Jill Jepson's Blog
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Aug.03.2012
Today, I climbed Mt. Vesuvius. The perfect cap to a near-perfect vacation. Tomorrow night, I'll be back in my own bed with my cat and my husband, ready to continue planning my fall courses and working on my novel.
As my month in Italy comes to a close, I've been thinking a lot about my experience...
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Aug.01.2012
Abandoned animals can be found in every country in the world. One of the joys of my trip to Italy was discovering groups of people who take care of dogs and cats who have been left to fend for themselves. At the main gate to the ruins of Pompeii, I discovered a sign forI Cani di Pompei...
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Jul.31.2012
The tourist buzz about Venice says don't go there. Word on the street: It's an overcrowded, overpriced tourist trap. But when I told my sister and her husband--long-time residents of Italy--that I was skipping it, they were aghast. To say they dragged me there would be an overstatement. Let'...
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Jul.29.2012
In my last post, I made a few suggestions about how to develop "square-peg" characters: how to write about the misfits, outsiders, and eccentrics of the world. (This comes right out of my own experience of being a square peg in Italy at the moment).Whether you're a fiction writer creating these...
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Jul.27.2012
Being a foreigner, especially in a country where you don't speak the language, makes you think a lot about the role of outsiders. In Italy, the fact that I'm a professor, a writer, an animal rights advocate, and a wife are pretty much irrelevant. Those roles are all overshadowed by the one I play...
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Jul.23.2012
Greetings. If you're new to the blog, I've been writing from Italy for the past two weeks. I'm now at a workshop for recorder at the Italian Foundation for Early Music in the little city of Urbino. Join me!
My workshop is set up so that each student has a 45-minute lesson every other day. In...
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Jul.16.2012
Because of last-minute changes in our plans, a ridiculously inadequate guide-book, and the general lack of signage in the city, our trip to Rome was hasty and chaotic. Our "romantic" evening at the Trevi fountain put us in the middle of a carnival-like mob of tourists and panhandlers. We spent a...
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Jul.15.2012
Mainly, what you do in Amalfi is gaze. You gaze down into thirty feet of crystal clear water the color of turquoise. You gaze up at cliffs studded with clusters of bougainvillea. You gaze at a half dozen styles of architecture, sailboats in the harbor, busy little shops.
For fifteen centuries,...
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Jul.10.2012
Thich Naht Hahn has written that people no longer know how to wait. We can't simply be in a place allowing time to pass. At doctor's offices, in bank lobbies, in subway stations, we need to fill the space. So we do things, even if those things have no value and aren't particularly...
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Jul.05.2012
Whenever I have stayed in a monastery, I have left wishing I could bring a touch of it with me, back to the world of deadlines and busy-ness, noise and chatter. The monastic life is devoted to the qualities that bring about spiritual clarity: quiet, contemplation, devotion, simplicity. These...
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Jul.04.2012
So, there I was sitting at my computer writing about the simplicity and silence of the monastic life for this evening’s blog. I have a lot to say about this topic—it’s something I think about often. I had lined up quotes from Herman Melville and Pico Iyer, Thomas Merton and Wayne G. Barr,...
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Jul.02.2012
From Writing as a Sacred Path:
In The Monastic Journey, Thomas Merton writes about “special groups of men and women who separate themselves from the ordinary life of society, take upon themselves particular and difficult obligations, and devote themselves to one task above all: to...
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Jul.02.2012
From Writing as a Sacred Path:
In The Monastic Journey, Thomas Merton writes about “special groups of men and women who separate themselves from the ordinary life of society, take upon themselves particular and difficult obligations, and devote themselves to one task above all: to...
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Jul.02.2012
From Writing as a Sacred Path:
In The Monastic Journey, Thomas Merton writes about “special groups of men and women who separate themselves from the ordinary life of society, take upon themselves particular and difficult obligations, and devote themselves to one task above all: to...
Continue Reading »
Jul.01.2012
My writing pilgrimage this week has focused on the the third of the four sacred paths of the writer: the mystic journey. I’ve looked at my own limited experiences with the quasi-mystic state often called “flow” and explored what other writers have said about it. I’ve also written about my...
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About Jill
I have spent a lifetime exploring spiritual traditions throughout the world--from Siberia to Afghanistan, Syria to Japan. I have also spent a lifetime writing. In my work, I weave together those two threads, combining the spiritual and the artistic,...
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Causes Jill Jepson Supports
Humane Society of the United States, Defenders of Wildlife, Interational Society for the Protection of Burros and Mustangs, National Wildlife Federation,...