Writing with Heart
A blog about writing confidently and living adventurously
Tonight's WORDS THAT CHANGED ME comes from a modern spiritual classic, "The Teachings of Don Juan" by Carlos Castaneda.
Here it is:
"Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use."
I've liked this quote since I first read it in the late 1990s.
Back then, I...
The only book I took to Greenland in 1996 was Barry Lopez's Arctic Dreams. One day, during a three-week hiatus in a tiny coastal village, I took off on foot to see the Icecap. I hiked up a broad, grassy valley past lichen-covered stone ruins until it dead-ended at a rock outcropping. I followed a...
Tonight's THESE WORDS CHANGED ME come from the Buddhist maitri practice. Maitri means lovingkindness in Sanskrit. Here are the words:
May I be filled with lovingkindness.
May I be safe from inner and outer dangers.
May I be well in body and mind.
May I be peaceful and happy.
May I be free.
Some...
Today's THESE WORDS CHANGED ME come from Austrian poet Ranier Maria Rilke, whose name I always butcher when I say it out loud.
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very...
Today's THESE WORDS CHANGED ME comes from Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse.
After days of listening to the Buddha's teachings, Siddhartha, a wanderer seeking enlightenment, encounters The Awakened One in a grove.
And guess what he does?
He gives the Great One a piece of his mind!
Here's what he...
WORDS CHANGE US
I submitted my memoir to agents. The book's working title is: Shiva Blues: A Seeker's Journey.
It's about travel, kicking an addiction to strong pharmaceuticals, and trying to live against the grain of American Big Alpha toxic masculinity...but, primarily, the book is about personal...
I was in my mid-thirties and quite depressed when I first stumbled on a recording of Alan Watts' unique style of spiritual entertainment. Within a few minutes, I was chuckling out loud and had forgotten I was depressed.
These days, I no longer suffer from depression, and Watts' recordings still...
I found this B&W print today while unpacking from my recent move. I was 30 years old, flying out the next day for Greenland and my first overseas adventure-writing assignment for a major magazine. I reported the article and then found myself camped out for three weeks on a beach socked in by...
How I Coached Jon Krakauer to Write the Story that Only He Could Tell
Last week, I posted Part I of the story of my involvement with "Into Thin Air." That post told the behind-the-scenes story of the days during and immediately after the storm that killed climbers during the 1996 season....
Sending Jon Krakauer to Everest was my idea. After the news broke, I spent the better part of a day wondering if I’d put him in a frozen grave.
IT WAS THE WORST STORY IDEA idea an editor could come up with, let alone assign to a real human being. That’s how I felt on Saturday, May 11,...
I want to tell you about a book that, each time I open it, makes me a better writer. You probably haven’t heard of it, or of the author, Ted Solotaroff. It’s not a best-seller like Bird by Bird or a popular favorite like Stephen King’s On Writing. In fact,...
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