Not-yet-published pieces, stories, essays, rants, and random strangenesses

Ah, the flatlands! Driving east from Rockford, I’m finding the prairie very refreshing—all these wide vistas, this great expanse of sky....

No problem. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. Samuel Beckett If at first you don’t succeed, failure may be your style. Quentin Crisp

When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer ‘Present’ or ‘Not guilty.’ Theodore Roosevelt Leave a...

Lightly men talk of saying what they mean. Often when he was teaching me to write in Greek, the Fox would say, ‘Child, to say the very...

Everything’s in the mind. That’s where it all starts. Knowing what you want is the first step toward getting it. Mae West Leave a comment.

When you give food to the poor, they call you a saint. When you ask why the poor have no food, they call you a Communist. Archbishop...

When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,...

Everyone knows that E=mc2. Shamanism is what dances on top of the equal sign. Alberto Villoldo, Dance of the Four Winds Leave a comment.

Shamanic ecstasy is the real “Old Time Religion,” of which modern churches are but pallid evocations. Shamanic, visionary ecstasy, the...

Touch the earth, love the earth, her plains, her valleys, her hills, and her seas; rest your spirit in her solitary places. For the gifts...