Jo Chern

Category: Uncategorized

  • The Tiniest of Spiders in This Troubled Web

    The email from my massage therapist was brief. Their two woman massage clinic would be closing for two weeks during the Covid-19 outbreak. Massage, she pointed out, wasn’t compatible with “social distancing.” I can imagine them thinking as they made this decision “two weeks? four? two months?” because who can tell when, if ever, their…

  • Villanelle For “The Black Dog” (version 2)

      You’ll go through each motion, one by one, As dark night gives way to blacker day. You begin with “I’ll live,” as you’ve always done.   Pull the cord, raise the blinds, turn away from the sun. Step into the shower.  Coat the  pain in wet spray. You must go through each motion, one…

  • Villanelle For The Black Dog (First Draft)

      You will go through each motion, one by one, As gentle night gives up to brutal day. And repeat, “I’ll live.” As you’ve always done.   Pull the cord of the blinds, turn your back to the sun, Step into the shower, dissolve in the spray. You will go through each motion, one by…

  • News

    Pricing info for summer will be here soon. The Summer Spots post has brief descriptions of what’s available.

  • Slipping into the slow muddle of Sunday, full of all and no possibilities.

  • The Parable Series: Where Are My Damn Keys?

    And so the parable goes: There was a very wealthy man who kept all his money, jewels and gold locked inside a box inside his mansion. One late night, he wanted to go count his loot but couldn’t remember where he left the keys. “I know I had them in my house last I looked…

  • “Nothing Special”

    “I have been there and come back. It was nothing special: The river at high tide, The mountain veiled by misty rain”                                                                         Zen Buddhist saying Beauty…

  • Oh, Whatever!

    After a brief moment of thinking I should change my display name to match my main blog (tp make me easier to find), I thought “Nah, I really am skinnylegsnall”! So back to the original. Talk about too much overthinking. Must do the Spleen Healing Sound tonight.

  • So, A Buddhist and A Taoist Walk Into A Bar…

    I often write about Buddhist ideas and refer to authors and Buddhist scholars like Jack Kornfield but I have to admit I’m just not a nice enough person to be a Buddhist. Really. Quietly and patiently putting up with jive? I think not. Sitting quietly under the bodhi tree awaiting enlightenment like the bodhidarma? Ain’t…

  • The Meditation of the Stinky Feet

    Sitting, my free ten minutes scrolling before me, I find the breath, acknowledge the sensation and happily settle into my meditation. When I meditate, I try not to shut out the world, try instead to let all sensation in, listening to not just my breath but the gentleman, using the term loosely, in the next…