"Dive in with your eyes closed
For the life you were born to claim
And the water will be paralyzed
By the courage you contain
And the flutter of your earnest heart
It will fill the silent seas"

~ Ryan O'Neal

Daron LarsonJanuary 9, 2018Sleeping At Last, music, video, courage, time, memory, uncertainty, historyComment

A Kind of Contrivance

"There's a lot more going on in your brain and your body than you can ever be aware of. And yet, most people identify themselves with this little flash-lit area of consciousness."

~ Rae Armantrout

ClarityDaron LarsonNovember 2, 2017poetry, poets, Rae Armantrout, self, identity, memory, metacognition, brain, neuroscience, consciousness, awareness, self/otherComment

What You Missed

"Mrs. Nelson explained how to stand still and listen
to the wind, how to find meaning in pumping gas,

how peeling potatoes can be a form of prayer."

~ Brad Aaron Modlin

Daron LarsonSeptember 17, 2017Brad Aaron Modlin, poetry, growing up, learning, life, paying attention, awareness, self-awareness, memory, FOMOComment

Home Sweet Home

"Right as rain, soft as snow,
It grows and grows and grows,
Our home sweet home."

~ Sleeping at Last

Notice Flow, Practice in LifeDaron LarsonJuly 15, 2017home, family, courage, paying attention, memoryComment

Maybe This Brain Can Be Reset

"I do know enough as a psychologist about learning and memory. And I know that we learn. How much of this I need to do in order to change, I cannot say. But I can say that there is a point at which this brain is not just elastic in moving to what is being suggested, but that it may be plastic in that it can be reset into a new mold."

~ Mahzarin Banaji

A Story I Will Try To Tell Without Words

the strangest things can conjure up the past,
and forgotten time will find its long way back.

as thin as air, as light as snow
some combination of the unknown,
but it doesn’t matter, i just know i need more.

~ Sleeping at Last

Breath Awareness, See In, Feel InDaron LarsonJanuary 25, 2016Sleeping At Last, senses, memory, time, impermanenceComment

Difficult To Measure

We give such importance to the word peace, but we don’t tend to notice it when it occurs — or report on it.

Daron LarsonDecember 23, 2015war, violence, perspective, negativity bias, history, memory, Neil Halloran, data visualization, peaceComment

Substitution of the Image for Relentless Earth

We look at the world once, in childhood.
The rest is memory.

~ Louise Glück

Clarity, See Out, See InDaron LarsonSeptember 19, 2015Louise Glück, poetry, memory, childhood, noticing, paying attention, senses, perception, impermanenceComment

Too Strong

First, you must let your heart
be broken open
in a way you have never
felt before,
cannot imagine.

~ Dorothy Walters

Daron LarsonSeptember 15, 2015Dorothy Walters, poetry, vulnerability, broken heart, feelings, emotions, memory, complete experience, joy, love, stillness, pain, discomfortComment

Is This What Being Vulnerable Feels Like?

i’ll run the risk
of being intimate with brokenness.

~ Sleeping At Last

Beginning, EquanimityDaron LarsonAugust 19, 2015Sleeping At Last, music, musicians, self, memory, growing up, struggle, risk, intimacy, hope, vulnerability, equanimity, liberation, Martin KlimasComment

Refine Your Lens

When I talk to people about finding stories in their life, I'm talking about finding things that are almost in their everyday that they can bring great meaning to and connect to audiences or to people around the lunch table.

~ Matthew Dicks

Practice in LifeDaron LarsonAugust 14, 2015Matthew Dicks, story, storytelling, practice, writing, advice, time, memory, mundane, creativityComment

All Along

nodus tollens

n. the realization that the plot of your life doesn't make sense to you anymore

Clarity, Practice in LifeDaron LarsonMarch 15, 2015narrative, self, meaning, story, life, memory, words, Dictionary of Obscure SorrowsComment

Forgetting

First forget what time it is
for an hour
do it regularly every day

then forget what day of the week it is
do this regularly for a week

~ W. S. Merwin

Daron LarsonNovember 24, 2014W.S. Merwin, poetry, memory, uncertainty, identityComment

Passing through Nothing

Smell the air. That is the smell of the white pine,
most intense when the wind blows through it
and the sound it makes equally strange,
like the sound of the wind in a movie—

Louise Glück

Daron LarsonNovember 20, 2014Louise Glück, poetry, poets, writing, paying attention, past, time, memoryComment

No Less Real

"So much of what we live goes on inside–"

Daron LarsonNovember 1, 2014Dana Gioia, grief, death, memory, communication, Day of the Dead, secrecy, yearning, self/other, riskComment

Remind Me

"Dad has had a series of loses that you just don't get over. He lost Mom. He lost his sight. He can't walk. His hearing is going. He's afraid his mind is almost gone...I was so happy Dad had something wonderful this morning."

~ Stephen Tobolowsky

Daron LarsonOctober 1, 2014aging, family, memory, pleasure, mundane, joyComment

Where Hate Won't Grow

There’s a place in my brain
where hate won’t grow.

~ Naomi Shihab Nye

Daron LarsonSeptember 27, 2014Naomi Shihab Nye, poetry, hate, love, family, cruelty, society, belonging, suffering, Antony Gormley, memory, conflict, identityComment

Completely Drowned Out

"I don’t like when precious things slip through people’s fingers—especially things that seem defenseless or undercelebrated, like old newspapers, but also unheralded people who may have said sensible things at a certain time in history, but who were completely drowned out by other people. Or minor poets whose lives were instructive."

~ Nicholson Baker

GoneDaron LarsonSeptember 23, 2014Nicholson Baker, Ann Hamilton, mundane, memory, archives, writers, writing, paying attention, poetsComment

Life after Death

"When I go, I hope someone grabs hold of me. But I have to promise I’m grabbing hold of who's gone before." ~ Dario Robleto

Daron LarsonJuly 28, 2014memory, On Being, death, grief, heaven, time, family, history, gone, art, artists, poetry, sculptureComment

Bored Incarnations of Eternity

"How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such a fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself as anything less than a god?" ~ Alan Watts

Daron LarsonJuly 26, 2014Alan Watts, paying attention, mundane, seeing, hearing, taste, memory, present, wonder, boredom, awarenessComment

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