Rising Above
From slavery to the priesthood
Voice and Freedom
Expressing our essential self
Meeting the Teacher
A life-changing encounter with spiritual authority
I Knew Two Men
Remembering Harold Bloom and Jacob Needleman
The Word for Soul
A lyrical song of love, nature, the sacred
Browse
A Parabola Bestiary: Sea Creatures, by Robert Bly
Finding life between sand and sea
Gastronomy in Ancient China, by Donald Harper
Cooking for the sage king
Inner Grace: Charisma and Presence, by David Ulrich
JFK, Ram Dass, and the mystery of Being
Parabola Podcast, Episode 5: “Embodiment”
Story editor Betsy Cornwell looks at our Summer 2014 Issue, EMBODIMENT, in Parabola Magazine’s monthly podcast.
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…
The Inner Forms the Outer
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…
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…
Let Them Be, by Luis Fernando Llosa
America’s children are being robbed of their childhood. It’s as simple as that.
The Wall and the Mirror: Forgiveness in the Work of Martin Scorsese, by Kent Jones
Forgiveness in the work of Martin Scorsese
Rated “Condemned”, by Jean Iversen
Tasting the forbidden fruit
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. …
Awakened Awareness, by Adyashanti
The ultimate practice?
Parabola Podcast, Episode 30: Together
Story editor Betsy Cornwell shares editorial director Tracy Cochran’s “Fusterlandia” and Elizabeth Napp’s “An Education in Peace,” as well as some wise words on leadership from Octavia Butler, in this episode of Parabola Magazine’s free monthly podcast.
Parabola Podcast Episode 44: The Search for Meaning
How do you get people to trust life? You have to trick them. They won’t jump into the water, so you have to throw them in.Alan Watts, “How to Reach Where You Already Are” Story editor Betsy Cornwell shares excerpts from Parabola Magazine’s “The Search for Meaning” issue, which is available as a free PDF…
Marion Woodman and the Search for the Conscious Feminine, by Patty de Llosa
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…
Learning to Die, by Brother David Steindl-Rast
David Steindl-Rast (2004) Wikipedia 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 mori has always been important, because one of what St. Benedict calls…
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 […]
Lesson from Volume 37 No. 2, Summer 2012: Alone & Together
Joshua Boettiger, “Alone, with Others”
THE NEW SCIENCE: Changing Ourselves by Changing the Brain, by Patty de Llosa
“Does mind exist?” asks neuroscientist Daniel Siegel, as he opens a two-day conference on his favorite subject […]
Parabola Podcast Episode 35: Change & the Changeless
Story Editor Betsy Cornwell shares Jim White’s moving essay “The Esoteric Shakespeare” and Scottish and Chinese fairy tales, as well as wise advice from Rainer Maria Rilke, in this episode of Parabola magazine’s free monthly podcast.
French Lessons, by Tracy Cochran
Vincent Van Gogh, The Red Vineyard at Arles, 1888, oil, on canvas (Puskin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow)One morning last October, I experienced a moment of grace. It happened as I was walking my black Labrador retriever, Shadow, on one of those warm autumn days when everything looks edged in gold….
Going Home, by Ram Dass & Mirabai Bush
Welcoming the end of the journey
A Parabola Bestiary: Horses, by Alice van Buren
Meeting a horse to find peace, war, and the sea
Testimony, by Brenton MacKinnon
A powerful remembrance of war and peace
Indigo Animal: The Complete Trilogy
Indigo Animal is original, delightful, and profound. The artist, Rue Harrison, has given us wonderful characters in illustrated books in which she has raised the bar on a certain kind of content. […]
What Happens in Mindfulness, by Cynthia Bourgeault
A review of John Teasdale’s “What Happens in Mindfulness” by Cynthia Bourgeault
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…
I Have A Suitcase, by Lee van Laer
I have a suitcase
Packed with many things. …
Who Decides History’s Future?, by Alexandra Zaleski
Of might and right, and the future of the world’s art
The Miracle of Consciousness, by Christian Wertenbaker
The science and spirit of awareness
Bosch Decoded: The Esoteric Bosch, Vol. II, by Lee van Laer
Announcing the publication of Senior Editor, Lee van Laer’s new book on symbolism in the artwork of Hieronymus Bosch. […]
Portfolio: Richard Whittaker
One Autumn day in 1976 a question appeared: if I took a photo of something I’d seen that touched my feelings, would the feeling return later when I looked at the print?
All Life is Sacred: A Conversation with John Malloy
A conversation with educator and spiritual leader John Malloy …
The Lesson, by Fred Cheney
An encounter to last a lifetime
Inanna and the Land of No Return, by Rachel Nora Greene
A child retells the legend of the Sumerian goddess Inanna and her descent to the Nether World.
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…
The Nothingness of Time, by Alexandra Haven
Encountering eternity in the treasures of Egypt
A Conversation with Alexandra Isles
I follow two rules. The first is that my presence is invisible and silent. The film belongs to the storytellers. The second is to do as much research as possible, trust the material, and never film re-creations.
Exploring the Frontiers of Science: A Conversation with Leo Piilonen
A conversation with physicist Leo Piilonen
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…
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.
Queen of Angels, by Tracy Cochran
Seeking the divine.
Parabola Podcast Episode 33: Guidance
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.
An Intelligence That Bypasses Thought: On Retreat with Michel de Salzmann, by Fran Shaw
Recollected talks of Michel de Salzmann at Chandolin
The Esoteric Shakespeare, by Michael White
“All the world’s a stage.”
Not Knowing, Non-Being, and the Power of Nothingness, By Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, with Hilary Hart
Exploring the “hidden face of God”
Boethius, rendered into modern English by Thomas Powers (Free Download)
Download a free PDF of a new rendering by Thomas Powers of “Consolation of Philosophy” (c. 524 A.D.), the classic and influential work by the Roman senator Boethius (c. 477-524 A.D.).
Our April Gift to You: A Free PDF of “The Search for Meaning”
These are challenging times for all of us. We at Parabola are offering a free PDF of our “The Search for Meaning” issue from Spring 2017 to anyone who would like one, and we hope you will find comfort in its pages. Click here to access your free PDF. You can also purchase a print…
Truth and Perception, by Mickey Lemle
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. […]
Desiring Peace: A Meditation on Dag Hammarskjöld, by Roger Lipsey
The extraordinary inner life of a great public figure.
Walking with George, by Sofía Vélez-Calderón
learning mindfulness and connection from a dog named George Lucas
Parabola Podcast: Wellness
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…
Moving Toward Hope: A Conversation with Elaine Pagels
How can religious tradition be literally true when language is symbolic, intrinsically?
The Christmas Angels, by Risa Levenson Gold with Artwork by Jean Zaleski
Two strangers, vehicles of the miraculous
Izanagi and Izanami, a Japanese myth, Retold by Paul Jordan-Smith
How the goddess of creation became the goddess of death
We Are All Witnesses: An Interview with Elie Wiesel
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.
Silence of the Heart, by Richard Temple
Many things in the Philokalia are said about “passions.” This word has not quite the same meaning as it has in ordinary language […]
Parabola Podcast Episode 26: “Wealth”
This episode of Parabola’s free monthly podcast includes an excerpt from David Ulrich’s Zen Camera on the joys of mindful photography and drawing, as well as Alexandra Haven’s essay on the wonders of ancient Egypt […]
In the Midst of Winter, an Invincible Summer, by Tracy Cochran
Seeing the light when it is darkest
Waking Up Aurora, by Rhiannon Thomas
Sleeping. Louis Sussman-Hellborn (1828–1908) I’ve had quite a tumultuous relationship with fairy tales. The Little Mermaid was always my favorite as a child. Not just the Disney version, where everyone lives happily-ever-after, but the original, where the mermaid feels like she’s walking on a thousand knives and almost stabs the prince to…
Surrounded by Water and Dying of Thirst, by Lambros Kamperidis
Saint Anthony Abbot Tempted by a Heap of Gold, Tempera on panel painting by the Master of the Osservanza Triptych, ca. 1435, Metropolitan Museum of Art “As I commute to work every day, I leave behind a quiet country road for a highway that takes me to the city. Nature still…
A Shared World, by Tracy Cochran
Therefore, Ananda, be islands unto yourselves, refuges unto yourselves….” As he lay dying, the Buddha gave this advice to his beloved cousin and disciple Ananda. I thought of it as I stood in a security line in the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi, just after a male security guard gestured for me to…
The Real Rasputin? by Richard Smoley
A fresh look at “the mad monk”
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.
Light and Danger through the Crack in the Door, by Trebbe Johnson
A lively report from the 2023 Parliament of the World’s Religions
The Third Striving
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. …
Longing for the Beloved, by Mirabai Starr
Teresa of Avila—and grief—teach a mighty lesson
Georgi Ivanovitch Gurdjieff: The Man, The Teaching, His Mission
Readers will find here an expertly assembled narrative—a chronological mosaic of the activities, inner and outer, of Gurdjieff and his followers, pieced together from the records kept by many. …
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…
The Prayer of Saint Francis
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 First Tears, an Eskimo folktale, Retold by Anne Twitty
How the First People learned to cry.
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.
Bose, Το πιο Ριζοσπαστικό Μοναστήρι στη Γη
Από τη στιγμή που ιδρύθηκε, πενήντα χρόνια πριν, η κοινότητα του Bose ήταν προορισμένη να λειτουργήσει ως οδοδείκτης […]
You Would Run for Your Life, by Tracy Cochran
A mother and daughter trace their roots to the Vikings—and to those they conquered
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.
The Fairies’ Right of Way, by Betsy Cornwell
Protecting the places where the magic folk roam
A Welcome Oasis: The 27th All & Everything International Humanities Conference, by Keith Badger
I would first and foremost like to follow an age-old injunction that every writer, before giving out any advice or critique to anyone else, should obligingly give an honest account of their journey. So before doing an appraisal of the 27th All & Everything International Humanities Conference I offer a short yet pertinent brief. Having…
The Art of Budo, by John Stevens
The calligraphy and paintings of the martial arts masters
Earth as Goddess: A conversation with African healer and guide Baba Mandaza Augustine Kademwa
A conversation with African healer and guide Baba Mandaza Augustine Kademwa
Into the Heart of Persian Sufi Poetry, by Marian Brehmer
Impressions from the land of Rumi
The Lazy Girl and the Butter-Yellow Pot, by Nartana Premachandra
Anonymous / African
Retold by Nartana Premachandra
You Must Have an Aim, by G.I. Gurdjieff
During the Nazi Occupation of Paris, Gurdjieff and his students dared to meet late into the night….
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.
Playing with Laozi, by Elizabeth Napp
Laozi, Investiture of the Gods at Ping Sien Si, Pasir Panjang, Perak, Malaysia Photograph from the Ping Sien Si Temple in Perak, Malaysia taken by Anandajoti. My father had many good qualities; unfortunately, equanimity was not one of them. Known for a ferociously bad temper, he once threatened a one-armed theater…
GURDJIEFF RECONSIDERED: The Life, the Teachings, The Legacy
“GURDJIEFF RECONSIDERED: The Life, the Teachings, The Legacy” by Roger Lipsey. Reviewed by Jeff Zaleski
Kissed by Fire, by Trebbe Johnson
Fire Creates. Fire Cooks. Fire Kills. Fire also kisses. It kisses death from life and life from death.
Gifts from Beyond, by Edward Espe Brown
Kneading bread, baking a soul
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.
Mercy, by Lee van Laer
Understanding mercy as a force from on High
When I Was Young The Silk, by A. R. Ammons
When I was young the silk
of my mind
hard as a peony head […]
How Do We Reclaim The Heart Of Humanity?, by Trebbe Johnson
A Report on the 2015 Parliament of the World’s Religions.
Round and Round but Never There, by Eliezer Shore
Hope not as destination, but as the line we draw along the way.
THE BHAGAVAD GITA: A Guide to Navigating the Battle of Life
THE BHAGAVAD GITA: A Guide to Navigating the Battle of Life by Ravi Ravindra. Reviewed by Vinita Kaushik Kapur.
Days with Michel Conge, Part One, by Rami Kalfon
Close encounters with a student of Gurdjieff
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. […]
Gurdjieff’s Apartment: “Here there are no spectators”, by Roger Lipsey
A universe of meaning in a small Parisian abode
“I Will Teach You” by Great Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim
To meet her destiny, she needed a miracle
The Art of Cleaning, by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee and Hilary Hart
Housework as spiritual practice, from a Sufi master
Meeting the Rabbi, by Kenneth Krushel
On Adin Steinsaltz and the power of hope