NEWSLETTER — SHARON KAGAN

Undoing

a book in the making

Undoing is a book of collected essays written in response to my video/performance The Undoing: Forgiveness. The book is not about changing people’s minds; it is about bringing attention to an open and ever-expanding dialogue about forgiveness, its various meanings, and its possibilities.

The book is structured to reflect the randomness of life, the magic of starting a conversation with someone you don’t know, of learning something new from someone unexpected.

The Buddhist Teachers & Authors, an excerpt

Internal Knots

"The practice of mindfulness encourages us in the direction of recognizing a knot as it arises so that we can do the spiritual work of untying the knot. This is a skill that we can all learn so that we can release the fetters, untie the knots, and unbind ourselves before the knot can grow tighter and stronger."

Dr Larry Ward and Dr Peggy Rowe Ward

Senior dharma teachers in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh,

Authors of America’s Racial Karma, Making Friends with Time and Love’s Garden

The Materials Scientist, an excerpt

"We hurt, we feel resentment, we have all manner of pain and shame and anger. It sticks inside our hearts, and all we want to do is to transform it, to smooth out the stickiness, to weave silk instead of waxy twine. I watch the thread unravel, it unsticks my heart, there is a feeling of freedom, of release, of hope."

Jordana Blacksberg has a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. She currently works in the space industry on instrumentation for the exploration of other planets in the solar system.

As the daughter of Holocaust Survivors, whose parents fought the Nazis as members of the only all Jewish partisan group, I was raised in a boiling soup of rage, grief, and understandably, the lack of any possibility of forgiveness.

Still Looking for Essays

I am looking for essays from a school teacher, a retail worker, an economist, a graphic designer, woodworker, computer/internet/social media person, plumber, journalist, geographer, athlete, politician, record producer, actor… Please contact me if you are interested in contributing.