Out of the Box: How Raven gave light to the world
Before I gave birth to the child, I lived alone with my father in a cold world of eternal night. Outside the door of our longhouse a thick blackness covered the earth. It was so dark that when I took…
Healing Water Goddesses
Water is crucial to all life on Earth, and from the earliest records of human history we have venerated its healing and regenerative powers. It is no surprise that many healing water deities are goddesses: the life-giving, wellness-nurturing properties of…
Suvannavanna Hamsa Jataka: The Golden Swan
Prologue Long, long ago, in the far distant past, the Bodhisatta was born as a swan.1 He grew up to become the leader of a great flock of swans. They were known as the Dhatarattha clan. Their feathers were the…
Sarabha-miga Jataka, The Noble Stag, Retold by Margo McLoughlin
A Deer Hunt. c.1775 from Kotah, Rajasthan, India. Pigments on paper Once the Bodhisatta was born as a deer. He grew up to be a magnificent stag—a Sambar, the largest of the many kinds of deer that roam the forests…
The Way of the Householder, Retold by Rama Devagupta
Photograph by Hans Eiskonen Anonymous Hindu Long, long ago in a holy forest, there lived a young ascetic named Kaushika. Because he had renounced the worldly…
Tsunemasa, Retold by Kenneth Lawrence with Artwork by Kumiko Lawrence
Artwork by Kumiko Lawrence Attributed to Zeami Motokiyo | Japanese Noh Retold by Kenneth E. Lawrence Translated by Edward Kai Lawrence Art by Kumiko Lawrence When…
Suvannavanna Hamsa Jataka: The Golden Swan
Prologue Long, long ago, in the far distant past, the Bodhisatta was born as a swan.1 He grew up to become the leader of a great flock of swans. They…
The Awakened Eye, by Frederick Franck
Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926): An Orchard in Spring, 1886 I was five years old. My mother and a friend I was expected to address as “Aunt”…
The Verses of Ambapali, by Margo McLoughlin
A new translation and commentary by Margo McLoughlin Ambapali | Buddhist In Vesali, in ancient India, at the time of the Buddha, a baby girl was born spontaneously at the…
How Wisdom Became the Property of the Human Race, by Anonymous (West African)
Again and Again Anansi Tried To Climb the Tree There once lived, in Fanti-land, a man named Father Anansi. He possessed all the wisdom in the…
Izanagi and Izanami, a Japanese myth, Retold by Paul Jordan-Smith
Searching the Seas with the Tenkei (天瓊を以て滄海を探るの図 Tenkei o motte sōkai o saguru no zu). Painting by Kobayashi Eitaku, 1880-90 (MFA, Boston). The story of Izanagi…
Zen Moments, by Pamela Travers
Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849), Tea house at Koishikawa. The morning after a snowfall We sit on our heels on the tatami, the Japanese woman and myself, telling…
Out of the Box: How Raven gave light to the world
Before I gave birth to the child, I lived alone with my father in a cold world of eternal night. Outside the door of our longhouse a thick blackness covered…
Two Stories, by Mullah Nasr Eddin
Mullah Nasr Eddin Mullah Nasr Eddin, or Hodja Nasr Eddin, is a legendary Turkish teller of tales, a sort of wise fool, to whom all sorts…
Ceremony, an Aztec myth, By Fray Juan de Torquemada and Translated by David Johnson
Tezcatlipoca from the Codex Borgia They say that after the birth of the Fifth Sun, when the Gods had sacrificed themselves to get the Sun moving…
The Unasked Question, Retold by Paul Jordan-Smith
From The Boy’s King Arthur, 1922. N.C. Wyeth Anonymous | Medieval European “AND WOE TO HIM who failed to ask the question burning in his heart.…
The Thanksgiving Prayer, Adapted from the Mohawk
Illustration by John Kahionhes Fadden THE THANKSGIVING PRAYER Adapted from the Mohawk by John Stokes and David Kanawahienton Benedict The People Today we have gathered and…