The Transforming Power of Great Sorrow
A vibrant meditation on Pietà, grief, and growth
Longing for Being
At home with past, present, future
The Unanswered Question
From absence to presence
Lament and Praise for the Earth
A passionate prayer for what is lost and what is found
Searching for Private Driscoll
Paying respects
Browse
Portfolio: David Ulrich
Can my inner work towards stillness and consciousness be reflected in images? Perhaps the moments of presence I, at times, experience can be extended outward to you, the viewer.
I Pleaded. I Waited. I Married, by Hane Selmani
Xharije’s wedding, 1970 “Who you marry and when you die was written on your forehead the day you were born,” my mother told me when I was young. I was relieved. It was lucky that God, the Infinite, the All Powerful had things under control. They were much too important to…
How to Reach Where You Already Are, by Alan Watts
Previously unpublished commentary from Alan Watts, a pioneer of East-West spirituality.
Death, The Dark Brain and Transformations in Light, by Edward Bruce Bynum
Many people may be surprised to learn that the surface of our brain is actually dark and that this darkness has consequences for our experience of consciousness and transformation itself, including our ultimate transformation at death. It also has consequences for the most subtle form of light we know, the light we associate with religious…
The Hidden Third
“The greatest responsibility of all: the transmission of the mystery.” —Basarab Nicolescu
“A Wing And A Prayer,” An Interview with Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori
An Interview with Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church from November 4, 2006 until November 1, 2015.
The Tree of Life, An Interview with Wangari Maathai
An interview with Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai
Living the Moment of Love, by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Awakening to ourselves and the world
Parabola Podcast Episode 28: The Miraculous
Story editor Betsy Cornwell shares excerpts from Parabola Magazine’s new issue, “The Miraculous,” including three new poems by beloved author Jane Yolen.
Verbum Ineffabilis, by Anita Doyle
Cezanne, Fruit and Jug on Table, Detail (1890-94). “Before she could speak, my daughter taught me the language of silent things: fruits, flowers, an oaken chair. I came to understand, through my relationship to this small being, why the word adult forms the root of adulteration and adultery. Watching her, it became…
Ars Poetica Parabola, by Lee van Laer
For the last five or so years, as readers may know, I’ve been the poetry Editor at Parabola magazine, while also fulfilling various other duties as a Senior Editor. […]
Behind the Mask, by Peter Coyote
The acclaimed actor, now Zen teacher, remembers
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 the stories of our lives. One can do this with a stranger. Too near, and the perspective is lost. Only the far can be near….
Lesson from Volume 37 No. 3, Fall 2012: The Unknown
Helen Berger, “A Shift in Vision”
The Soul, Like The Moon
The soul, like the moon,
is new, and always new again. …
Parabola Podcast Episode 37: Remembering
Story Editor Betsy Cornwell shares excerpts from PARABOLA’s forty-three year archive on the theme of remembering.
Fire Season, by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
A Sufi master looks at—and beyond—the approaching flames
The Golden Ticket, by Tracy Cochran
Reaching an understanding that no storm can shake
Exploring the Frontiers of Science: A Conversation with Leo Piilonen
A conversation with physicist Leo Piilonen
On Unknowing, by Pamela Travers
Travers in the role of Titania in a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, c. 1924 (Wikipedia) It is not ignorance. Rather, one could say, a particular process of cognition that has little or no use for words. It is part of our heritage at birth, the infant’s first primer. And the…
A Vast and Mysterious Reality, by Tracy Cochran
Walking in the footsteps of the first Buddhist women
Saturday in New York with Gitanjali, by Tracy Cochran
Gitanjali Babbar wanted to walk to the Freedom Tower. This cold day in New York City marked the end of her first trip to the United States. …
Inner Grace: Charisma and Presence, by David Ulrich
JFK, Ram Dass, and the mystery of Being
Ring of Wisdom, a Sufi Parable, Retold by Anne Twitty
A Sufi king seeks a ring of great power.
Spiritual Intelligence, by Gerald Epstein
Intelligence is a quality available to choose, as a function of mind that can live itself through us. In this article, I will focus on spiritual intelligence as understood within the Western Monotheistic traditions. Here we will explore five forms of intelligence: 1) moral, 2) analogical, 3) intuitive, 4) imaginal, 5) esoteric. Before proceeding, a…
Love and Compassion in Meditation and Action, by Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi
Love and compassion are qualities essential to our stature as true human beings, and jointly might be considered the capacities that most distinguish us from the animals, except that animals sometimes display more kindness towards one another—and towards people—than we do.
The Call of the Earth, by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Reconnecting to the sacred, from a Sufi teacher
The Privilege of Living: A Conversation with Viral Mehta, by Pavithra Mehta
In mid-August 2015, Viral Mehta, a co-founder of ServiceSpace.org, was diagnosed with an acute form of bone marrow suppression. In the passages below, his wife, Pavithra. “Pavi” Mehta, offers an update on Viral’s condition and speaks with him about his challenges and recovery.
The Unasked Question, Retold by Paul Jordan-Smith
A classic quest seen anew
Kuzunoha
Kuzunoha is a popular figure in Japanese folklore
Elizabeth, by Tracy Cochran
The summer after I graduated from college, days before I moved to New York City to launch a real adult life, I saw a ghost—an apparition, a spirit, an angel.
Sister God, by Betsy Cornwell
Snow White. Heinrich Leutemann or Carl Offterdinger, late nineteenth century When I was three or four years old, I started to grow afraid that I was evil. That year I had the worst nightmare of my life thus far: intense, consuming, and hyper real in the way that only very young children’s nightmares…
Circles of Time, by J. Stephen Lansing
Being “old” in Bali
Living as Spiritual Practice, by Tracy Cochran
In February 2003, I went to Laura Rothenberg’s apartment to talk about her book, “Breathing for a Living,” which she wouldn’t live to see published. Laura was dying at age twenty-two. …
Mercy, by Lee van Laer
Understanding mercy as a force from on High
Finding the Path, by Tracy Cochran
Among the tasks or “yogi jobs” a participant can volunteer for during silent retreats at the Insight Meditation Society, a Buddhist meditation center in rural Massachusetts, the most resonant in every sense is that of bell ringer.
A Matter of Life and Death, by Rosalind Bradley
Reflections from a Death Row inmate; inspired thoughts from a Sikh guide
In the Midst of Winter, an Invincible Summer, by Tracy Cochran
Seeing the light when it is darkest
Who Are You? by Jennifer Skiff
A human, an orangutan, a heart-to-heart communion
Saint Buddha, by Tracy Cochran
How the Awakened One became a Christian saint
The Buddha Calling the Buddha, by Kinrei Bassis
Odilon Redon, Buddha Walking Among the Flowers, 1905. “Most of us are like a fish caught in a hook. The Buddha is trying to reel us in; the hook holding us is our deep spiritual longing. We spend most of the time struggling, not wanting to be reeled in, not wanting…
Grace is Here!, A Conversation with Ram Dass
A conversation with spiritual pioneer Ram Dass
Walking with George, by Sofía Vélez-Calderón
learning mindfulness and connection from a dog named George Lucas
To Try To Have Some Healing, A Conversation with Silas Hagerty
Silas Hagerty was a young filmmaker in his twenties when I met him at a Servicespace retreat. […]
Desiring Peace: A Meditation on Dag Hammarskjöld, by Roger Lipsey
The extraordinary inner life of a great public figure.
Who Decides History’s Future?, by Alexandra Zaleski
Of might and right, and the future of the world’s art
The Anonymous Ones, by Margaret Dulaney
Come join the circle of we who pray
Tsunemasa, Retold by Kenneth Lawrence with Artwork by Kumiko Lawrence
Tsunemasa, Attributed to Zeami Motokiyo / Japanese Noh. Retold by Kenneth E. Lawrence, translated by Edward Kai Lawrence. Art by Kumiko Lawrence
Whence Cometh Our Help: An Exploration with Roger Lipsey (Video)
Are we the generation that will lose the Earth?
Parabola Podcast Episode 46: The Creative Response
The Unknown — our beautiful Anglo-Saxon word, intimate, reverberant, profound, not so much to be understood but stood under while it rains upon us — that is something I could well live with and, indeed, have revered, cherished, and tried to serve for many a year and day.P.L. Travers, “The Interviewer,” from Vol. 13 No….
My Ancestor, by David Guy
In my mid-thirties I found myself in Dante’s dark wood, where my way was entirely lost. My marriage was falling apart. My primary mentor, Reynolds Price, seemed to be dying of a weird spinal cancer that was slowly paralyzing him. My visits to him brought up visits I’d paid to my father in the hospital…
Arrernte Land, by Karen Lethlean
A child visits her ancestral land
Sacred Giving, Sacred Receiving, by Joseph Bruchac
In the old days, no one ever stole. Those who were well off always shared what they had. […]
Parabola Podcast Episode 40: Mercy & Forgiveness
This episode shares excerpts from Parabola‘s current issue, “Mercy and Forgiveness.”
BLACK ELK, LAKOTA VISIONARY: The Oglala Holy Man and Sioux Tradition
BLACK ELK, LAKOTA VISIONARY: The Oglala Holy Man and Sioux Tradition. Reviewed by Samuel Bendeck Sotillos.
Voice and Freedom, by Danielle Woerner
Expressing our essential self
The Moon is Like a Boy
and the Sun is Like a Girl
Anonymous / Jewish Retold by Maia Zelkha
Parabola Podcast Episode 27: “The Maze”
Story editor Betsy Cornwell shares PL Travers’ stunning essay “Walking the Maze” and William Segal’s wise poem “The Middle Ground” in this episode of Parabola Magazine’s free podcast.
Common Sense, An Interview with Peter Kingsley
Over 2,500 years ago, Peter Kingsley tells us, Parmenides and Empedocles laid the basic foundations for the world and culture we now live in.
The Pipe of Reconciliation, by Joseph Epes Brown
Dr. Joseph K. Dixon, A Native American sends smoke signals in Montana, June 1909, National Geographic Creative. The sacred pipe of the Native Americans is a potent symbol of relationship. Through it the human breath sends to all the six directions the purifying smoke that connects the person to the divine and…
Magic and the Third Force, by Steffan Soule
A professional magician ponders a universal law
Ceremony, an Aztec myth, By Fray Juan de Torquemada and Translated by David Johnson
How the Aztec god Tezcatlipoca created a fiesta of music.
A Night in the Forest, by Tracy Cochran
In the darkness, the Buddha found light
The Christmas Angels, by Risa Levenson Gold with Artwork by Jean Zaleski
Two strangers, vehicles of the miraculous
THE ETERNAL LAW: Ancient Greek Philosophy, Modern Physics and Ultimate Reality
“The Eternal Law: Ancient Greek Philosophy, Modern Physics and Ultimate Reality” by John Spencer. Reviewed by Ocean Malandra.
Parabola Podcast, Episode 9: “Spiritual Practice”
“Often I have come across stern pronouncements directed at people like me: One cannot dabble, say the priests and scholars. Spirituality is not a tasting menu. “New Agers” who borrow a bit of this religion and a bit of that, while discarding the parts they don’t like, will never have anything but a shallow and…
Parabola Needs Your Help!
We urgently need your help to carry on. Parabola is a nonprofit, independent, reader-supported publication. In order to publish each issue, we depend directly upon the generosity of readers like you. Without your support, there would be no Parabola. Parabola brings timeless wisdom to troubled times. As a longtime reader of the magazine has written,…
How to Find a Spiritual Teacher, by Lillian Firestone
If you dream of finding a great Teacher, a Master, the operative advice is, “get real.” Great teachers may appear once in a hundred years. …
The Edges Must Be Even: Lessons from a Native American pow-wow, by Lillian Firestone
Opening ceremonies, Cherokee pow-wow, North Carolina, 2011 Reading about Black Elk, Sitting Bull, Geronimo and countless other Indian tribal elders and chiefs made me regret that I would never know them. They had vanished and with them a way of relating to others we can call emotional intelligence. Not the intelligence…
Portfolio: James Whitlow Delano
Paths are Made by Walking, by Nipun Mehta
Four steps to take on the road of life
A Parabola Bestiary: Horses, by Alice van Buren
Meeting a horse to find peace, war, and the sea
The Word for Soul, by Surnaí Molloy
A lyrical song of love, nature, the sacred
Round and Round but Never There, by Eliezer Shore
Hope not as destination, but as the line we draw along the way.
Endpoint from “The Divine Feminine,” Spring 2016
Despite a growing awareness of the Divine Feminine, women remain ineligible to head many major religious groups and institutions […]
Let Them Be, by Luis Fernando Llosa
America’s children are being robbed of their childhood. It’s as simple as that.
Seeing is an Act, by Jeanne de Salzmann
Rare wisdom on “how to see.”
Soft, by Tracy Cochran
Odilon Redon, Flower Clouds, 1903 The root meaning of heal is whole. Illness and mishap and even great tragedy can lead us eventually from the pain of isolation to a greater wholeness. There is such a powerful tendency in our spiritual aspiration to climb up out of the mess of our…
The Challenge of Artificial Intelligence, by Jeff Zaleski
Mike Licht, Cydippe with Acontius’s Apple iPhone, after Paulus Bor The toy company Mattel has announced the release in Fall 2015 of “Hello Barbie,” the first Barbie doll to feature artificial intelligence. Through the toy’s wireless transmission of a child’s voice (“Hello, Barbie!”) to offsite computers, which will wire back a…
Portfolio: Barney Taxel, Lake View Cemetery, Cleveland
Our Authority of Being, by Mark Nepo
Mark Nepo on welcoming the life-force.
There Must Be More
There must be more to me than this. Have you ever thought this? It’s a little moment of awakening rather than an ordinary thought—a clearing in the clouds, a a distant memory, a knowing that there is more. More to life. More to me. This realization can feel like hitting bottom.
Hands, by Robinson Jeffers
Inside a cave in a narrow canyon near Tassajara
The vault of rock is painted with hands,
A multitude of hands in the twilight, a cloud of men’s
palms, no more,
No other picture. […]
A Moment with Mister Rogers, by Jeff Zaleski
Chatting with America’s favorite saint
The Dawning Moon of the Mind: Unlocking the Pyramid Texts
That a book on the Pyramid Texts of ancient Egypt has been favorably reviewed by the New Yorker is surely a sign of a significant cultural shift, but if you take the time to read this extraordinary book you will quickly see why. […]
The First Tears, an Eskimo folktale, Retold by Anne Twitty
How the First People learned to cry.
The Miracle of Consciousness, by Christian Wertenbaker
The science and spirit of awareness
Refugee Camp Alchemy, by Kenneth Krushel
A Palestinian rapper and the music of hope
Encountering the Teachings of Gurdjieff: A Young Man’s Search, by David Ulrich
On my college campus in the late Spring of 1970, I witnessed the events surrounding the deaths of four Kent State students from National Guardsmen’s bullets. Something changed in me.
Let It Be: a guided meditation with Tracy Cochran
A guided meditation on being gentle with yourself when things are hard, with Parabola’s editorial director Tracy Cochran. To support Parabola’s mission, please consider donating.
Who Am I?, by James George
The Tamils of Sri Lanka called him the Sage of Jaffna.
An Intelligence That Bypasses Thought: On Retreat with Michel de Salzmann, by Fran Shaw
Recollected talks of Michel de Salzmann at Chandolin
Portfolio: Amanda Means
Ave Maria, by Jenny Koralek
Vincent Van Gogh, Pietà (after Eugène Delacroix). 1889. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam As the following passage begins, Jesus of Nazareth, here called Yeshua, is suffering on the cross, attended by several including his mother, Mary, here known as Maryam, and Elizabeth, cousin to Maryam and mother of John the Baptist. It is Elizabeth who narrates. —The…
A Free Gift for You in These Challenging Times
A free PDF of our ALONE & TOGETHER issue from summer 2012 to read in these challenging times.
How Wisdom Became the Property of the Human Race, by Anonymous (West African)
There once lived, in Fanti-land, a man named Father Anansi. He possessed all the wisdom in the world. People came to him daily for advice and help.
The Awakened Eye, by Frederick Franck
A recollection of the first moment of being at one.
The Golden Ticket, by Tracy Cochran
When we least expect it, someone may walk up to us on the street and hand us a golden ticket.
To Struggle, by Lee van Laer
The word [struggle] is of unknown origin; and although it is presumed to have come from Scandinavian and Germanic roots (there are no clear parallels or roots in Latin) the connections are uncertain […]