Thought I would start regularly pointing to good stuff that copmes through my feed readers.   For the record I actually use two feed readers: Bloglines for my regular reads (you can see my feeds here) and Google Reader for everything else.   What I like about Google Reader is that they have a littel “Next” button that you can click to see the next post in your feed in its own context.   So that’s cool.

Anyway, after trolling the feeds this morning, here is what struck me:

• James Glave on where the real Green Shift will come from: the middle of the bell curve.
• Rob Paterson on how Obama can use his network for real change.
• Peter Rukavina has been trolling the New Yorker’s digital archives and has discovered some lovely bits about the Shelly Netherland hotel.
• Barack’s Obama photostream on flickr, which came by way of Euan Semple.
• A MetaFilter post about the shocking rise of tent cities in the USA (Update: with some excellent suggestions on what better off people can do to help)

The single greatest indication that the world has changed since Tuesday is the idea that Americans no longer have to sew a Canadian flag on their backpacks to get respect in Europe.   If you really want safe passge, sew an Obama logo on instead.

From Patrick Moberg

Oh hey it’s you!   Hey honey!   Look who’s back!   Man, we’ve missed you.

How have you been?   We’re okay…we’ve been thinking good things for you the whole time you’ve been away.   Looks like life’s had it’s way with you.   Ouch.   Where’d you pick up those scrapes?

It was hard when you first left. We were so there with you when you had your big shock.   It was hard to watch you get angry like that.   You hurt a lot of people you know.   I mean we knew we’d be safe, y’know we’ve known each other a long time, but it was really hard to watch you go through that.   We didn’t take personally all those things you said about us.   You were angry, acting rash.   And now look at you…tired, hungry, hurt and you look like you’re out of money too.

But look, it’s good to have you back.   We really have missed you.   Things haven’t been the same since you’ve been gone.   I knew if we kept the candles burning for you, you’d come back.

Come on in and take a load off.   Have something to eat.   Take a few days and then we can help you think about how to make things right again.   Lots of people are gunning for you right now.   You look like you could use a few friends.

I believe you when you say you want to change.   It’s not going to be easy, but if you need our help, we’ll give you a hand.   Who knows?   Maybe the tables will be turned someday!

Alright, take it easy now…you’ve had a long trek to get here.   Go slow.   Get some rest.   We’ll talk more in the morning

Man…it’s good to see you again.

I was listening to a dharma talk by Steve Armstrong (listen to it here) on working with the defilements of the mind.   He begins the talk by quoting the Buddha who says that the pure mind is radiant and bright and that everything else is the result of being visited by defilements.   In Buddhism these include greed, aversion and delusion.

Less important than the dharma content of this talk though is a line that Steve Armstrong said that zinged home with me.   He said that when we sit down to meditate, we should not expect to have a “good experience” but rather, we should understand that this is the place where we meet the mind’s defilements head on.

That really resonated with me.   It seems an important feature of any practice that one recognize that the reason for practicing is to meet challenge, difficulty and frustration.   In that sense any practice becomes a dojo, a place of training.   In meditation we sit to discover how our mind works and to work with what we find.   In my own martial arts practices of taekwondo and warrior of the heart, it is about confronting physical challenges and fear.

And it made me think about what it means also to be a practitioner of conversational arts.   Many of the places I work are difficult places, and I can see now that what makes me a practitioner is that I willingly choose those places because they are hard.   That is where I practice, and the practice is learning to use the social spaces between us as people to make good happen in the world.

Practice is not a retreat from the world, it is confronting your sharpest edge.   Work, for me, is like that too.