Moses Monweal McCormick is a 33 year old African American from Columbus Ohio. If you look at this picture of him from his Instagram feed you may experience at least some preconceptions, biases and prejudices of who he might be. You are about to have them busted. You see Moses speaks over 50 languages, demonstrating fluency in more than 12. He is completely self taught. … Continue reading Video: The language of connection.
You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop. Rumi I don’t know much about Peter Russell. I have not read any of his books but his bio states that he is an author who initially studied mathematics and theoretical physics at Cambridge University (UK), before changing his studies to experimental psychology. He also travelled to India to … Continue reading Video: On consciousness.
I was given one of these for Christmas and I think they would make a great gift idea for the one you love to add to their home or travel kit. It is a push-down bottle opener. Mine is in brushed aluminium but they come in various materials and colours. You can buy one for around 10 bucks AUD. The video below shows one in … Continue reading A bottle opener and a pizza recipe.
Prologue: The Hadron Collider Kelly’s mum came to stay with us for a couple of days and I immediately put her to work helping me sew my Rakusu. We began with a few printed pages of confusing and somewhat incomplete instructions, a few shaky YouTube instructional videos, sewing threads, needles and $12.70 worth of materials. Oh, and the wooden ring given to me by my … Continue reading Rakusu Pt 2: Art from chaos.
Scrunched up against one side of an otherwise open public space near our house is a small dense stand of birch trees. There is a dirt trail running beside it that is heavily trafficked by people like me walking their dogs or, jogging, or taking a shortcut across to the local shopping centre. The trees are also just across the main road from our local … Continue reading High School kids build secret room hidden in plain sight.
We are currently house-sitting for some friends in the beautiful coastal community of Kiama. Unfortunately, the heavy smoke haze that has been rolling in each evening from the bushfires south of us has necessitated engaging with some indoor activities rather than long sunset beach walks. To wit, Kelly has been methodically solving a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle that her sister found in a second-hand store … Continue reading Jigsaw.
The competition was fierce at my niece and nephews place this year as their annual Christmas Eve gingerbread house decorating competition unfolded amidst much high spirited yelling and sugar-rush shenanigans. As co-judge to the event the pressure was on. At risk, the possibility of a total icing, M&M and jelly bean food-fight apocalypse, should an incorrect decision be made. Is he your very first gingerbread … Continue reading The great gingerbread decorating competition of 2019.
One of my quiet obsessions is watching videos on environmentally friendly architecture, alternative & self-sufficient living spaces and processes of deep craftmanship (for example THIS is one youtube channel I enjoy). This is probably some psychic grasping compensation for the fact I am illiterate to any building or creating abilities. I tell you that so I can show you this. Ian Trumbull built this circular … Continue reading The house that Ian built.
With the end of the year looming, I thought I would take a moment of self-indulgent introspection to ponder the substance of this blog and think about what I should do with it….moving forwards as they say. Right now shojiwax.com is kinda drifting around in a sort of journal format.It covers my travel experiences, my interest in the practice of Zen and it provides a place … Continue reading What the heck do I do with this blog?
