the rohn report

A book is a book. I mean it’s only a book. But for people who like books it can be a life changing experience. I’m preparing to publish a book and hopefully it will change people’s lives. It changed mine. After six years of writing, two years of looking for a publisher, innumerable edits and revisions - it’s ready. Here’s the cover picture. It’s a detail from the White Shaman painting from west Te...

It’s spring! With lots of rain and the wild flowers are wild. Hey that’s not a sentence but I don’t care. It’s spring with lots of rain. And the wild flowers are wild. Here in my neighborhood, a friendly suburb about 6 miles north of the downtown, lots of homeowners are practicing wildscaping. That’s the practice where you give the wildflowers a chance to bewild and do their thing. Front yards and...

This is a replay from October 4, 2021. It was only for paid subscribers and I wanted to reprise it partly because not many people saw it and partly because I don’t have the new newsletter finished yet and partly because it’s super cool and I’m still dealing with this stuff, big time. I have made additions and alterations to the original post. Here we go . . . This exciting edition of the rohn repo...

the mighty vision Envision a world where all the things essential to life are readily available for everybody: food, water, shelter, healthcare. No one is deprived. Envision a world based on the idea that human beings are more important than corporations. Envision a world where healthcare is not a product but a gift. Something we can give each other and ourselves. Of course professional health car...

If you were a bug this would be the Amazon rain forest. For my cat Betos it’s a place to hide and hang out and meditate. For me it’s a bountiful cornucopia of fecundity. For my neighbors it’s probably a reason to be annoyed. I do think I need to thin it out a little, clear a path to the street, but it bothers me to pull out anything that’s green and growing. There are hundreds of sunflowers here,...

Matcha It’s basically green tea ( Camellia sinensis ) that’s been shaded for 3 or 4 weeks before being harvested. That pumps up the theanine , an amino acid with health benefits and the caffeine, well we all know what that is. Matcha latte is my drink of choice at the cafe these days. It’s made by whisking the bright green powder made from the leaves (with the stems and veins removed) into hot wat...

Wow, here we are in the middle of now. Everything that has come before is history and everything that’s to come is next. It’s like we’re standing still on an escalator or one of those moving walkways like they have in airports. Our past is a long string of episodes strung out behind us, our future is slowly coming into view and we are standing still in now. In another sense the future doesn’t real...

I rolled down the hill from my house the other day on my bike and encountered the grand opening of ‘One Another Cafe’ in the church parking lot. It was a positive happening: parents with their kids, local neighbors gathered round, the friendly baristas inside the trailer ready to take my order and the sun just beginning to rise through a cloudy sky. It was so pleasant and positive that I wondered...

“A great fire burns within me, but no one stops to warm themselves at it, and passers-by only see a wisp of smoke.” wrote Vincent in a letter to his brother Theo. Then I will stop, Vincent, and warm myself at your fire. I know you had great struggles and turmoils and equally great transformations and victories. I know that you came into your highest powers while the depression and madness worked o...

Here we are in the modern world. Our storytelling is all electronic, pretty much these days, unless you’re waiting in line at the cafe then somebody might say “Is that your bike?” and you would says “yes”, so pleased that someone would notice and embark on a story of your own, something short and pithy hopefully, and they respond with their own story, how they rode their bike 43 mph one time down...

The San Pedro Creek originates at the San Pedro Spring a couple of miles from downtown San Antonio. It has been a special place, a sacred site for thousands of years. It still is. Actually there is more than one spring in the 46 acre San Pedro Park, but most of the time they’re dry. They don’t flow. Only if there is a major rain event will the springs fill with water and spill out into the creek b...

welcome to the rohn report . . . for thursday march 9, 2023 tone poem somehow i see christmas trees while listening to this brightly lit christmas trees / numerous and shinyglittery now it’s dark / a large pit with only one ladder / it’s broken then the wars of Rome on a newsreel / a battle scene clear water / like a gel or an expensive brand of toothpastenow it’s greenish it’s amazing what you ca...

I’ve got Aloe growing in profusion on my front porch. It seems to like it there. It has a spire. Babies abound among the sessile fronds. It’s a beautiful thing, it’s a healing, welcoming, generous plant. If only we could know the magic of plants: who they are, how they work, what they do - we would be rich indeed, that’s my thought as I ponder the profusion of aloes. Old don Juan was a plant guy....

I’m having this sort of epic mythic battle in my mind: my desire to be a hermit and latibulate vs. my aspiration to be a famous poet and go to book signings. Part of me wants to start up new projects like podcasting on location, live with interviews and interactions. But then I realize I would have to interact with people and be responsible. As it is now I can cruise down Broadway any time I want,...

Shirley Horn was singing ‘Here’s to Life’ when I clicked on KRTU the jazz station this morning. It was powerful. I stopped what I was doing (mindlessly browsing the internet basically) and began reminiscing about my own life; what it has been like and what it can be. You know, all those existential questions that we ask ourselves in the middle of the night or on the top of the mountain or when som...

This week’s rohn report is late. I couldn’t think of anything to write about. It’s not like there’s not enough going on all around me all the time - the cars, the city, the wars, the bombings, the biosphere, the blogosphere, people doing things, the news, the economy, money, the stock market, issues and reasons and logos and diseases. Way more than I can even comprehend. It makes me want to hide,...

this guy pulls up in his black and silver BMW / the headlights are narrowed suspicious looking cunning aggressive / he paid for that / the side view mirror folds in when he turns it off / safety precaution the trees form a border between heaven and earth against a hazy morning sky the broad street is paved with asphalt a river flooded with cars it’s a parade all different kinds of cars driven (no...

Music has become a big part of the rohn report. And it has made it so enjoyable to work on. Finding the music, among the bajillions of songs on Youtube, identifying the tracks that will work with the words of the essay and editing them together. Spoken word and music. Like it ever was. Most of you may not realize it, or even care (haha), but the podcast is edited on Final Cut Pro - a video and aud...

I spent the past week in quiet repose. Nothing compelling appeared on the screen of my mind, no writing projects, no ambitious need to say something, no urgency to accomplish anything. Mostly what I’ve been trying to do is inhabit my own body; own it and feel it. Notice my own existence and be in communion with it. Sleep alot. Wake up slowly. Eat simply. Meditate. I’ve been meditating. Kairos, I w...

it sure surrounds us most dayssky and treesof course there are buildings tooplaced there among the carsand the amazing moments that connect us what do children feel before they can speak? what do trees feel between their roots? we know they communicatethru the mushroom myceliumsignals are sent in the form of chemicals these things are placed among ussky and treescars and buildingsit’s wild as a ju...

Yes, that would be us then. The hero is portrayed in art, literature and mythology but that’s only because it’s our story. Joseph Campbell’s transcendent, triumphant book explores and elucidates this point. It’s so richly adorned with wisdom and profoundly illuminated ideas that it’s slow going. I re-read entire passages to get all of it or just to savor the deliciousness of it again. If you would...

According to family lore, William Bradford , the governor of the Plymouth Colony (later absorbed into the Massachusetts Bay Colony) and a passenger aboard the Mayflower (that landed at Cape Cod in 1620), was an ancestor of mine. He was instrumental in the success of the first English colony in New England and perhaps the most famous of all the Pilgrims that celebrated Thanksgiving with the Indians...

Ok, maybe it’s not a Christmas movie but it does have an elf in it (Sebastian) and a Santa Claus of sorts (Tyrell) and an angel (Pris). It also has a bad boy, Roy, who all he wants for Christmas is ‘more life f#ø*!r’. Ok bad word but he gets his point across. He’s having a conversation with Tyrell, his maker (Roy is a replicant - not ‘human’). “More human than human is our motto” Tyrell informs Ro...

I can’t stop watching kids. I’m at the Pearl and there are kids in strollers, kids in their parent’s arms, kids tugging on their parents from down below or walking hand in hand along the broad way. One child is lifted out of her stroller and set down on the ground, she seems stunned as if she were just born that very moment. Utterly fascinating. What are they seeing? What are they perceiving in th...

I learned how to run the mile back in high school. Four laps around the track. I remember the feeling. Sometimes terrifying, sometimes exhilarating. For training we used to run the ‘big block’: six miles out in the country, past the apple and peach orchards of southwestern Michigan and back into town. Sometimes we’d run the ‘little block’. That was out around Bettis Hill and back. Just depended on...