To celebrate the new year, my husband and I spent a week at a cabin in the woods without electricity or running water. If I said I was 100% enthusiastic about the experience before going, I’d be lying. I was scared. But on some level I knew that it would teach me lessons I couldn’t learn otherwise. And it did. The stillness gave me the space and heightened perception necessary to hear myself think, and then to quit thinking altogether. Our joys were simple, but profound. Midweek it hit me that the happiness I was feeling out there in the middle of nowhere was the real deal. This alone was a revelation. We did chores conscientiously, lived as aesthetes, were grateful for the food we’d brought, the glow of lamps, and the warmth of fire. Our priorities had to do with survival–not freezing, and not killing each other–rather than entertainment or making “progress.” In seven days I loosened my grip on some of my own useless ideas, and learned valuable lessons–not the least of which (in this economy) was how little we actually need to be insanely happy.

Flesh & Blood trailer Of course, all was not peaceful contemplation and spiritual reverie. We experienced complete isolation, subzero temperatures, and the oppressive feeling of the 4:30pm winter sunset. We also had some tough moments as we each came to terms with matters we’d been avoiding and with fears we didn’t even know existed. For me, these moments were instructive. The factors that gave me anxiety were not those I’d anticipated: before going I’d worried about being cold, bored, or lonely. In fact, I was none of these things (well, a little lonely a couple of times). I was surprised to find that the matter that gave me the most anxiety was water. Continue Reading »

I’m borrowing this line from a Buddhist teacher of mine who says this about TV in general. “There are just three channels on your TV,” he says, “I know you think you’ve got cable so you’ve got hundreds of channels, but you’re wrong. There are three: Boring, Stupid, and Awful.” He advocates for getting rid of the set altogether.

I haven’t been able to do that…yet. But I have been able to stop watching advertising. And the less I watch the more I see that advertising itself (with a few exceptions) has become nothing but boring, stupid, and awful.

“But wait,” you say, “I like those GEICO cavemen.”

• The Core film

• The Golden Child on dvd

Outbreak trailer

To that I say: Boring. Stupid. Awful. Take a look around you and really notice the ads you’re absorbing. Continue Reading »