This morning I’m sitting with the windows open, listening to distant city sounds of traffic and construction, mixed with bird calls and the wind in the treetops. It’s October 5, and Austin has just now begun to cool down after yet another unbearable summer. The sounds coming in have been…
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Lessons from a Midlife Saturn Transit Through Pisces
According to the astrologers of the internet, Saturn – that stern planet whose job it is to teach us hard lessons – is leaving my sun sign this week, having been camped out here since 2023. Saturn is a hardass teacher, and whether you believe in astrology or not, I…
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Welp. It’s January.
January, the bleakest of months. A hazy, gray letdown after the holiday season. I’m coming to you today with a raging case of cedar fever (what the hell kind of plant has sex in the winter???) and a headache the size of Texas. And yet! My spirits remain as high…
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The Mountain Has Vanished: Goodbye Brother Umar
~ Inna Lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un ~ Yesterday, while I was out running errands, I took a moment in the car to check in on my social media where I was met with news I’m still not sure I can wrap my head around: Umar Hakim-Dey is gone. In…
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I’m an IDCL Texas Storyscapes Community Fellow!
Super, SUPER stoked to be part of this program for the next year! The Institute for Diversity and Civic Life is a nonprofit organization dedicated to telling stories and documenting experiences of the endlessly diverse people living in Texas. I’m joining a group of multimedia storytellers, each of us working…
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Live Music Review | The Bright Light Social Hour & Friends @ The Mohawk | 6.21.25
Read my review of The Bright Light Social Hour’s epic summer solstice show on June 21, 2025 on The Cosmic Clash…
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Wanna save the world? Touch grass.
It’s a beautiful afternoon in Austin, Texas. I just returned from a six-mile walk through our neighborhood. The sky is a cloudless, fathomless blue that hurts your eyes when you look at it for too long. Riots of wildflowers have crowded the empty lots and undeveloped fields. I paused momentarily…
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FIVE REMEMBRANCES, AND THE VALUE OF TEARS
Last night I decided to log in and join my zen sangha’s Wednesday night meditation group. Every week there is a different theme for the meditation, and last night’s was loving-kindness. I haven’t been feeling much loving-kindness these days. Quite the opposite, really. So I wasn’t sure I wanted to…
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We Gotta Get Real Now
“The absurd is born of the encounter between two opposed concepts: the human need for meaning and the apparent meaninglessness of the universe.” – Albert Camus Yesterday was the inauguration of the 47th president of the United States of America. It was also MLK Day. Then, overnight, it snowed in…
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Social Media isn’t Art
I’ve been pretty quiet on social media lately. After two decades of daily immersion in online spaces, gulping down other people’s opinions, hot takes, think-pieces, tweet threads and TikTok diatribes (and contributing plenty of my own perspectives) my voice has all but dried up. Oh sure, I’m still on the…