Ayurveda and the accusation of...

May 21, 2013 by

Ayurveda and the accusation of pseudoscience

These days, when I sit with clients as an ayurvedic practitioner, I know that I’m a time traveller to the future. I’m looking at people’s energies, habits and uniqueness through the very old lens I’ve cobbled together from multiple teachers, threads, and fascinations. This old lens is not pseudoscientific in itself, because it arises in a pre-scientific age -- but it will become pseudoscience if it forgets its heritage, and believes it should compete with biomedicine.

read more

Notes on the nirguṇa / saguṇa ...

Apr 25, 2013 by

Notes on the nirguṇa / saguṇa paradox, by way of homage to Aghori Babarazzi

Aghori's masala of cruel empathy flavours the absurd task of making us naked and strange to ourselves, forcing us to wriggle, shift, and grow in the glare of our own contradictions. It’s a dirty, dirty job, but somebody – I mean nobody – I mean somebody who’s made himself a nobody pretending to be everybody – has to do it.

read more

Recovering the Era of Water Me...

Feb 24, 2013 by

Recovering the Era of Water Medicine through Ayurveda

We can dream of the story of human medicine through the progression of the elements, from earth to space. Today, we sit on the juncture between fire and air modalities. But we long for an older water medicine.

read more

The Problem of “God” in Obama’...

Dec 22, 2012 by

The Problem of “God” in Obama’s Newtown Elegy

I can hear, if I get really quiet, an embodied sacramental language of mourning. A language that is aware of the function of its poetry, and doesn’t allow its poetry to bury any evidence.

read more

It’s Time for Yogis to Develop...

Nov 4, 2012 by

It’s Time for Yogis to Develop Transparent and Democratic Community in Their Hometowns: some notes on John Friend and Kausthub Desikachar

I think we can agree: we really want to stop creating yoga schools that purport to teach yoga when their corporate and spiritual bureaucracies force them to do the exact opposite.

read more

a few pages from an abandoned ...

Mar 14, 2012 by

a few pages from an abandoned novel, circa 2003

You are born into a body and a place that you do not and will not ever understand. (Intervening happy moment: something impressionistic in the nursery.) You learn through pain and fear to accept the logic and permanence of pain and fear. (Intervening happy moment: Cookie Monster.)

read more