Rage is a very complicated emotion that is commonly understood as a part of our flight or flight response to the world; we go into a rage as a defensive move in order to protect ourselves from danger. However, danger is subjective. While we can all agree that running into a bear in the woods is dangerous, we don't all...
This afternoon we had a little personal graduation ceremony for our daughter outside of our home with some friends. I gave a short speech about ritual and transitions that I wanted to share here. Her speech was great and we are very proud of her. I grew up in this house and I graduated from high school over 30 years ago....
The first line of "All The Rage," our film about the work of Dr John Sarno, is, "The Stories we tell ourselves about ourselves shape our sense of who we are." The first lines of any story are the foundation for that tale, and this insight into how much our perspective shapes our narrative is central to the story of...
Recently I offered to do a workshop for Sidewalk Film Festival. They asked me to focus on distribution since we have distributed all of our own films. A while ago I wrote a post called "Lessons Learned" about the the lessons we learned from making each film. This post shares some themes, but it is a bit more practical in...
A few weeks ago I had drafted this post about how our learned defensive behaviors might make us feel safer but often at the expense of connection. Finding a way to be present and aware, so that when a threat arises we are able to respond to it is preferable to being on guard. I sat down to edit it...
I started going to yoga classes last year, and over time, it has become an integral part of my life. There are times in our lives when we try to do something new and it doesn't stick. A few years later, we might try it again and still find it doesn't seem right for us. Then, at some point, we...
When was the last time you found yourself really upset about something you couldn’t control, like a cancelled flight, or a misplaced car reservation? Did you find yourself yelling at the person at the desk or on the phone? Or, did you simply accept the fact that you’d get on a plane at some point, or behind the wheel of...
I remember a time before the internet, when one eagerly went out to get the newspaper for an important story or event. I remember when we weren't connected by the World Wide Web. Today is a good day to think of it as a web. Webs connect us, but they can also trap us. They make it possible for us...
I’ve been feeling a little bit out of sorts for the last few days, and yesterday I realized that tomorrow is the sixth month anniversary of my mother’s death. It keeps sneaking up on me like that. As the various weekly, or monthly, anniversaries pass, I find myself struggling in some way and then realize that my body knows something...
I have three girls, two of whom I have raised since birth. Nothing about being a parent has been easy; and frankly, as good as my intentions were when I started out, I wasn't all that prepared to be a great parent. The same is true for my parents. I have no doubt that they were passionate about being wonderful...
We have been documenting political issues for 30 years. We have been making documentaries for 20 of those. This election season we hope some programmers will consider screening these films because they help us to zoom out and get some context on where we've been, where we are, and where we are headed. https://vimeo.com/ondemand/hornsandhalos Our first political do was "Horns...
Here are a few photos I found of my parents last night as I was scanning negatives for a project with my music related photos. These are from a roll I shot while on tour with my band. Our engine had died and I stayed with them for a few days while it got repaired. Often when I was hitting...