Culture

Kinton Ramen 3 (2014, 1.15), a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Culture does not make people,
people make culture.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Writing

Mississauga Chinatown 7 (2013, 6.4), a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     When we tell a story we exercise control, 
     but in such a way as to leave a gap, an opening. 
     It is a version, but never the final one.
     And perhaps we hope that the silences will be heard 
     by someone else, and the story can continue, can be retold.

     When we write we offer the silence as much as the story. 
     Words are the part of silence that can be spoken.

        Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

The Miracle

Bramalea, Ontario, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     The miracle is that we are here,
     that no matter how undone we've been the night before,
     we wake up every morning and are still here.  
     It is phenomenal just to be.

        Anne Lamott, Stitches 

Memory

Korean Lamp, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

The best things in life are

the people you love,

the places you've seen,

and the memories you've made

along the way.

Anonymous

Heaven

RC1_7854, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

To eat is heaven.

Confucius

Art

Candle, Taste of Thailand, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

All art that really draws us to look at it deeply is spiritual.

Wendy Beckrtt

Clarity

RIC_0349-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

When the mind is clear, behavior is always impeccable. 

Sylvia Boorstein

Monoculture

RCC_1860, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr. 

The governing pattern a culture obeys is a master story – one

narrative in society that takes over the others, shrinking

diversity and forming a monoculture. When you’re inside a

master story at a particular time in history, you tend to

accept its definition of reality. You unconsciously believe and

act on certain things, and disbelieve and fail to act on other

things. That’s the power of the monoculture; it’s able to

direct us without us knowing too much about it.

 F. S. Michaels, Monoculture: How One Story Is Changing Everything

But the question

RIC_8823-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr. 

It's not the answer that enlightens, but the question. 

Eugene Ionesco

Stories

RCC_8823
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

Stories go in circles. They don’t go in straight lines. It helps if you listen in circles because there are stories inside and between stories, and finding your way through them is as easy and as hard as finding your way home. Part of finding is getting lost, and when you are lost you start to open up and listen.

T. Tafoya, “Finding Harmony: Balancing Traditional Values with Western Science in Therapy.” Canadian Journal of Native Education

Eating

RC1_8307
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

Eating with the fullest pleasure – pleasure, that is, that does not depend on ignorance – is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world. In this pleasure we experience and celebrate our dependence and our gratitude, for we are living from mystery, from creatures we did not make and powers we cannot comprehend.

Wendell Berry