Today is Kindness, the final principle of the Community Trinity. My intent with assigning these principles to these days of this holiday was inspired by the Days Of Awe holiday, where adherents are asked to do some soul searching and contemplate the deeper meanings of the ideas the holiday embodies, not just sign up for … More Kindness
This is the second principle of the opening Community Trinity of Holly Days. This year I’ve been making a point of rereading all my previous posts on the day’s principal before I start to write. This Holly Days project has been more focused since I drove east the week after trump’s election, and I preserved … More Compassion
Today is the first Holly Day of 2021, Unity. We chose this day, December 21st, because it is usually the day on which the winter solstice occurs, and this year it does, at 15:59 UTC, which has just passed as I write this. The solstice is an instantaneous event, marking the moment when the sun … More Unity
ATONEMENT We primates seem to have an innate sense of fairness, probably processed by one of our myriad cognitive subroutines. This has lead us to develop expectations and traditions of apology and restitution, probably because these are key to putting conflict behind us and restoring our fairness registers. None of us is perfect, no conflict … More Atonement, Forgiveness & Redemption
TRUTH In these times where citizen-posted video has become so ubiquitous, I want to hammer home this nugget of media literacy: ALL VIDEO LIES. There are two key concepts central to the creation of meaning in cinema: mise en scene, and montage. Mise en scene means literally, setting the stage, more specifically in cinema, it … More Truth, Love, & Courage
It’s nice that gratitude has become such a common meditation. It’s such an effective cognitive technique for shifting one perspective and finding a place of grace. As bad as things have seemed, there really is quite a lot to be grateful for this 2020. I got a negative covid test on xmas eve following a … More Gratitude
When the world feels plentiful, we are much more likely to also feel generous. When scarcity rules, we contract and hoard. I wonder how the depravations of the pandemic have fit into this. For many of us, out of work, this has undoubtedly been a period of terrifying economic scarcity. For others, such as those … More Generosity
The darker the night the brighter the morning, and we have seen some seriously dark nights this year. Of course there will be more, but for now, I am feeling pretty hopeful that we’ve past the trough and things are heading up. My dad was an amazing guy. People adored him, he was jolly and … More Hope
I breaks my heart when I happen on flame wars. People I personally know to be intelligent and civil folks sometimes cultivate their assholiness online because it makes for a good show. There was time when public executions were considered wholesome entertainment. That time has passed, and hopefully so will this one. Still, most folks … More Kindness
Compassion only seems to be offered to those we can feel as part of our in group. I think the empathic feelings we have when we can feel the common purpose with other living things are a key component to finding or building compassion. I pity the poor ants I kill on my kitchen counter, … More Compassion
HOLLY DAYS 