power and purpose in a mutating world
Years ago I studied with screenwriting guru Meg LeFauve who said all stories have a big beautiful idea at the center - the raison d'être - which guides every facet of the storytelling. Lately, as I've scrambled to launch a new website showcasing all the moon gatherings and tarot readings and personal essays and everything that I've been [...]
Heading up to a cabin in Big Bear for a solo retreat tomorrow and I can’t wait. I know we’re supposed to be excited about the world opening up and all, but I’m pretty ambivalent about it. I miss hugs, don’t get me wrong, I miss hugs real bad, but I don’t miss traffic or [...]
One quarter of the country has been vaccinated, quarantines are being lifted, and I feel like one of those fumbling newborn antelope plopped down in the wide-open Serengeti with ten minutes to learn running before the lions arrive. I, and countless others with whom I’ve been in conversation over this past year, have changed. Our [...]
I grew up in South Carolina in the 80’s and I distinctly remember a sense of pride in the room of my junior high American History class when we got to the bit about the rebel soldiers from our beloved port city of Charleston firing the first shots of the Civil War. We Southerners were [...]
Inauguration comes from the Latin augur: “one who sees favorable omens for success". (The word auspicious comes from this as well.) In Ancient Rome the augur was the official diviner who was called in before important undertakings of the state to determine whether or not the gods approved. He did this by reading the flight [...]
Most of us have a recurring dream of one kind or another. Some folks dream of flying, of losing their teeth, I dream of waves - giant, menacing, deep-water waves rising up in the night like dark-cloaked mercenaries. On and off throughout my life I have dreamed of waves. In my youth the inky swells [...]
Zion National Park in May of last year. We set up camp in the shadow of one of those glorious red rock monoliths with the rushing waters from a nearby (but unseen) river as our only soundtrack. That night the moon turned the whole valley silver and the sounds of the river seemed to amplify [...]
I grew up closeted in the backwoods of South Carolina in the 80’s and became interested in storytelling around 9 years old when my father would drive me into the sticks and drop me alone on the side of a dirt road with a rifle. From there I’d hike into the woods to find a [...]
Samuel Beckett and Tom F. Driver on the function of art in a world in crisis There is so much about my work as an artist that is changing. Much of what interested me just three years ago feels frivolous now. I stopped writing a romantic comedy just before Trump was elected and I'm not [...]
You can still learn a lot from a dummy. Growing up in South Carolina in the mid-80’s, I remember the adults around me grumbling about new legislation that was gaining momentum in Congress. Legislation that, if passed, would require the driver and front-seat passenger of a car to wear seat belts, or else be subject [...]
