Mike Farley
@anopenground.bsky.social
Blogger at https://anopenground.com/ - secular contemplative spirituality and practice. Ex-dairy herdsman, musician, writer and contemplative based in the south-west of the UK.
What is awareness? - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/12/01/w...
December 1, 2025 at 9:55 PM
What is awareness? - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/12/01/w...
Ground and network (republished) - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/11/30/g...
Ground and network (republished)
Merlin Sheldrake, in his book Entangled Life, discusses the way all life, on this planet at least, seems to be underpinned by fungal networks, mycorrhizal webs connecting tree to tree, plant to ani…
anopenground.com
November 30, 2025 at 8:43 PM
Ground and network (republished) - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/11/30/g...
The freedom of the elbow - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/11/25/t...
The freedom of the elbow
Again and again, I find liberation in the very places I thought it was not—in brokenness and imperfection, disappointment and disillusionment, limitation and death, failure and darkness, unresolvab…
anopenground.com
November 25, 2025 at 7:06 PM
The freedom of the elbow - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/11/25/t...
Succession and substance - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/11/21/s...
Succession and substance
The stream is nothing less than the sparkling surface of becoming. For us, I suppose, it is time, since we are transient waves on the motion of what is coming to be; and we can only see what has be…
anopenground.com
November 21, 2025 at 9:20 PM
Succession and substance - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/11/21/s...
An admission - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/11/21/a...
An admission
It seems to me that perhaps I may have been precipitate in switching back entirely to Blogger as a platform. It is hard, sometimes, to admit that one may have made a mistake; but possibly I have do…
anopenground.com
November 21, 2025 at 5:45 AM
An admission - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/11/21/a...
Is it possible? - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.blogspot.com/2025/11/is-i...
Is it possible?
Secular contemplative spirituality, silence, the solitary life
anopenground.blogspot.com
November 20, 2025 at 9:22 PM
Is it possible? - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.blogspot.com/2025/11/is-i...
Vastness - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.blogspot.com/2025/11/vast...
Vastness
Secular contemplative spirituality, silence, the solitary life
anopenground.blogspot.com
November 18, 2025 at 9:22 PM
Vastness - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.blogspot.com/2025/11/vast...
The fundamental unknowability of God - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.blogspot.com/2025/11/the-...
November 16, 2025 at 9:20 PM
The fundamental unknowability of God - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.blogspot.com/2025/11/the-...
Reposted by Mike Farley
What's the linguistically correct term for Santa's little helpers?
Subordinate clauses
👍
Subordinate clauses
👍
November 15, 2025 at 4:48 PM
What's the linguistically correct term for Santa's little helpers?
Subordinate clauses
👍
Subordinate clauses
👍
By the window - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.blogspot.com/2025/11/by-w...
By the window
Secular contemplative spirituality, silence, the solitary life
anopenground.blogspot.com
November 14, 2025 at 9:33 PM
By the window - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.blogspot.com/2025/11/by-w...
Back to Blogger! I am reverting to good old Blogger. For future posts, please go to An Open Ground, using this link. You can request an email subscription by using the Contact Form in the right sidebar, below the RSS feed buttons. See you there!
anopenground.blogspot.com
anopenground.blogspot.com
An Open Ground
Contemplative spirituality, secular Buddhism, silence, the solitary life
anopenground.blogspot.com
November 14, 2025 at 6:43 PM
Back to Blogger! I am reverting to good old Blogger. For future posts, please go to An Open Ground, using this link. You can request an email subscription by using the Contact Form in the right sidebar, below the RSS feed buttons. See you there!
anopenground.blogspot.com
anopenground.blogspot.com
Self and stream - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/11/12/s...
Self and stream
We are, says Daniel Dennett, illusions. Benign user illusions, but illusions nonetheless. Our minds construct our sense of self in order that we may see how we relate to others, to objects, to ours…
anopenground.com
November 12, 2025 at 9:47 PM
Self and stream - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/11/12/s...
A sense of naked inadequacy - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/11/11/a...
A sense of naked inadequacy
Apophatic spirituality has to start at the point where every other possibility ends. Whether we arrive there by means of a moment of stark extremity in our lives, or (metaphorically) by way of entr…
anopenground.com
November 11, 2025 at 9:06 PM
A sense of naked inadequacy - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/11/11/a...
Blessedness - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/11/07/b...
Blessedness
In the practice of contemplation, one comes eventually to embrace an apophatic anthropology, letting go of everything one might have imagined as constituting the self—one’s thoughts, one’s desires,…
anopenground.com
November 7, 2025 at 9:29 PM
Blessedness - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/11/07/b...
Following the stream - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/11/04/f...
Following the stream
It seems to me that what comes to be is, in its own essence, no more (and no less) than the necessity of things to be what they are: caused by events in what we call their past, and in turn causing…
anopenground.com
November 4, 2025 at 9:27 PM
Following the stream - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/11/04/f...
Otherness - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/11/02/o...
Otherness
In my last post, I mentioned my sense that in situations of what I called transcendent powerlessness: we can touch – or be touched by – something electric and quite beyond ourselves. In…
anopenground.com
November 2, 2025 at 6:59 PM
Otherness - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/11/02/o...
Powerless: a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/11/01/p...
Powerless
Learning to navigate life’s changing nature from center is one of the gifts of endarkenment (to commit to turning toward rather than away from physical and symbolic darkness and to learn to perceiv…
anopenground.com
November 1, 2025 at 9:55 PM
Powerless: a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/11/01/p...
Changes: a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/10/29/c...
Changes
Suffering is, by its nature, the primary mechanism of change… It somehow presents us with the opportunity to transform into something else, something different, hopefully something better… This cha…
anopenground.com
October 29, 2025 at 9:36 PM
Changes: a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/10/29/c...
Faith and contemplation - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/10/26/f...
Faith and contemplation
We still seek wholeness. It is intrinsic to human identity that, however much we have achieved, we are never satisfied. We hunger and thirst for what lies beyond our grasp and even beyond the horiz…
anopenground.com
October 26, 2025 at 10:36 PM
Faith and contemplation - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/10/26/f...
Keeping it simple - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/10/24/k...
Keeping it simple
Remember that thoughts are only the product of the momentary confluence of a great number of factors. In themselves they do not exist. Thus, the moment they arise, recognize that their nature is em…
anopenground.com
October 24, 2025 at 8:06 PM
Keeping it simple - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/10/24/k...
Silence and language - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/10/21/s...
Silence and language
Even in silence, the linguistic apparatus of our brain continues in the background wash of thought. Even when we avoid the incessant temptation to follow, to identify with thoughts as they arise, w…
anopenground.com
October 21, 2025 at 10:06 PM
Silence and language - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/10/21/s...
About being awake - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/10/15/a...
About being awake
Oddly enough, I do mean just being awake, now; not planning to wake up, not undertaking to awaken after sufficient steps (hours, certifications) have been acquired. Joan Tollifson, writing in Explo…
anopenground.com
October 15, 2025 at 9:28 PM
About being awake - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/10/15/a...
All it comes down to - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/10/14/a...
All it comes down to
All that practice comes down to, in the end, is acceptance: that open stillness that listens to the unsaid, watches quietly for the opening of the undifferentiated ground beneath all that is, the I…
anopenground.com
October 14, 2025 at 8:39 PM
All it comes down to - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/10/14/a...
Being still - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/10/08/b...
Being still
To remain still is one of the fundamental conditions of contemplative practice, and yet it is also one of its fruits. Many of us will remember how hard it was to stay still as children, even –…
anopenground.com
October 8, 2025 at 9:44 PM
Being still - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/10/08/b...
Breath - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/10/05/b...
October 5, 2025 at 7:21 AM
Breath - a new post on An Open Ground: anopenground.com/2025/10/05/b...