Blog

  • I Shakuhachi – December 4, 2020: Child & Sun

    … of a child and the sun

  • I Shakuhachi – December 1, 2020: Raw & Direct

    I woke up with a strain in my back. When I picked up the Shakuhachi the tapping sounds called for me … no warmup breaths, no tuning … but the tapping … which led to breathing. I was playing from and for the strain in my back: Today (the next day), the strain was more…

  • My 1st Shakuhachi Decade

    It’s been over a decade since I first held the Shakuhachi I currently play. I am making a note of it because I am looking forward to a new chapter in my relationship with it. I’ve had an on-and-off relationship with the Shakuhachi. When I am with it, as I have been for the past…

  • Shodo – Getting Started

    A couple(?) of years ago Iulia went to a calligraphy workshop in Cluj and the papers she came back with shimmered for me. It stayed with me for a while. Eventually, I did some research into it and that led me to Shodo: THIS spoke to me. I seem to be drawn to Japanese culture.…

  • Yoga Practice & Allergy – Summer 2020

    During the first half of May, I started to sense first signs of allergy. A slight itch at the top of my mouth, a very slight wheeze in my breath, an itch on my back. All these, when allergy is in full swing, can quickly escalate. But they were subtle. I recall one or two…

  • The Edge of Something

    This comes to me to compliment an impoverished philosophy. “I feel I am on the edge of something …” David Bohm

  • The Price of an Impoverished Philosophy

    I have and continue to avoid doctors not because of the drugs they prescribe but because of the mentality & mindset with which they look at me. First, this video in which Jordan Peterson (a renowned psychologist, researched, teacher who disappeared for almost a year) describes what he went through because of psychiatric medication: Then…

  • Yoga Practice Spring 2020

    Tone On the one hand, it feels like I’ve had a long sequence of uninterrupted practice. Uninterrupted by any major event (no allergy, no back strain). On the other hand, this period has been affected by a continuous sense of agitation and disruption. One cause for this has been lack of clarity and insecurity about…

  • AlphaGo

    I enjoyed this documentary about AlphaGo – the AI that cracked the game of Go. However, I felt that there was another player at the table, an overlooked player: the qualitative outcome. Despite the potential complexity of the game of Go, its outcome is still a simplistic quantity: area conquered. I have a feeling that…

  • The Unfolding of 17th Century Amsterdam

    … reminder – you are looking at 100 years in a few minutes! via Yodan Rofe of Building Beauty

  • Asana Gradient: Backbends

    Gradient Documentation Started: Feb 32, 2020. Therefore, the timeline preceding this date is not precise, it is based on partial documentation and partial recollection. This gradient involves numerous asana off the same “family.” Though the individual asana do evolve separately that evolution does not usually involve noticeable external changes in form. Looking from the outside…

  • Sequence: The Difference Between a Novice and a Master

    The experienced carpenter keeps going … every action he performs, is calculated in such a way that some later action can put it right to the extent that it is imperfect now. What is critical here, is the sequence of events. The carpenter neves takes a step which he cannot correct later; so he can…

  • Asana Gradient: Parsva Uttanasana

    Gradient Documentation Started: Feb 2, 2020. Therefore, the timeline preceding this date is not precise, it is based on partial documentation and partial recollection. 1: Spring 2016 – Re-introduction When, early in my practice, I arrive at Parsva Uttanasana – flank forward bend – I feel like I am fully stepping into practice. It was…

  • Yoga Practice – Prayer Withing Closing Ritual End of 2019

    As this year arrives at its natural ending I leave it with yet another slightly revised prayer that anchors the end of my daily practice. אני מברך על החומר הגלום בעולם ועל איכויותיואני מברך על המסעיר, המסתיר והמבהיראני מברך על הייקום העצום המתפרש לכל עבר אני מברך על השמש, על חומה ועל אורהאני מברך על…

  • Autism Labeling

    This tweet appeared in my feed: Hey if you work in tech and you know you’re neurodivergent, please reply to this tweet if you’re willing to make yourself available to answer questions to other folks in tech who think they might be. We need to pull a chunk of us out of the matrix, which…

  • Bryan Ungard – Deliberately Developmental Organisations

    This came to me via Richard Bartlett and: Listening to it while reading Christopher Alexander’s A Timeless Way of Building feels almost eerie … as if Bryan is looking over my shoulder and re-whispering the book in my ear recontextualized from the architecture of buildings to the architecture of organizations. I felt a deep sense…

  • The Order of the Language

    Design is often thought of as a process of synthesis, a process of putting together things, a process of combination. According to this view, a whole is created by putting together parts. The parts come first: the the form of the whole comes second. But it is impossible to form anything which has the character…

  • Attention to Reality

    And it is in the end only when our feelings are perfectly in touch with the reality of forces, that we begin to see the patterns which are capable of generating life. That is what is hard – because so often people choose to put their own opinions forward, in place of reality. … Yet…

  • … not quite adding!?

    Ryan Singer posted this on twitter: “Adding” and “integration” are different operations: Adding: Bolt working wholes together w/ no problem solving. Integration: Solve lots of problems to connect parts together into a working whole. Complex problem? Orthogonalize into integration problems that can then be added. source I had to read it a couple of times…

  • Consequences

    There is a special time, a special transition … when I complete the asana part of practice and transition to pranayama and sitting. Today, just as that time arrived the world outside exploded with the noise of barking dogs … many dogs … our dogs and others. A neighbor came driving down the road from…