Archive

A fisherman, a celestial maiden: a fateful decision

Stephanie Unger is a writer who lives in Buffalo, NY. She has studied poetry at workshops led by Martha Heyneman and others at the Rochester Folk Art Guild in the Finger Lakes Region of New York State.

When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me. Speaking words of wisdom, let it be. And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me. Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.

Part of an Ancient Story: A Conversation with Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

From slavery to the priesthood

There is a middle ground, a basic Reality embracing self and Self. It may be called my true nature. To discover what
prevents me from the experience of it, I have only to look at myself, just as I am. […]

The Desert Fathers and Mothers— and their culture of search

The gift of fear and awe from a beast cold as the earth

Virgin and Child in Majesty, 1150–1200, Made in Auvergne, Walnut with paint, gesso, and linen Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; Where there is injury, pardon; Where there is discord, union; Where there is doubt, faith; Where there is despair, hope; Where…

THE STILLNESS OF THE LIVING FOREST: A Year of Listening and Learning by John Harvey. Reviewed by Jan Cheripko

Rafe Martin offers a retelling of a traditional Buddhist Jataka tale.

Detail from The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch, The Prado, Madrid I think we tend to create inward forms of our own — adopted, that is, from things we encounter outwardly — and then stalk each other with them. This process is writ large on the social and political landscape;…

learning mindfulness and connection from a dog named George Lucas

“The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation” by Richard Rohr with Mike Morrell. Reviewed by Patty de Llosa

Waken, Wala!
Wala! Awake!
From thy long sleep,
Slumberer, wake at my call! […]

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,…

“For it seemed to me certain, and I still think so today, that one can never wrestle enough with God if one does so out of pure regard for the truth. Christ likes us to prefer truth to him because, before being Christ, he is truth. If one turns aside from him to go toward…

All movies are an illusion. We think we are seeing motion but in fact we are seeing twenty-four still pictures every second. Half the time the screen is actually black. Yet movies seem so real, and some have the potential to reveal great truth. […]

King David, Leonard Cohen and the Search for Meaning

Story editor Betsy Cornwell explores our current issue, “Ways of Healing,” in PARABOLA Magazine’s podcast. Learn more about this issue or become a subscriber at parabola.org. This episode also includes Kenneth Lawrence’s retelling of the Japanese tale “Kiyotsune.” Please consider supporting this podcast and Parabola Magazine by purchasing a back issue or becoming a subscriber. This…

Story editor Betsy Cornwell shares excerpts from the current issue of Parabola, BALANCE.

Impressions from the land of Rumi

Photograph by Lee van Laer Human  beings are peculiar creatures. We can think; and it sets us apart from other creatures, who can think some (consider the honeybee) but not much. Thinking, over the last 10,000 or so years (a rough estimate,) mankind has occupied himself, in the disciplines of science…

Understanding mercy as a force from on High

Backpacking into deeper Reality

Shamanic memories from an Indian visionary

A poem by Walt Whitman in our issue, Happiness.

What happened at the Hopi Corn Dance

A celebrated composer hears celestial music

“Some men believe in the power and value of suffering,” writes Thomas Merton. “But their belief is an illusion. Suffering has no power, no value of its own.”

A review of John Teasdale’s “What Happens in Mindfulness” by Cynthia Bourgeault

A young woman finds her way.

Sound, scientific advice on attaining happiness

Paul Reps (1895–1990) was an American artist, poet, and author best known for his pioneering book that helped introduce Zen to the West, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones. Parabola is honored to have the opportunity to […]

A conversation with Mirabai Starr

“The greatest responsibility of all: the transmission of the mystery.” —Basarab Nicolescu

Hammarskjöld, Havel, Mandela, Thunberg

Within the chaos, a door to “the inexhaustible Now”

Previously unpublished commentary from Alan Watts, a pioneer of East-West spirituality.

Remembering the sacred mother animal

The long encounter of Thomas Merton and his Abbott, James Fox.

From the Christian esoteric tradition, a path beyond the mind

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…

A white rose opens in a quiet arbour
Where I sit reading Dante, Paradise
unfolding in me, opens hour by hour […]

An Interview with Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church from November 4, 2006 until November 1, 2015.

What that means and how that feels

The trouble with goats

Es difícil para la mayoría de nosotros creer que ambos ángeles y demonios se mezclan con los humanos en la Tierra […]

A conversation with intuitive and healer Laura Day Ivisited Laura Day in her apartment in Tribeca in lower Manhattan to talk about intuition. Since her early twenties, Day has been internationally famous for her uncanny ability to know things immediately, without the aid of research or reasoning, accurately seeing the outcome of even arcane events….

The ultimate practice?

A remarkable man of old Afghanistan

The science and spirit of awareness

The trickster, the shape shifter, the god–the coyote

Four Sacred Guardians

Anonymous / African

Retold by Nartana Premachandra

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…

Elie Wiesel died Saturday, July 2, 2016 at his home in Manhattan. The Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner was 87. In May of 1985, we interviewed Elie Wiesel for our “Exile” Issue.

The calligraphy and paintings of the martial arts masters

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.

In his book All and Everything, G.I. Gurdjieff presented what he called the “Obligolnian Strivings,” directives intended to instill in the consciousness of those who practice them—said to be engaged in the “Work”—the “divine function of genuine Conscience.”

What makes the Wizard of Oz an iconic American tale that has entered into the language? Some expressions are so well known they need no further explanation, as for example “You’re not in Kansas anymore”.

What is the weight of wealth? Is it the weight of the money itself or is it the weight of responsibility of having that money?

Story editor Betsy Cornwell shares essays from Parabola’s extensive archives on the theme of “Renewal” in this episode of Parabola magazine’s free podcast.

Close encounters with a student of Gurdjieff

Joshua Boettiger, “Alone, with Others”

The nature of wisdom is necessarily esoteric, because it subsists on a level which both transcends and is internal to, anything we can directly observe. …

cultivation of the integrity and soundness of body, mind, soul, and spirit in the ancient Mediterranean world

How the goddess of creation became the goddess of death

Looking back, I see my five years in India as the high-point of my diplomatic life, and my most memorable time in India as the four days in January of 1971 before Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s official visit to India. […]

A meditation teacher loses her voice—and finds her way

The first issue of Stopinder: A Gurdjieff Journal for Our Time appeared in the year 2000. […]

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. …

Frederick Law Olmsted’s village in the woods

Walking with an Inkling or two

Hope not as destination, but as the line we draw along the way.

Meeting death with dignity

How, indeed, could it be possible for a man, who is limited on six sides—by east, west, south, north, deep, and sky—to understand a matter which is above the skies, which is beneath the deep, which stretches beyond north and south, and which is present in every place, and fills all vacuity? —St. Gregory the…

Housework as spiritual practice, from a Sufi master

How can religious tradition be literally true when language is symbolic, intrinsically?

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.

The fiery path from light to light

Happiness is everywhere. Not that anyone is claiming to be really, truly happy but everyone is talking about wanting to be happy. Wanting to be happy is not news. […]

Transforming repetition into renewal

The Sufi Doctrine of Rumi: Illustrated Edition by William C. Chittick. Foreword by Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Reviewed by Samuel Bendeck Sotillos.

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.

An anonymous Hindu tale retold by Rama Devagupta.

A leap of faith into an “intentional” community

Marion Woodman “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 and contains both. If these are projected onto the outside world, transcendence ceases to…

An encounter to last a lifetime

Anonymous / Aboriginal

Story editor Betsy Cornwell shares excerpts from the Spring 2021 issue of Parabola, Wellness, including an exploration of the world’s healing water goddesses and a practical guide to awakening awareness. Your thoughts about yourself, experiences, and perceptions continually arise and change, come and go, but awareness remains. Don’t try to grasp or understand awareness; notice…

As contemporary life becomes more and more fragmented and unsustainable, many individuals are left perplexed and searching for more complete and sustainable models to understand themselves and their place in the world around them. […]

A conversation with spiritual pioneer Ram Dass

Brian first studied the history of photography and Black & White printing in 1985 with Teacher and Mentor William Abranowicz at Parsons New York City. …

Betsy Cornwell shares Josh Boettiger’s essay on King David and Leonard Cohen, “The Poet and the Shepherd,” and Susan McCaslin’s meditation on spiritual journeys, “Guidance,” in this episode.

A review of “George Adie: A Gurdjieff Pupil in Australia” by Jeff Zaleski

A spiritual master on what it takes

There are different kinds of realizations. They are not always lightening bolts but sometimes soft and slow, as if snow were quietly falling and settling.

TIMELESS IN TIME: Sri Ramana Maharshi. Reviewed by Samuel Bendeck Sotillos.