About Me
I'm joining Service Space because ... It was thanks to the hidden ways of things leading to my meeting Nipun.
A good day to me is when ... I find myself present to this miracle of being alive
My hero in life is ...Hard to single out one
My favorite book is ...Nearly all of Henry Miller's books and essays. Gravity and Grace by Simone Weil. Many of the writings of Laurens Van Der Post. And there are so many others.
One thing I'm grateful for is ... There are so many things. Having so many noble friends is a big one.
Conversations: A Pathless Land
Jul 11, 2019, 1 comments, 4 smiles
This month's 'Conversations' newsletter is themed A Pathless Land. Borrowing from Krishnamurti's famous remark "truth is a pathless land," the thought comes up: "Yes. And yet it's still truth." If this land is pathless, it may be because it cannot survive being packaged for distribution. It doesn't scale that way because it lives inside being, not things. And it's essence may be more like a question than an answer...
Conversation With Nipun Mehta
Jul 03, 2019, 1 comments, 18 smiles
Here's a recent interview with Nipun that's worth slowing down to read.
Gift Ecology - A Conversation with Nipun Mehta, by Elizabeth Denley
"As a society I think one of our biggest problems right now is that we’re disconnected. It takes many decades to destroy trust, which we have done, and now it’s going to take many decades to build it up."
Conversations.org is a collection of interviews with social artists.
Grateful that works & conversations has been connected with ServiceSpace now for over 12 years!
How Many Holy Moments
May 21, 2019, 12 comments, 40 smiles
[Here's one of the stunning stories shared by Rachel Naomi Remen in a recent circle.]
This story is about a guy who runs a large emergency room in San Francisco. Emergency room doctors are not soft and mushy. :) Whether male or female, it requires a great degree of toughness.
It was a very busy night in the emergency room. It was so busy that they got him out of his office to go down and actually get in the trenches and help. He wasn't there for a couple of hours and they got a call from an ambulance coming in. They were bringing a woman in active labor -- very active labor -- in. They were concerned that the baby was actually going to be born in the ambulance as they were transporting her. They wanted the team to know that this was coming.
So he went out to the ambulance bay, ... Read Full Story
Conversations: Work Of The Heart
May 16, 2019, 1 smiles
This month's 'Conversations' newsletter is themed Work Of The Heart. Each of our four offerings tell of a life of meaning. Each tell of deep relationship. How else could the heart be engaged? And there are so many ways. In "The Secret of Bayou Teche," poet Ron Hobbs tells of childhood experience. "That morning cormorants lazed around in the sky; two old pelicans stood sleeping on a rock, and the trees were full with flocks of chattering passerines. ‘Watch the birds, chere they gonna tole you lots of things.’"
Abundance Of Less: From Cornelius To Kogan!
Feb 28, 2019, 1 comments, 16 smiles
[At a powerful New Story retreat recently, I was really touched Frank's flute performance, which I experienced viscerally with Shamanic overtones, as well as Cornelius's multiple performances. In a passing conversation with Cornelius, I told him about my friend, Andy Couturier, who had written a remarkable book titled 'Abundance of Less' in which he profiled a legendary flutist named Kogan Murata. And he just casually responds, "Oh Kogan? Yeah, I've played with him." Honestly, I was stunned. To give you a flavor, below is an excerpt on Kogan Murata.]
"It was a complete coincidence," he tells me when I ask him now about coining to the path of playing the bamboo flute. "I had been totally inside the 'do-re-mi’ world of Western music all through my twenties. But in that house you first visited me in, one day by chance I heard the real sound of the shakuhachi on a classical ... Read Full Story
Conversations: HIdden Things That Glow
Jan 21, 2019, 5 smiles
This month's 'Conversations' newsletter is themed HIdden Things That Glow. Having the opportunity to present a fresh issue of our newsletter always is always a lift. For me, spending time with our stories is like being fed. To start off with the newsletter’s new look, we have four special conversations. Just listening to Eduardo del Conde describing his journey into the world of Los Hombres del Arroz (the men of rice) was a rare gift... read more
Tea Leaves And Epiphytes...
Jun 24, 2018, 5 comments, 14 smiles
I got a last-minute invite to join a small circle of individuals who were going to meet the next morning at the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery. It was good timing. At 9am I joined Rev. Heng Sure, Nipun, Audrey, Rev. Bonnie Rose from Ventura, Janessa Wilder (former CIA analyst and founder of the Euphrates Institute), Fran Faraz, (director of Peace Studies at Golden West College in SoCal), Sally Mahe, (one of the founders of United Religions Initiative, now with 900+ chapters in 105 countries!) and Jin Wei Bhikshu, the monk from Poland.
Things got rolling pretty quickly and picked up energy from there. Rev. Heng added some fuel in the form of tea. Sitting at one end of the table, he was carefully setting out 10 cups. He held up a silvery bag to get our attention and announced, “This is a very special tea! A rare dragonwell that has never been ... Read Full Story
An Interview 14 Years Ago
Jul 01, 2014, 3 comments, 13 smiles
Just got a card from a man I interviewed over 14 years ago, a total stranger. I struck up a conversation because I liked the small painting he was making as he sat in the coffee shop I often stopped at. I was surprised to find someone making art in this place frequented by the comfortable bourgeoisie. In 18 years of taking care of my caffeine needs there, I’d never seen anyone openly drawing or painting at one of the tables. So I walked over quietly and watched a little while. He was good. I complimented him and before long we were pretty deep in conversation. It was so interesting I asked if he’d be willing to be interviewed. The interview appeared in issue #4. Out of close to 400 features on conversations.org, it ranks #25 in number of reads. So today I got this card from Terrance Meyer and since ... Read Full Story
Video With Tom Mahon: Tools Of Our Tools
Jun 24, 2014, 1 comments, 3 smiles
Just saw this thoughtful video by fellow ServiceSpace ambassador, Tom Mahon -- and it's something that many of us will want to spread in our communities. It's a marvel of compression and eloquence in terms of both its scope and depth. I think most of us feel there's a growing recognition already underway that's quite resonant with Mahon's cogent reflections here.
Conversation With Paul Van Slambrouck
Mar 02, 2014, 2 comments, 8 smiles
From a conversation with Paul Van Slambrouck that lot of us know ...
RW: I think ServiceSpace stands apart from other organizations in that there really isn’t any hidden agenda. It’s really what it says it is, a no-strings-attached thing. PVS: Right. I’m glad you brought that up, because I almost don’t mention that. The no-strings part is almost impossible to believe until you get involved with ServiceSpace. You can say that to somebody and they’ll go, “Yeah, I’ve heard that before.” You know?
RW: Right. PVS: There is no quid pro quo. There’s not much else in my life I can think of I can say that about. But I really could say that about ServiceSpace.
RW: We can use the word service here. PVS: This is real service. The only outcome is to create opportunities, create this ability, create this system that meets you at whatever level you’re at. I think it calls forth something that maybe you parked somewhere.
