You are not your job

“If you’re saying something is important in your life but you aren’t spending time on it, then you need to change either what you say your values are, or the way you spend your time.” - Dorothy Lehmkul, Organizing for the Creative Person
There is a disconnect in many of our lives, and it can be [...]

Calling all imaginary friends

Hey! Calling all imaginary friends!
- Nada Surf
Human beings are born with an innate gift for imagination, and as we age, we gradually lose that skill. Only through conscious cultivation can we keep our creative abilities as sharp and wide-eyed as they were in the days before we knew anything about them.
In his book “How to [...]

It is easy to understand

One of my very favorite passages from the Tao - and one that cuts through virtually all of the rest of them -comes at the top of passage 70:
My teachings are easy to understand
and easy to put into practice.
Yet your intellect will never grasp them,
and if you try to practice them, you’ll fail.
This, to me, [...]

An introduction to Practical Tao

Hi, I’m James Bickers … and I’m happy to welcome you to Practical Tao!
I discovered Taoism roughly 20 years ago; it made an immediate and indelible impact on my life, and although the level of that impact has varied in the subsequent years, the focus on the tao has been a persistent part of my [...]