Essays

Gastronomy in Ancient China, by Donald Harper

April 21, 2018By Donald Harper

Cooking for the sage king

Participators of Sacred Things by Roger Lipsey

March 20, 2018By Roger Lipsey

The structure of traditional art

Circles of Time by J. Stephen Lansing

March 9, 2018By J. Stephen Lansing

Being “old” in Bali

Walking the Maze, by Pamela Travers

February 20, 2018By Pamela Travers

The way in, the way out

The Call of the Earth, by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

January 10, 2018By Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Reconnecting to the sacred, from a Sufi teacher

“THE FIVE HEARTS OF DIVINE LOVE WITH CHRIST CRUCIFIED” FIFTEENTH CENTURY, GERMANY, WOOD-CUT

Love and Money, by Richard Smoley

January 10, 2018By Richard Smoley

The secret prices of love

Refugee Camp Alchemy, by Kenneth Krushel

November 1, 2017By Kenneth Krushel

A Palestinian rapper and the music of hope

Remarkable Beings, by Eleanor O’Hanlon

November 1, 2017By Eleanor O'Hanlon

Among elephants, it’s a family affair

You Would Run for Your Life, by Tracy Cochran

November 1, 2017By Tracy Cochran

A mother and daughter trace their roots to the Vikings—and to those they conquered

The Anonymous Ones, by Margaret Dulaney

November 1, 2017By Margaret Dulaney

Come join the circle of we who pray

“You cannot serve both God and mammon,” advises Jesus in the Gospel of St. Matthew, but many of us spend our lives trying to do just that. Our inner search is real—and so is our desire for the pleasures of this world and the money that can buy them.

In this Spring 2018 issue on “Wealth,” we explore how men and women, great teachers and ordinary sinners alike, have approached this fundamental challenge of human existence: God, mammon, or both? The ways are many. Read more>

Stephen Weiss, MD, portrait of Brother David Steindl-Rast, Mt. Saviour Monastery, Elmira, NY

Learning to Die, by Brother David Steindl-Rast

The only point where one can start to talk about anything, including death, is where one finds oneself. And for me this is as a Benedictine monk. In the rule of St. Benedict, the momenta […]

The Art of Cleaning, by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee and Hilary Hart

Housework as spiritual practice, from a Sufi master

Marion Woodman and the Search for the Conscious Feminine, by Patty de Llosa

“The true feminine is the receptacle of love. The true masculine is the spirit that goes into the eternal unknown in search of meaning. The great container, the Self, is paradoxically both male and female […]

Hearing the Cries of the World, by Mark Nepo

This story is so old we don’t know who told it or who it’s about, except that it speaks to all of us. We no longer know if it was a “he” or “she” at the center of the story. […]

To Go Beyond Thought, an Interview with Karen Armstrong

One bright spring day, Parabola met with Karen Armstrong in her suite at the Parker Meridian hotel in Manhattan. The petite, friendly 62-year-old British ex-nun, arguably the most influential commentator on religion in the English-speaking […]

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