A Conversation with Haricharan Das: In the Company of Saints Photo: R. Whittaker 11/20/09 Meeting Haricharan Das was one of those happy improbabilities you could never have made up. My wife had been reminding me for months that the paint on our house was peeling off and that if I didn't get on the ball and deal with it, we'd regret it. So finally I got online and looked at the Berkeley Parents' Network, a great resource for recommendations. I called a painter with rave reviews and a few days later, my doorbell rang. A tall man with a shaved head and olive complexion stood there smiling. He was ready to take a ... Jul 27, 2010, 43677 reads

Bridges To Cross: A Conversation with Michael Grbich, Oakland, CA Sept. 10 09 I first met Mike over thirty years ago. He was unfailingly personable and upbeat in a way that always left me feeling better. And, lucky me, he was a neighbor! One day I was walking out of the house with a tennis racket (back in the day) and ran into Michael. "You play tennis?" he asked me with obvious relish.      Then and there I learned about his love for the game. He'd been a serious player, but a severe injury put an end to any hope of a professional career. He showed me his disfigured right hand saying, "But I discovered I ... Oct 5, 2009, 26034 reads

The Skittish Stallion:      Another story is about a horse. We couldn’t have bought this beautiful farm had we not been able to have some help. Well there was a great apartment in the top floor of the barn. So we advertised for someone who could help us with our 58 acres and they would have a place to live. We had pages of the names of all those who responded to our ad, and there was one couple that stood out. She had an agriculture degree in stable management. He had a horticulture degree. And they had this little baby, Shane. They would each be able to keep their day jobs and still ... Jul 6, 2008, 9147 reads

Interview: Wavy Gravy : Saint Misbehavin’ One day I got a note from ServiceSpace founder, Nipun Mehta offering me tickets to a new documentary movie about Wavy Gravy. Would I like to go?      I would.      Although I was aware of Wavy Gravy as a cultural icon, I really knew very little about him. The film is a eye-opener. Michelle Esrick’s loving documentary, Saint Misbehavin’ - ten years in the making - is an intimate introduction to this remarkable man. Like so many others, I'd never heard about Hugh Romney, the man who later became famous as Wavy Gravy. ... Dec 21, 2010, 104297 reads

On Art and Mindfulness: An Excerpt... For the past several summers, Enrique Martínez Celaya has been teaching a painting workshop at Anderson Ranch in Colorado. Many of his students are unusually moved by the experience. And that’s not surprising.      While nearly everywhere style, entertainment and spectacle take center stage, the deep questions remain—acknowledged or not. For those who feel how little nourishment beguiling surfaces provide, there’s a hunger for contact with the deeper reaches of life—territory that traditionally has been the purview of art, philosophy ... Feb 7, 2016, 22012 reads

Blood Brothers: The jagged boulders at the bottom of the snow-filled gully weren’t fully covered by the snow. They lay in a jumble, piled there by the receding glacier from the last ice age.  There was plenty of time to fully regard them as he accelerated towards them, approaching some terminal velocity, down the ice chute into which he’d been unceremoniously pitched, headlong. His mind didn’t think about them, really, these angular blocks, black against the snow’s white. It merely held them, turning the prospect over, like some mild curiosity.  This fall ... Nov 30, 2018, 3756 reads

Interview with Fredric Fierstein: An Outrageous Act The story leading up to this interview includes the influence of my having read Peter Kingsley's A Story Waiting to Pierce You. In his book, Kingsley hypothesizes that a mysterious figure, Abaris, traveled from Mongolia to Greece to meet Pythagoras. Abaris is mentioned in several ancient texts, usually carrying an arrow, a symbol of shamanic power.       A few years before having read Kingsley's book, I'd been bicycling around the Berkeley marina one day, when I was surprised to come upon a warrior archer astride a mythical beast that looked ... Feb 23, 2011, 67037 reads

Toward Inaccessible Places: A Conversation with Andre Enard The three of us sat at Jane Rosen’s dining room table in her home perched atop a ridge near the beach at San Gregorio in Northern California. Through a wide expanse of glass, the sweep of the coastal hills with their native redwood, oak, bay and madrone lay before us.      We had just finished dinner. The fresh salad, with locally grown tomatoes and greens, included slices of mozzarella “not as good as in New York,” Jane said, a claim I’d have to take on faith. We all agreed the interview could wait until after our meal, but now the time had ... May 18, 2008, 35824 reads

A Conversation with Zoshi: Spirit Carver My introduction to Zoshi came via Ron Nakasone, a professor at Stanford and the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. It happened one evening at Kallan Nishimoto’s Flytrap Studios in Oakland, California. As Nishimoto says, “Zoshi is one of the few artists who lives and breathes his spirituality into his work seamlessly and completely.” Ron had confided to me that besides being an artist, Zoshi is also a Buddhist priest. I felt I was entering into another world.      That evening at Flytrap Studios I ... Mar 2, 2013, 39275 reads

Interview: Charles Bigger--On Philosophy: Baton Rouge, LA Photo - Richard Whittaker In the summer of 2002, I went to Baton Rouge to be with my brother, John, while he underwent the "Whipple," a brutal surgery to remove part of his pancreas. The prospect had stirred much worry among those closest to him. John had come to LSU accepting their proposal that he found a Religious Studies Department there. It would have close ties with the Philosophy Department and, in fact, John had served as head of the combined departments for some years.      He brought with him his credentials from Yale and a ... Aug 18, 2002, 25074 reads