My Sunday List
Touching Touchstones || March 30, 2025
Touching touchstones for me means going back to the words I can trust. Today’s list is mostly pulled from four books I lean on (links included where referenced): Julian Schnabel’s memoir, CVJ: Nicknames Of Maitre D’s & Other Excerpts From Life | Mark Nepo’s Seven Thousand Ways To Listen: Staying Close To What Is Sacred | Jessica Kerwin Jenkins’s Encyclopedia Of The Exquisite: An Anecdotal History of Elegant Delights | and Krista Tippett’s Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living.
Words
“We try to control this messy reality we are, tugged and torn by desires and needs and holes we fill with excess. Now, we’re bringing our sense of ourselves back to earth. We’re tethering our yearning for wholeness to the physiology we’ve known about for a while, the neurons we’re just learning to see. Physical, emotional, and spiritual are more entangled than we guessed, more interactive in every direction, and this knowledge is a form of power.”—Krista Tippett, Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living
Music
“Signaturizing is getting paid to stop thinking. (America loves signatures, consistency to the point of dullness.) Signaturizing is a trap. It is artists believing that their work should always have the same appearance. They’re satisfied to let this appearance be the emblem of their art, because it’s what people have come to expect them to do. This is either a sign of arrogance, resignation, or atrophy. (Maybe they only have one idea and I”m being too hard on them.) Giacometti is an artist whose singularity of visions (and persistence) dispels this generality but he is, certainly an exception.”—Julian Schabel, CVJ: Nicknames of Maitre D’s & Other Excerpts From Life
[John] Cage, inspired by his Zen studies and by artist Robert Rauschenberg’s all-white canvases, described silence as unintended sound, the quiet noises found outside of traditional music. When performing Cage’s most famous silent piece, “4’33,” a musician walks onstage, sits at a piano, and marks off time for four minutes and thirty-three seconds, without making any sound. Cage hoped the audience would sit patiently listening to the shuffles, creaking floorboards, and polite coughs in the auditorium as music. ‘I have spent many pleasant hours in the woods conducting performances of my silent piece,’ he said.” —Jessica Kerwin Jenkins, Encyclopedia of The Exquisite: An Anecdotal History of Elegant Delights
On My Screen
The life of an artist is a life of spirit. I turned on my television one morning this week, thinking I might listen to BBC News while I readied myself for the day. It lasted about one minute because the sound of it turned my stomach. I can’t afford to fill my mind with any darkness of such putrid pitch.
I don’t care where you lean politically—what we’re witnessing now from the current administration in the US is, quite ironically, the worst governmental overreach I’ve ever even thought about. Hell, I never thought I’d see this kind of thing attempted, much less allowed. All in the name of efficiency? Uh huh, that’s not what it smells like. I’m disgusted with what’s happening to many of the institutions that make us just a little bit civilized and I’m scared to death of the rapid pace at which the fabric of our morality and integrity is being torn to ribbons. I have a hard time believing anyone signed up for this. But—I do think that these results are commensurate with the ones we were told to expect.
It’s a civic responsibility to be informed. The public should know what the Department of Education actually does before it’s decided it needs to disappear. For instance, check out the list and refresh your memory.
I don’t say this from a left-leaning soapbox. I say this as a mother with a special needs child who needs IDEA to remain intact. I’m afraid it won’t.
What’s everyone’s favorite thing to stream right now? Please don’t tell me Adolescence. Some escapism would be welcome!
The way you do anything is the way you do everything.
“The work of being reaffirms our own capacity for wisdom, which depends on our willingness to taste life directly. We have seen that the heart over time tries on many faces. In no particular order: if will sift the best from life; it will strain and filter the difficult lessons; it will give up trying to get things for itself; it will live as an instrument nourishing others. At times, the heart will live like a sponge, absorbing without preference and giving without holding back.”—Mark Nepo, Seven Thousand Ways To Listen: Staying Close To What Is Sacred
Prayer
Thank you, Great Spirit, for the life you give me every day. Thank you for the blessing of my son, my sister, my family both biological and chosen. Thank you for the blessing of this experience, even when it seems like the hard times are too hard and too many. I know I must walk through periods of difficulty in order to learn what I need to learn until I transmute the lessons and see that every encounter with my woundedness is an opportunity to address it, not to try to numb the pain. That process is ongoing and will never ease until I die if I do my proper work as a spiritual being. If I keep my eyes on you, I can see it all as a blessing. None of us gets to have a life of no hardship. Struggle exists for a reason. If you cut open a chrysalis in order to help the butterfly out and ease its struggle, it will not build the strength it needs to fly.
Humble me and lift me out of my pit. Send me the tests I need to remind me to choose the path that leads my soul home and to turn to you with every breath. Please strengthen my faith so I might hand all matters over to you and the wisdom to know you will work miracles in me through whatever you place in my blessed path. Remind me my choices determine my experiences and my lessons can come through positive ones rather than the opposite.
Allow me to gracefully release what is not meant for me and to hold tightly and lovingly to what is. Allow me to be open to change every day as you remind me it is the only constant besides you. Allow me to repair what is broken. Allow me awareness of my dissociative tendencies and keep me present so I may make choices that reflect the life I desire. Allow me clarity, focus, and courage. Allow me to rise to my highest vibration each day and spread truth and beauty wherever I go. May I learn how to truly forgive. With deep gratitude I pray that your will, and not mine, shall be done.
Intention for the week to come
May I be present and fully inhabit my mind, spirit, and physical body.
May I walk through the world with an open heart and without judgment.
May I be curious and ask questions before I decide.
May I breathe peace in, and breathe love out.
May I be humble and see myself clearly so I may accept my limitations while working to lovingly decrease them. May my progress be reflected through my actions, seen and unseen.
May I have the self-possession and grace to meet others with the kindness and acceptance I desire for myself.
May I find the flexibility in myself to gracefully accept the imperfections of life and not take inconveniences personally.
May I think before I speak.
May I think MORE than I speak.
May I first do no harm.
May I be grateful for what I have and may I not seek more for my selfish gain.
May I allow myself to trust but may I also always use my discernment.
May I have CLARITY and find a way to be CALM about it.
May I be patient.
May my vibration resonate in harmony with the universe.
May I remember it isn’t about me.
May I do good work.
May I have optimism and positive thoughts.
May I be open to what the Great Spirit knows is for me, and may I walk my path accordingly by remembering I can only take it one step at a time.
Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. — Buddha
DO NOT EVER LET THE BASTARDS GET YOU DOWN.
Wishes
That we all receive the love we deserve.
That we all find comfort and peace.
That we all find time for the things that soothe us.
That you will forward this to one person you think might like it.
Have a wonderful, peaceful, joyous week. And thank you for supporting my work here at The Autotelic.
Peace. Love.
Allison
There are first edition copies of I Dream He Talks to Me and Blood in the shop. I will sign each copy that is ordered. If you would like it personalized, please send an email with your order number and the name you would like on the signature page to allisonmoorercontact@gmail.com.
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i know you asked about streaming..some people hate her for some reason, but i liked "with love, meghan" on netflix. interesting recipes and it is calming. very much an escapist show.
I still recall that fabulous leather coat of yours. Congrats to Savannah.