Most people don’t even notice it. There is the familiar buzz in the pocket, or the soft, quirky tone that emanates from an indeterminate space in the room. Before their conscious mind recognizes what it is, the amygdala responds, igniting whatever emotions it is they associate with incoming data: anxiety, hope, fatigue. Unconsciously, the Pavlovian [...]
Archive for the ‘Culture’ Category
You, practicing not checking your smartphone.
Posted in Culture, Personal Growth, Spirituality, tagged awareness, Buddhism, practice, smartphone, spirituality, technology, yoga on October 17, 2011 | 3 Comments »
Life is finally getting back to normal
Posted in Conscious Citizenship, Culture, Nature, Sustainability, tagged awareness, ecology, nature, sustainability, tucson, water on August 3, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Across America, we’re about to see our above-average temperatures come back down towards normal again. Not because the weather’s changing–it is, in fact, continuing to warm–but because our method of measuring it is. The National Weather Service uses a 30-year average to calculate average temperature and precipitation measurements. These averages are what we hear today’s [...]
Death by Taxes
Posted in Conscious Citizenship, Culture, tagged citizenship, conscious citizenship, military industrial complex, politics, taxes, war tax resistance on April 11, 2011 | 5 Comments »
My wife and I finished our taxes this week. We got married in 2010, and received a several hundred dollar tax penalty. Awesome. Whether you are writing a check to Uncle Sam this April, or receiving a “refund” (an interest-free loan you provided to the government), taxes suck. As the saying goes, they are one [...]
Why you want Eminem’s (subtle) body
Posted in Culture, Personal Growth, Spirituality, tagged 3-body practice, Dr. Dre, eminem, practice, spirituality, subtle body on March 29, 2011 | 3 Comments »
Want to teach a great class, give an affecting presentation, make transcendent art, or just show up more fully in your life? Listen to Eminem’s song “I Need a Doctor.” The song is technically Dr. Dre’s (Eminem raps the first two verses and Dre the final one), but that’s just the point: Eminem owns this [...]
Confessions of a Type-A Yogi
Posted in Culture, Spirituality, tagged Anusara Yoga, femoroacetabular impingement, health, practice, spirituality, subtle body, yoga on February 28, 2011 | 91 Comments »
In my early yoga days studying Anusara Yoga with John Friend, he once told me (through my girlfriend) that I could be a great yogi like my friend Darren Rhodes. To me, this meant that I too would be able to contort my body into incredible formations, and demonstrate my world-class athletic prowess through the [...]
Priuses or Permaculture?
Posted in Culture, Integral, Sustainability, tagged Bright Green, carbon, global warming, green, growth, integral sustainability, localization, locavores, peak oil, permaculture, renewable energy, sustainability on February 6, 2011 | 10 Comments »
As I make my way through the environmental world week to week, I see two competing visions of the future. The first calls on us to grow, develop, and innovate a global economic and technological revolution that will bring us into a world of renewable energy; scientifically-managed industrial agriculture; and zero-waste, durable, and recyclable products [...]
Expand your eco-footprint
Posted in Culture, Sustainability, tagged consumption, green, integral sustainability, life energy, money, nature, yoga on January 31, 2011 | 6 Comments »
There it lay on the table: the Williams-Sonoma holiday catalog. Emotions ran through me, disgust that I’d made it on their mailing list, lust for the images of sticky buns and crumpets that lay inside. Most of all, I felt exhausted. Exhausted because I knew that soon I’d be searching the store’s web site looking [...]
Tucson’s opportunity: political civility?
Posted in Culture, tagged citizenship, Gabrielle Giffords, politics, tucson on January 11, 2011 | 3 Comments »
With every tragedy there is opportunity, and the recent mass-murder in my home town is no exception. As we mourn those who have died, and wait to see if and how Gabrielle Giffords will recover, there is talk of how this appalling disaster could spark a national discussion about, and a softening of, vitriolic political [...]
Sustainability and Spirituality, Part I
Posted in Culture, Spirituality, Sustainability, tagged Genpo Roshi, integral sustainability, spiritual masters, spirituality, sustainability on October 13, 2010 | Comments Off
Have you ever worked for a green cause, and finished the day feeling as empty as an Enron employee?
