This poem was written while on a two week retreat at Casa Werma in Patzcuaro, Mexico. Reflecting on the present moment as captured in ink by the calligrapher’s brush.
Phoenix
When we feel the sting of failure, loss, or grief it is hard to imagine coming back to ourselves. This poem reminds us of the Phoenix – reborn from the ash.
Protected: Dharma Talk: Radical Self-Compassion
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Type is Art: Parts of a Character
All letterforms are composed of twenty-one distinct parts.Most commonly, these parts combine to form the characters of our alphabet.Type is Art allows for experimentation beyond this typical character set. Suzanne Cerja, Silo Design I was not always a “typography nerd.” Maybe by some standards I’m still not. There is a point in my career that I can recall fairly vividly as the period when my eyes opened a bit more to the beauty and precision of the typographical form. This was the more or less at the moment when I was introduced to “The Elements of Typographic Style” by Robert Bringhurst, a book which most graphic designers would consider the gold standard of typography. Bringhurst delves into the history, forms, and […]
A Buddhist Reference Sheet by the Numbers
The sheer number of lists and numbers that exist in the Buddhist teachings are one of the things that attracted me early on. There’s something about the logical way that things are laid out that speaks to my techy mind. And although it is through experience and feeling that we gain a true understanding of the Dharma without this logical framework of study and discussion it would be difficult to deliver or receive a lot of what leads to an understanding of these experiences. I’ve recently been working on a single-page reference sheet for some key elements of Buddhist practice and study. I was inspired by Art’s Buddhist Cheat Sheet by Arthur Rosengarten which was a great look-up for me several years ago. I […]
I AM, No Self : Redux
Back in 2010 I had the internet ask itself, “Who am I?” – “I AM, No Self” was the response. A digital art project which looks at identity and egolessness through the lens of social media, the project began as a personal contemplation. Born of my meditation practice it was shown for the first time in March of 2010 at the SP@CE224 Gallery in Buffalo, New York. The piece was part of a show themed around the concept of identity. Back in 2010 I had the internet ask itself, “Who am I?” In a way this piece looks at our collective consciousness gathered by social media and asks of it the question, “Who am I?” The response is an endless stream of truncated self-identifying statements […]
The Coyote’s Dilemma
The bad news is you’re falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute. The good news is there’s no ground. — Chögyam Trungpa This seems like an appropriate way to begin… We, our family, our country, our global society seems to be in a constant freaked out free fall. With seemingly good reason. The economy is all over the place, the world has been at war for as long as my children have been alive (one of them is a teenager), and while we survived an actor president back in the 80’s – we’ve got a rabid business tycoon turned reality TV star with eyes on the oval office. In the media, even the once levelheaded pundits are […]