Essays

The Real Rasputin?

The Real Rasputin?

Richard SmoleyAug 1, 202312 min read

The story of Gregory Rasputin—the Siberian “mad monk,” healer, profligate, unwitting destroyer of the Romanov dynasty—is well known. He has been the subject of innumerable books and several films. Yet none of them seem to have fathomed him fully. His…

A Higher Power

A Higher Power

Dawn Eden GoldsteinAug 1, 202316 min read

In 1940, Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, a man who knew sin and failure like he knew the back of his hand, was living with his wife, Lois, in a tiny room at the Alcoholics Anonymous “clubhouse” in downtown…

Rated “Condemned”

Rated “Condemned”

Jean IversenAug 1, 202312 min read

We sat, unmoving, in the darkness of the movie theater as the first notes of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s overture played—a foreboding orchestra followed by sinister electric guitar. It was the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar, and we had been forbidden…

Journey of the Rainbow Serpent

Journey of the Rainbow Serpent

Nartana PremachandraAug 1, 202311 min read

Oceans of time support the earth; and deep within this space-filled sea, in a moment as incredulous as one’s own birth, the universe began cooling. The genesis of everything had just begun, three-hundred-and-eighty-thousand years previously, in a feverish instant, and…

La Llorona

La Llorona

Edward W. Wood, Jr.Aug 1, 202312 min read

In the fall of 1988, I was given a second grant for two months at the Wurlitzer Foundation in Taos, New Mexico. The foundation owns several acres at the center of Taos, a few blocks from the Plaza. A dozen…

Finding the Path, by Tracy Cochran

Finding the Path, by Tracy Cochran

Tracy CochranMar 20, 201611 min read

Painting by Emma Tapley Among the tasks or “yogi jobs” a participant can volunteer for during silent retreats at the Insight Meditation Society, a Buddhist meditation…

Amma, by Lillian Firestone

Amma, by Lillian Firestone

Lillian FirestoneJan 29, 20168 min read

Amma, 2009 The Hindu spiritual teacher known as Amma (“Mother”), or Mata Amritanandamayi, was born to a family of fishermen in southern India in 1953. Today…

Spiritual Principles in Action, by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Spiritual Principles in Action, by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Llewellyn Vaughan-LeeJul 25, 201910 min read

Glastonbury Festival, England, 1971. Photograph by Paul Townsend A Sufi master on taking responsibility for our world In answer to a question from a thirty-one-year-old person, “What advice do you…

Rewilding: A Conversation with Staffan Widstrand, by Eleanor O’Hanlon

Rewilding: A Conversation with Staffan Widstrand, by Eleanor O’Hanlon

Eleanor O’HanlonApr 28, 201914 min read

European bison bull, Bison bonasus, in Zuid Kennemerland National Park, The Netherlands. This is Europe’s largest herbivore, weighing in at over one thousand kilograms. It was once hunted as close…

Days with Michel Conge, Part One, by Rami Kalfon

Days with Michel Conge, Part One, by Rami Kalfon

Rami KalfonMay 16, 201716 min read

MICHEL CONGE AT LESIAU C. 1980, DURING A SUMMER WORK SESSION. Michel Conge was a physician and a disciple of G. I. Gurdjieff in Paris in…

Rising from the Fire: The Art of Transformation

Rising from the Fire: The Art of Transformation

David UlrichAug 1, 202115 min read

“If you look in the eyes of the young, you see flame. If you look in the eyes of the old, you see light.”—Victor Hugo How can we reconcile the…

My Journey to Qigong Master, by Robert Peng

My Journey to Qigong Master, by Robert Peng

Robert PengMay 7, 201716 min read

The Horse Stance. Suzhou, China The Legendary Monk Xiao Yao Sometime around the year 1889, a baby boy was born to a poor family in a…

The Deepest Silence, by John Roger Barrie

The Deepest Silence, by John Roger Barrie

John Roger BarrieSep 26, 20187 min read

Alphonse Osbert (1857-1939) Au coucher du soleil, 1894 The eloquence of the deepest silence echoes from the eternal. Originating there and reverberating through the ripples of…

Gastronomy in Ancient China, by Donald Harper

Gastronomy in Ancient China, by Donald Harper

Donald HarperApr 21, 201815 min read

Photo by Tim Chow (@timchowdoingthings) Animals feed themselves; men eat; but only wise men know the art of eating. —Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste, M.F.K. Fisher…

Silence of the Heart, by Richard Temple

Silence of the Heart, by Richard Temple

Parabola EditorsJan 21, 20164 min read

Andrei-Rublev, The-Old-Testament Trinity, 1422-–-1427, Moscow, Tretyakov Gallery Many things in the Philokalia are said about “passions.” This word has not quite the same meaning as it…

Healing the Wounds of War

Healing the Wounds of War

Edward TickOct 31, 20141 min read

In contrast to our modern situation, traditional and indigenous peoples had extensive spiritually and communally based warrior medicine, practices and lineages. They lived immersed in and part of nature and…

Fusterlandia, by Tracy Cochran

Fusterlandia, by Tracy Cochran

Tracy CochranJan 31, 201811 min read

Havana. Photograph by Augustin de Montesquiou A tour of Havana leads to a priceless discovery I stood on the upper deck of a cruise ship at…

The Esoteric Shakespeare, by Michael White

The Esoteric Shakespeare, by Michael White

Michael WhiteJan 30, 201910 min read

The Plays of William Shakespeare. John Gilbert, oil on canvas, 1849. Dahesh Museum of Art, New York City “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely…

To Hold One’s Own

To Hold One’s Own

Surnaí MolloyJul 28, 20226 min read

There is a stone from a shore at home that I carry with me wherever I travel. It has a hole through it, which makes it lucky, and it was…