All over the world, people sweep. It’s ancient. It is the ritual of preparing, clearing, and cleaning our space. When we sweep we put things in order, arranging our world. When I used to perform street theater I would sometimes begin by sweeping the “stage,” the place where the performance was about to take place. […]
How many colors can we see? Around 4 million, but all of them are combinations of just three colors that our eyes are designed to see: red, blue, and green. There are three kinds of color-detecting cells in our retinas, and the precision of each is known. All those millions of colors come from combinations
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When Martin Luther King, Jr, prepared his remarks for his speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington he originally planned to make it short and low-key. He was thinking about the broad audience that he would be addressing. The original printed version of his speech does not even have one
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My mother, Diana Weaver Kahan, was a poet. Not a published poet, but a lover of poetry who read to me regularly and occasionally wrote her own. Above is her picture on her honeymoon with my father. I was particularly fond of this poem she wrote in 2004: Because I have children I eat strawberries,
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The key for me in all areas where I either want to improve my life or must admit I have fallen short: self-compassion. It doesn’t always come easy, but when I feel the most out of balance or wanting, self-compassion is my go-to intent. As a consequence, I have read a good deal on it
After I graduated with a BA in mathematics I started graduate school. At the same time, at the age of 20, I started an experimental theater company, Waggo Makes Connexxions. We performed in vacant lots, parks, and the county library. That’s me above, taking a bow with my troupe after our second performance. The picture
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As the northern hemisphere enters the colder months and today is the Winter Solstice, when the longest night prevails, I thought it appropriate to express love, loyalty, and enthusiasm for that which draws us closer to the Mystery of Life. In that spirit, I am sharing this poem by Mary Oliver: Whistling Swans Do you
There are so many issues in our world today where large-scale social change could make a great impact. During my 13 years at the World Bank, I had the opportunity to work within a small team that led an internal social change. We discovered that bringing people together who care deeply about a particular topic
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This is the third pizza I made from scratch over 3 days after it came out of the oven Saturday. The first was inedible. The second tasted like bowling alley pizza. However, this one was a keeper. Every once in a while I pick a food to master and I keep making it over and
During the pandemic, it’s important to take the necessary measures: masking up and social distancing the foremost. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get out. When we have to spend so much time indoors it becomes really important that we find special times to be outdoors. During a recent trip to South Carolina my daughter,
