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Recent Posts
- Psaltery & Lyre’s New Site
- 123 Psaltery & Lyre: “Agricola Dreams of Flying” by J. Rose Lara
- 122 Psaltery & Lyre: “Communion: a love poem (a villanelle)” by Rachel Bollinger
- Book Review: Philip Metres’s Sand Opera
- 121 Psaltery & Lyre: Rachael Matthews, “Horsehead Nebula”
- Book Review: Monica Ong’s Silent Anatomies
- 120 Psaltery & Lyre: Rachael Matthews, “Return, pt. III” and “Gaia”
- Book Review: Claudia Rankine’s Don’t Let Me Be Lonely
- Book Review: Matthea Harvey, If the Tabloids Are True What Are You?
- Book Review: LoterÃa Cards and Fortune Poems: A Book of Lives
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Cipher on a Wall Archive
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Good Eye
Posted on October 1, 2011 | 10 CommentsToday’s Cipher on the Wall comes to us from Corktree, today’s guest for The Exponent and Doves and Serpent Blog Swap. Does a camera see the world as it really is? Do physical filters and lenses distort reality just as much as our completely […] -
Joseph Smith and the Archetypes of the Collectively Unconscious Male
Posted on June 25, 2011 | 5 CommentsIn their 1990 publication, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine, Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette suggested during the apex of the “men’s movement” that males should listen to the wisdom of the ages in searching for mature expressions of modern […] -
Stories and Stone
Posted on June 18, 2011 | 9 CommentsHaving arrived in London last week on an ordinary mid-week mid-morning, I exited the lofty frame of St Pancras International Station, onto Pentonville Road. Consulting the compass on my phone, I walked West first, the great art galleries near Trafalgar Square as my destination. The […] -
Battles – ‘Gloss Drop’ Tour, London
Posted on June 11, 2011 | 1 CommentFrom the packed-in floor of a dark club (under Victorian railway tracks), and through the dancing columns of sound and light, the three members of Battles appear as conjurors, athletes, inventors, and heroes. Playing mostly material from their brand-new album (released this week) ‘Gloss Drop‘, […] -
On Shoes
Posted on June 4, 2011 | 18 CommentsAccording to their origins, shoes are functional items. They give a degree of protection against the chance of you stepping on something sharp or unfriendly, and may be designed to offer additional grip, warmth and in some cases, speed, compared with the bare foot. But […] -
‘We Have Won’: The Spirit of the Marathon
Posted on May 28, 2011 | 16 CommentsIn the year 490 BC, so the story goes, a herald from Athens named Pheidippides, already having run 150 miles over the previous days, ran the 25 mile distance from the battlefield at Marathon to Athens, to announce the victory over the Persian armies. As […] -
The Illusion of Equality
Posted on May 22, 2011 | 21 CommentsToday, a guest post from Helen. I read a review of Rebecca Asher’s book the week it came out in print, and decided to order it straight away. One of the most exciting things was reading a book written right now, talking about things happening […] -
Love letters to Amy Poehler
Posted on May 21, 2011 | 17 CommentsA few years ago I was crossing Castro street in San Francisco after a yoga class when I was stopped by an enthusiastic man. “Hey! You look exactly like that girl from SNL, what’s her name?,” he asks. “Amy Poehler?” I offer, as if I’ve […] -
A System
Posted on May 14, 2011 | 7 CommentsIn the 2000 Christopher Nolan film Memento, the central character (Leonard) has a big problem with his memory. After an accident an indeterminable amount of time ago, he is unable to form new memories, and while he feels he has a good recollection of everything […] -
What Dreams May Come
Posted on May 7, 2011 | 8 CommentsThere are two ways into the world of dreams. The first is to walk in consciously, the second is to achieve consciousness during or after it. These two modes suggest two ways of dealing with the unconscious mind: the largest part of our brain, and the seat of all that we do not understand about ourselves. -
Marshmallows, Obedience and You
Posted on April 30, 2011 | 12 CommentsIn the famous Stanford Marshmallow Experiment (1972), Professor Walter Mischel gave four year-old children a marshmallow, and instructed them that if they waited twenty minutes without eating it, they would be given another one. Mischel observed that although some would “cover their eyes with their […] -
The Good Book
Posted on April 23, 2011 | 3 CommentsI love getting books in the mail. No seriously: I feel like no one could possibly understand how much I love it. It doesn’t happen often enough, but when we returned home from a recent trip out of town, there was a lovely hardback book […] -
“Come to Zion”
Posted on April 16, 2011 | 10 Comments‘Zion’ has become a dirty word in our world: now it is shorthand for the displacement of native peoples from their homelands, and a justification for the flexing of military power for scriptural causes. I’m not sure that when my people sing songs about ‘Zion’ […] -
Time’s Fractal Line
Posted on April 9, 2011 | 4 Comments‘I wish I had more time in my life.’ A friend wrote this on his Facebook wall yesterday. It’s a problem I can certainly relate to: I often feel the sands of time slipping through some cosmic hourglass, with too few of the things I […] -
The West
Posted on April 2, 2011 | 3 CommentsYesterday on ‘Rogue Cinema’ I wrote about one of my Granddad’s favourite films, the 1955 version of Oklahoma!, and pondered how this representation of the American West appealed to his personal psychology. He was a man with an abundance of energy, who loved amateur dramatics, […] -
Let’s Walk Together
Posted on March 26, 2011 | 4 CommentsIt’s easy to be unconscious about our consciousness. The stories that we tell ourselves make up our world, but it’s natural to be unaware of the huge potential power that lies in exploring and examining the processes that form these stories. ‘Life is what you […] -
Family Home Evening at “God’s Favorite Musical”
Posted on March 3, 2011 | 23 CommentsGuest Post: by Ian – An Early Review of The Book of Mormon Musical. This past Monday I had quite the Family Home Evening-I saw a preview performance of the new BOM Musical. I was in NYC for work and wasn’t going to miss my […] -
A Prophet at Wartime
Posted on February 26, 2011 | 6 CommentsWhat does this Prophet deplore in war? The actions of the enemy? The actions of the US-led coalition? War in general? It's hard to tell and this appears to be by design and consistent with the LDS church's oft-stated mantra that it avoids making political statements. -
Adam-God Theory
Posted on February 19, 2011 | 11 CommentsWhat we believe truly matters. Most of what we believe has its roots in what we were taught as children by people who we once rightfully worshipped as demi-gods; [...] These are the source of our own private Adam-God Theory. -
Leaving
Posted on February 12, 2011 | 33 CommentsI'm in the process of choosing to leave. I'm almost there. There's only a consideration of the cost. -
Mirror
Posted on February 5, 2011 | 9 CommentsWhen the Universe ends-or re-begins?-how will we know? Who will write the history of it? And what is the basis of any hope that anyone would care to read it? -
The Golden Rule
Posted on February 1, 2011 | 5 Comments[UPDATED] I am bound and cannot escape. I live in shadows and mists along the edges of that magical world of my childhood; a realm where all of humanity is enslaved by unhappiness and fear of certain destruction ... unless ... -
Scapegoats
Posted on January 29, 2011 | 15 Comments"Don't blame it all on the devil" seems a reasonable enough point for mature minds. Maybe too obvious a point? It's tempting to take all of this at face value and assume that Defoe's meaning is simple, but I'd like to suggest something further ... -
The Power and the Glory of Quirky Observation
Posted on January 22, 2011 | 11 CommentsI've recently been reminded of how some, more quirky observations can easily lead to delightful moments of wonder and a spine-tingling connectedness with the whole bad-ass universe. We might fail for words ... except perhaps an astonished, I know! -
Bake-ru
Posted on January 15, 2011 | 2 Comments'Bake' isn't just about changing, its about the charm that transforms everyday innocuous items into unrecognizable, uncooperative objects through unknown mischief. When we find ourselves stupefied by keys that should work, or items that have inexplicably disappeared, it has 'bake-ru.' -
Mojibake!
Posted on January 8, 2011 | 14 Comments[Updated with Bad Religion] The Holy Bible tells a story rich in metaphor which marks the tendency for information to change as it passes through and between human minds. The story I'm thinking of is The Tower of Babel, of course. -
London Calling
Posted on January 1, 2011 | 18 Comments[UPDATED] I took a call from London at four this morning -- that's 11 AM London time. It was my fifteen year-old daughter in tears at having discovered that she and her roommate had slept through their alarm, gone unnoticed by chaperones and ultimately missed the coach ... -
Wish I Had A River
Posted on December 25, 2010 | 4 CommentsTaking a break this week but I want to share just a little something anyway. Because it’s Christmas and not everyone feels warm and cozy today. Some may be as far from those they love as the moon is far from the earth. I’m thinking […] -
Lamb Chop In The Sky
Posted on December 18, 2010 | 4 CommentsIf a boy becomes a man and can still feel the tug of an emotion from across 40 years, one may guess that the experience was profound - and so it was. -
Golden Slumbers
Posted on December 11, 2010 | 20 CommentsGolden slumbers kiss your eyes, Smiles awake you when you rise; Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry, And I will sing a lullaby, Rock them, rock them, lullaby. Care is heavy, therefore sleep you, You are care, and care must keep you; Sleep, pretty wantons, […] -
Penelope’s List
Posted on December 4, 2010 | 12 CommentsIs the desire to be happy a human universal? Or is it just another one of those preferences that arise from the murky depths of some personalities? On its face this question seems to have an obvious answer. I mean, who doesn’t want to be […] -
Device
Posted on November 20, 2010 | 5 CommentsBirthdays are a natural time to put one’s current moment into the perspective of history. This past week I’m realizing just how much history has slipped by in so little time. I guess all I can really ask is to live an eventful life, so […] -
Blessed Eve, Mother of All Living
Posted on November 13, 2010 | 8 CommentsThe opposite of life is not death, rather never knowing. Yet knowledge has been called a forbidden fruit and a poison … the root of all evil … a bitter token of death. And Eve, she who was tempted to partake, has been made to […] -
A Man of Letters
Posted on November 6, 2010 | 24 CommentsEverything I have learned about God is written in a book. In fact, it's difficult to imagine how my worldview might differ had certain ideas not been memorialized, glorified, and canonized in the form of holy books ... -
Golem
Posted on October 30, 2010 | 8 CommentsThere is a story among my people of the time before. It is a story meant to answer the youthful questions: “Who am I? What am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going?” It is a story meant to bind the heart […] -
Seeing
Posted on October 23, 2010 | 18 CommentsClouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line ... -
Foreplay/Long Time
Posted on October 16, 2010 | 14 CommentsHow the mind trips on time. This message was set to appear live on the web at 11 AM GMT on Saturday, October 16th 2010. If all went well with so many machines and algorithms, at precisely the planned moment a bit was flipped* and […] -
Forgotten
Posted on October 9, 2010 | 34 CommentsLight of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul laments Humbert Humbert. The recollection of Lolita draws Nabokov’s unreliable narrator far back in time as the middle-aged man, now grown old with memories, paints a portrait that pleads for pity and argues […] -
Cipher on a Wall: Of Mind, Memories, and Dreams
Posted on October 4, 2010 | 7 CommentsThe mind is a stage. Does this sound familiar? Descartes continues: where ideas are illuminated by the inner light of reason. In 1973 a Mormon Apostle, Boyd K. Packer, ventured into the realm of mind with a riff on René: The mind is like a […]