You are, quite possibly, a redshirt. As are we all. We all know about the Hero’s journey, I’ve blogged about it before and I’ve made a yoga flow about it. It sets the template for so many of our popular art forms. More or less: the hero pines for something, gets it, it’s good but not…
star trek
Our days in the dreamy Nexus of quarantine
Most of the time these days, in the COVID-19 quarantine, I feel pretty much like this: …Dreamily staring at plants. Of course I am pretty sure I didn’t just snap away half the universe… but in a way, it does feel like half of the universe is gone – or at least, changed. Of course,…
Don’t let Amy Poehler become a Horcrux: Buddhism and the Self
Is meditating like taking the red pill in “The Matrix”? Yes, in fact it is, at least according to author Robert Wright in “Why Buddhism is True” – a book whose simplistic title does not do justice to its geeky and frankly mind-blowing innards. Wright holds that the clarity of meditation/mental work is so earth-shattering…
An Ode that’s Enough.
Enough! Enough fun. Enough sleep. Enough work. Never enough. Enough enough’s. Took you long enough. Enough is as good as a feast. Strong enough. Brave enough. Happy enough. Good enough. Not good enough. Sorry is not enough. Knowledge is not enough. I can’t get enough. I am enough. You are enough. …
Practice a cat’s poise in Cat Pose
Cats are uniquely intriguing creatures. Dignified yet unabashedly comfortable, curious but tentative. Their delightful poise seems almost alien in its appeal, which is perhaps why there are some truly fabulous cats in fandom. In Cat pose, we can embody those traits. Arch your back way up and look down to the ground, a lovely flat…
Exorcising Your Modern-day Demons
What demons are haunting YOU? You certainly have some. They may not look like the red devil below, but then again, the red devil below wasn’t actually a devil, it was Captain Picard messing with holographic projectors to prove an important legal point, as you do: A demon, broadly interpreted, can be any force in…
You, twisted: Getting to Know your Nemesis
Who’s your perfect nemesis? Or conversely, whose perfect nemesis are you? It’s a question we might do well to ponder on both personal and an artistic levels – to understand ourselves as well as to understand what makes for great, relatable narrative. Our perfect nemeses aren’t necessarily the Big Bads in our lives – the…
We are all Guinan, Moana, Eleanor, and Mrs. Maisel in Plato’s Cave
Picture Guinan from Star Trek: The Next Generation, Moana, and Mrs. Maisel (the marvelous one) sitting in a cave and staring at a wall. That, in a nutshell, illustrates our battle with existential motion sickness. Bear with me. In philosophy, Plato’s cave analogy is used to show the challenges inherent in how people perceive the…
Turning off your Red Alert
How long have you been on red alert? You can call it “Fight or Flight” if you like, that physiological response to perceived threat that makes your heart pound. Or just “stressed out,” a state so common it hardly bears mentioning when someone asks you “how are you?” Whatever you call it, if you’re like…
Fandom Scenes for Meditation
It’s a crazy stressful reality out there – we need every tool at our disposal to deal with it, including yoga as well as breathing and meditation. Sometimes that includes going mentally to a sort of “happy place,” or maybe better put, a mental environment where we feel safe and calm. For those of us…