98 there!

The heat of the past two days has shriveled the part of my brain capable of writing and speech. Yesterday I lay down just for a moment and regained consciousness three hours later.

I wish I had something more substantial to share. Instead, you might visit:

Cheerio Road: Karen Mazen Miller, author of Momma Zen: Walking the Crooked Path of Motherhood, has started a blog. She captures the essence of life in her reflections. I’ve read her book and will treasure it as a meditative resource after my Little One is born.

The Meming of Life: a blog by humanist Dale McGowan, editor of Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion; he’s witty and provocative. I’ve read his book once through and plan to refer to it often as a parent.

Both of these writers and their blogs deserve more articulate praise than I can summon now. I suggest you visit; you won’t be disappointed.

Ten Zen Seconds: An Interview with Eric Maisel

A couple of months ago I was invited to participate in a “blog tour” interviewing Eric Maisel on his latest book. Since I was offered a copy of the book to review and the opportunity to ask a couple of questions tailored to my interests, I decided to join in. (Who can resist a book?) What follows is an introduction to the concepts in Ten Zen Seconds; my questions regarding how these concepts can be utilized during childbirth and in treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder are woven into the interview. Enjoy, and may you find this useful!

What is Ten Zen Seconds all about?

EM: It’s actually a very simple but powerful technique for reducing your stress, getting yourself centered, and reminding yourself about how you want to live your life. It can even serve as a complete cognitive, emotional, and existential self-help program built on the single idea of “dropping a useful thought into a deep breath.”

You use a deep breath, five seconds on the inhale and five seconds on the exhale, as a container for important thoughts that aim you in the right direction in life — I describe twelve of these thoughts in the book — and you begin to employ this breathing-and-thinking technique that I call incanting as the primary way to keep yourself on track.

Where did this idea come from?

EM: It comes from two primary sources, cognitive and positive psychology from the West and breath awareness and mindfulness techniques from the East. I’d been working with creative and performing artists for more than twenty years as a therapist and creativity coach and wanted to find a quick, simple technique that would help them deal with the challenges they regularly face — resistance to creating, performance anxiety, negative self-talk about a lack of talent or a lack of connections, stress over a boring day job or competing in the art marketplace, and so on.

Because I have a background in both Western and Eastern ideas, it began to dawn on me that deep breathing, which is one of the best ways to reduce stress and alter thinking, could be used as a cognitive tool if I found just the right phrases to accompany the deep breathing. This started me on a hunt for the most effective phrases that I could find and eventually I landed on twelve of them that I called incantations, each of which serves a different and important purpose.

What sort of hunt did you go on?

EM: First, I tried to figure out what are the most important tasks that we face as human beings, then I came up with what I hoped were resonant phrases, each of which needed to fit well into a deep breath, then, most importantly — which moved this from the theoretical to the empirical — I tested the phrases out on hundreds of folks who agreed to use them and report back on their experiences. That was great fun and eye-opening!

People used these phrases to center themselves before a dental appointment or surgery, to get ready to have a difficult conversation with a teenage child, to bring joy back to their performing career, to carve out time for creative work in an over-busy day — in hundreds of ways that I couldn’t have anticipated. I think that’s what makes the book rich and special: that, as useful as the method and the incantations are, hearing from real people about how they’ve used them “seals the deal.” I’m not much of a fan of self-help books that come entirely from the author’s head; this one has been tested in the crucible of reality.

Which phrases did you settle on?

EM: The following twelve. I think that folks will intuitively get the point of each one (though some of the incantations, like “I expect nothing,” tend to need a little explaining). Naturally each incantation is explained in detail in the book and there are lots of personal reports, so readers get a good sense of how different people interpret and make use of the incantations. Here are the twelve (the parentheses show how the phrase gets “divided up” between the inhale and the exhale:

(I am completely) (stopping)
(I expect) (nothing)
(I am) (doing my work)
(I trust) (my resources)
(I feel) (supported)
(I embrace) (this moment)
(I am free) (of the past)
(I make) (my meaning)
(I am open) (to joy)
(I am equal) (to this challenge)
(I am) (taking action)
(I return) (with strength)

A small note: the third incantation functions differently from the other eleven, in that you name something specific each time you use it, for example “I am writing my novel” or “I am paying the bills.” This helps you bring mindful awareness to each of your activities throughout the day.

Can you use the incantations and this method for any special purposes?

EM: As I mentioned, folks are coming up with all kinds of special uses. One that I especially like is the idea of “book-ending” a period of work, say your morning writing stint or painting stint, by using “I am completely stopping” to ready yourself, center yourself, and stop your mind chatter, and then using “I return with strength” when you’re done so that you return to “the rest of life” with energy and power. Usually we aren’t this mindful in demarcating our activities—and life feels very different when we do.

Here are my specific situational questions.

Situation 1: Labor and birth is a complex, physically demanding experience. There are three stages of labor, but I’ll focus one the first two.

Stage one has three parts: early labor, active labor, and transition.

During early labor, which can last 8-12 hours, typically the contractions come 5-30 minutes apart and last 30-45 seconds each.

Active labor is next, lasting 3-5 hours; the frequency of contractions generally increases to every 3-5 minutes and lasts about 60 seconds.

Transition lasts 20 minutes to 2 hours, and contractions will come every 30 seconds to 2 minutes (or they may overlap) and last about 60-90 seconds; during transition a woman may experience hot flashes, chills, nausea, vomiting. This is the point where she may be most exhausted and emotionally depleted, but she’s not finished!

The second stage of labor (active pushing and the baby emerging) can take anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours; contractions come every 3-5 minutes and will last about 45-90 seconds.

1. When contractions are coming fast and furious, is Ten Zen Seconds a sustainable practice to help with pain and energy management?

EM: I have no reports that it is, so I would love to know if it works in that situation! What I do know is that people in similarly stressful, physically demanding, uncentering situations have found the process profoundly valuable, so I think it’s fair to extrapolate and hazard the guess that it might be useful.

Of course, a different sort of breathing is already taught to mothers-to-be as the best way to breathe during the actual delivery, but in the long hours up to delivery I think that using the deep breathing-and-right thinking combination that Ten Zen Seconds teaches might prove of great value.

I would imagine that the most on-point incantations during this period would be incantation 4, “I trust my resources,” incantation 5, “I feel supported,” incantation 9, “I am open to joy,” and incantation 10, “I am equal to this challenge,” though I can imagine how the others might also prove applicable.

2. What incantations would you recommend to a woman to prepare herself before labor and to cope during labor?

EM: That depends in part what specific challenges the mother-to-be is experiencing. If she can’t seem to get herself present and can only think about this being over, she might want to bring herself back to the present and to the power of presence with incantation 6, “I embrace this moment.”

If she is filled with layers of self-doubt, about whether she can stand up to the rigors of delivery and/or the realities of parenting, I think that self-trust might be the most important thing to cultivate and using incantation 4, “I trust my resources,” might make good sense.

If she is having issues with the people around her, like her parents, her in-laws, or her mate, and really needs to table those issues for the moment so as to get on with labor and delivery with a clear mind, then using incantation 7, “I am free of the past,” might prove really valuable.

First you engage in a little self-awareness to help you determine what the issue is that you want to address, then you choose the incantation (or create the incantation) that serves that need.

3. What incantations would you suggest to her birthing coach to help him or her manage?

EM: The main tasks for the coach are to be present and to be helpful. The mother-to-be doesn’t need someone more anxious and more distracted than she is trying to help her, especially if there are some important decisions in the moment that she could use some help with.

Therefore the coach would especially benefit from employing incantation 1, “I am completely stopping,” to remind himself that this is where he needs to be, incantation 3, “I am doing my work,” to remind himself of his duties, incantation 10, “I am equal to this challenge,” to help quiet his nerves and reduce his fear of negative things happening, and incantation 12, “I return with strength,” to help remind him to return to the mother-to-be’s side with a positive, helpful attitude and requisite strength and presence.

Situation 2: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) develops in response to a traumatic event. People with PTSD often have problems functioning. In general, people with PTSD have more unemployment, divorce or separation, spouse abuse and chance of being fired than people without PTSD. Vietnam veterans with PTSD were found to have many problems with family and other interpersonal relationships, problems with employment, and increased incidents of violence. There are many symptoms to this disorder, and I’d like to ask how TZS might help manage them.

For instance, a person might have a flashback resulting from an environmental trigger (such as a noise that reminds him or her of the trauma) and feel intense fear, helplessness, and horror again.

Survivors often take pains to avoid situations that may trigger memories of the traumatic event, which limits the fullness of their lives.

They may feel emotionally numb and isolated and are often hyper-vigilant and always “on guard” after the traumatic event.

These stressful psychological responses can have a deleterious impact on physical health, and they may lead people to self-medicate with substance abuse.

1. How might a survivor use the Ten Zen Seconds to manage symptoms of fear and helplessness?

EM: One of the profound tasks of healing from trauma is being able to remember the trauma without reliving the trauma. Mindfulness in general, and the techniques that I teach in Ten Zen Seconds specifically, help a person have a thought without attaching to that thought or experiencing pain from that thought.

You acquire a certain healthy, healing distance from your thoughts and can examine them objectively. As this practice deepens, you feel less fearlful, anxious, and helpless because you learn that you no longer have to run from your thoughts, as they are no longer producing pain. Even more than any particular incantation, the basic practice of mindfulness, with its orientation toward detachment and freedom, help a person recover from past trauma.

2. How might one use TZS to overcome resistance to new experiences and a tendency to isolate?

EM: There are several different approaches to this. One is to orient toward the possible pleasure that you might get from new experiences, rather than orient toward the risks involved, and for this incantation 9, “I am open to joy,” can prove very useful.

Another is to frame new experiences as necessary challenges that come with healthy, authentic living, and for this frame incantation 10, “I am equal to this challenge,” is a great tool.

A third approach is turn in the direction of trust, of trusting yourself in new situations and of trusting others not to harm you in new situations, and for this orientation incantation 4, “I trust my resources” and incantation 5, “I feel supported” are the incantations of choice.

3. What incantations would you recommend to a survivor to reduce emotional numbness and excessive vigilance?

EM: That excessive vigilance has to do with rapid and continual scanning both of the external world and the internal world of thought and worry. You are noticing things out there that might prove dangerous and also noticing passing internal thoughts about possible danger — thoughts that you could dismiss without even noticing if only you were less vigilant.

The key here is to stop — to stop all that internal and external scanning — and so the most important incantation with respect to this issue is “I am completely stopping,” remembering that embedded in that phrase is the specific idea that what you are stopping is all that scanning and all that vigilance. As you learn to actually stop, that allows room for feelings to return and numbness to lessen, as feelings had no place to land while you were doing all of that scanning.

4. Can TZS help with the involuntary physical responses that can occur, such as waking from a nightmare shaking and sweating, or having a panic attack?

EM: I don’t know the answer to this one and I would love to hear from folks who make use of the Ten Zen Seconds program and learn from them if in fact using this tool will help with these phenomena. I stand ready to learn!

Is there a way to experience this process in “real time?”

EM: By trying it out! But my web master Ron Wheatley has also designed a slide show at the Ten Zen Seconds site (http://www.tenzenseconds.com) that you can use to learn and experience the incantations. The slides that name the twelve incantations are beautiful images provided by the painter Ruth Yasharpour and each slide stays in place for ten seconds. So you can attune your breathing to the slide and really practice the method. The slide show is available at http://www.tenzenseconds.com/test_photo_slide.html.

How can people learn more about Ten Zen Seconds?

EM: The book is the best resource. You can get it at Amazon by visiting here.

Or you can ask for it at your local bookstore. The Ten Zen Seconds website is also an excellent resource: in addition to the slide show that I mentioned, there is a bulletin board where folks can chat, audio interviews that I’ve done discussing the Ten Zen Seconds techniques, and more. It’s also quite a gorgeous site, so you may want to visit it just for the aesthetic experience! I would also recommend that folks check out my main site, http://www.ericmaisel.com, especially if they’re interested in creativity coaching or the artist’s life.

What else are you up to?

Plenty! I have a new book out called Creativity for Life, which is roughly my fifteenth book in the creativity field and which people seem to like a lot. I also have a third new book out, in addition to Ten Zen Seconds and Creativity for Life, called Everyday You, which is a beautiful coffee table book about maintaining daily mindfulness. I’m working on two books for 2008, one called A Writer’s Space and a second called Creative Recovery, about using your innate creativity to help in recovering from addiction.

And I’m keep up with the many other things I do: my monthly column for Art Calendar Magazine, my regular segment for Art of the Song Creativity Radio, the trainings that I offer in creativity coaching, and my work with individual clients. I am happily busy! But my main focus for the year is on getting the word out about Ten Zen Seconds, because I really believe that it’s something special. So I thank you for having me here today!

Managing Possessions: Do You Own Things, or Do They Own You?

Liora wrote a post about letting go of certain possessions and at the end, she asked her readers if anyone had ever done a massive unloading of keepsakes and if so, was that decision regretted.

An excellent question.

My relationship with “stuff” has long been ambivalent. When I was an adolescent, sometimes I received gifts for my trousseau, or hope chest, that were quite lovely but that I just could not embrace. These items took space in my bedroom and I felt claustrophobic; I also felt owned by them because a loved one had given them to me and not to keep them felt like an act of rejection. Since I had no intentions of following a traditional life path (i.e., getting married anytime in the next decade), the accumulation of such items was not as useful as it would be for someone destined to set up a household. The tension I felt arose from generational and personality differences. My parents’ generation had a tradition of women marrying young; that was simply what was expected of women, not college or career. My mother was preparing me as she had been prepared. Yet I was growing up in the feminist era and received the message that my life could include other choices. Also, what feels homey to one personality may feel too austere (or too cluttered) to another.

When I was 17 I dated my first love, an earthy granola-type who shared an interest in simplicity and non-materialism. That year I wrote a letter to my parents attempting to explain my position about owning stuff and asking them to consider giving less of it to me at Christmas. This resulted in hurt feelings. Because really, a gift is something given voluntarily without payment in return, as to show favor toward someone, honor an occasion, or make a gesture of assistance; a present. Learning to accept gifts graciously is an important social skill. One doesn’t dictate to the giver. Many people take pleasure bestowing presents that are symbolic and special to them. Of course, people also give gifts that are related to wishes the recipient expressed. The essential response to all gifts is a sincere “thank you.” You may not want or like the gift, but your expressed gratitude is for the intention, not the item. This person thought of you and make an effort to express it in the form of a present. That merits a warm and courteous response. I kept unwanted items for many years, until I learned that just because I am given a gift does not mean I must keep it. Likewise, if you give a present to another, you must release your interest in what becomes of it. Once you give something away, you have no claim on it and no business inquiring what the recipient did with it. To be a true gift, there must be no emotional or material strings attached.

Anyway, for most of my twenties I carried the trousseau items with me when I moved from place to place, which was frequent. I made very little income at my job and worked two jobs to get by. I often lived in cramped quarters (one room in a flat) and so could not take the possessions out to use. They remained boxed in closets wherever I lived. I fretted that I would live a life “owned by my possessions.” I feared losing them somehow in a fire or by theft, and I did not like the control I gave to that fear. I frequently purged things as well. When I was planning to return to school full-time and needed to pay off debt, I realized I would not need my childhood furniture while living in a dorm. So I sold the white French provincial desk and chair and other things to raise money. Other times I donated unwanted items to Goodwill. If I haven’t worn an outfit for a year, it gets donated. The small quarters in which I lived and the frequency of moving made owning and lugging possessions onerous; purging was one way to manage this. (The challenge is to limit acquisition of stuff as well, which is something I’ve not been as skilled at.)

I cherished owning books and correspondence. I had hundreds of books and two trunks of papers: old letters, yearbooks, and so on. These I lugged everywhere that I lived in New York state. But in late 1993 and January of 1994, I made a decision: I needed to move out of state, far away from Syracuse, to a place with a better economy, more graduate school choices, and better weather. It was imperative that I break out of my small and safe existence, or else my life would wither. I researched where I might move: New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas were contenders. I chose Austin, because it had similarities to upstate New York in terrain (lakes, trees, hills), numerous schools, a diverse and more liberal population, and a booming economy. Texas also had a number of large cities; if I couldn’t make it in Austin, there was Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, El Paso, Corpus Christi, and Lubbock to try. New Mexico and Arizona had fewer major metropolitan areas. It didn’t hurt that my brother and sister-in-law were also in Austin attending graduate school. I would know at least two people there.

The next step was the move. I researched what size of U-haul I would need to rent to move all of my belongings to Austin, Texas. I gulped when I learned it would cost $4,000. I did not have that much money on hand. I wanted to move with a couple thousand dollars in savings, and I didn’t even have that. If I waited until I had the money to cover the move and have savings, it would take several years. So I made a decision: all my furniture could be reacquired in Austin. That left the small possessions, and my task was to decide what to keep and ship to my brother.

That frigid winter I sorted through old yearbooks and decided to keep only my high school senior yearbook. I perused old love letters and decided to toss them. I did keep journals. I liberated a lot of old correspondence. I decided to keep my Christmas ornaments (many being gifts from my parents) and shadowboxes my father had made. I kept childhood stuffed animals but ditched the handmade woven napkins. Alas, I could not bring all my books: I owned six bookcases six feet tall, with books double-shelved on them. I chose the books I cherished (mostly childhood) and some from college. The rest I sold to a local bookstore for a criminally small amount. In the end, I shipped 20 boxes to my brother in Austin, and this included clothing, kitchen items, books, keepsakes, and other essentials. I also packed my little car to the ceiling with other items I could not ship (my stereo, some breakables). Then I headed out to my life. I have no regrets, because I gained so much more than I sacrificed.

One other possession of emotional importance I gave up right after the move. I’ve mentioned before a 10-year correspondence with a penpal that was also a type of journaling. I would photocopy my letters to him, and I also saved what he sent me. After the move, I got thinking that perhaps if I died suddenly I would not want others to read these letters. They went into the trash. There were thousands and thousands of pages, at least three photocopy paper-sized boxes. Here was my reasoning: I reckoned that I hung on to them because I harbored a fantasy of immortality through my words. Maybe someday I would be significant and famous, and these letters would be read by a biographer. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this fantasy. I just didn’t want to live by it, because lugging the weight of these letters interfered with living.

Occasionally I do wonder if tossing those letters or my old yearbooks was a good decision. Then I realize that’s my ego grappling with the Big Questions of significance and what happens to the memory of me after I die. I have a heart-to-heart talk with myself about the fact that living happens here and now, and ultimately these possessions are insignificant. The papers will crumble, the trinkets will break. Nothing lasts forever. My peace with the decision is reaffirmed.

We don’t live in a McMansion, and we move fairly often; it’s a fact of our life. Streamlining possessions is therefore vital. Husband and I must be careful about the keepsakes we collect. And there simply isn’t enough room to inherit generational tokens that others might like to see carried on in the family. I periodically sort through possessions and decide what to keep. I see little point in keeping items boxed in closets simply because they were owned by a family member in the past. It’s just stuff. I won’t take it with me when I die. If it isn’t useful to me now, if I don’t have the space to put it out, and if it isn’t deeply symbolic and meaningful to me to possess it, then it belongs somewhere else.

The inheritance we leave is the effect we’ve had on other people’s lives and hearts, not the things we owned. This is a realization I hope to impart to my daughter.

The Whole World

For those who have come to grow, the whole world is a garden. For those who have come to learn, the whole world is a university. For those who have come to know God, the whole world is a prayer mat.

–M.R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen

Fake Food

In a land known for producing counterfeit DVDs and brand name apparel, food for humans and other animals is not exempt from tampering. Melamine is a coal derivative often used to make dishware; it is safe to eat off, but it cannot be heated in a microwave. It certainly is not nutritious.

For years, producers of animal feed all over China have secretly supplemented their feed with the substance, called melamine, a cheap additive that looks like protein in tests, even though it does not provide any nutritional benefits, according to melamine scrap traders and agricultural workers here. …

The pet food case is also putting Chinaâ€™s agricultural exports under greater scrutiny because the country has had a terrible food safety record.

In recent years, for instance, Chinaâ€™s food safety scandals have involved everything from fake baby milk formulas and soy sauce made from human hair to instances where cuttlefish were soaked in calligraphy ink to improve their color and eels were fed contraceptive pills to make them grow long and slim.

–David Barboza and Alexei Barrionuevo, Filler in Animal Feed is Open Secret in China

Moonrise

Moonrise

Her moon is rising
over fleshy peaks after
many years of night.

–Kathryn Harper

That Blade Pressed

God is a filter, a polaroid lens that blanks out all the wild colors and fabulous detail of nature. God obliterates randomness. God kills luck. God turns sharp-edged struggle into a tiresome parable. He’s the all-purpose explanation, the always-available excuse. He’s a big shrug of the shoulders, a cosmic palms-up gesture, a rabbit’s foot, a dodge, a shot of morphine, a handful of Prozac. He’s beige. He’s boring, and he makes people boring and life boring.

Life is real. Nature is real. Death is real. It’s not shadows on a wall, it’s not an illusion or a test or a phase we pass through. Life is dangerous and exciting and that blade pressed against jugular isn’t a ticket to paradise it’s the real threat of the real end. And when you accept that, when you accept that you’re playing the game with real money, life gets so much more interesting.

God smooths the rough edges. I don’t want the edges smoothed.

— M. Takhallus, Sideways Mencken

Thanks to Euan at The Obvious? for pointing out this quote.

A Mindful Life / Kathryn Harper

express : discover : renew : create