Essays

The Rusalki, by Jane L. Mickelson

October 23, 2018By Jane L. Mickelson

Beautiful, mysterious, deadly: mermaids of Russian folklore

Presence and Prayer, by Michel Conge

October 17, 2018By Michel Conge

To cherish the divine spark

The Deepest Silence, by John Roger Barrie

September 26, 2018By John Roger Barrie

The mystical heart of silence

A Parabola Bestiary: Coyotes, by Peter Beagle

September 9, 2018By Peter S. Beagle

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

A Parabola Bestiary: Sea Creatures, by Robert Bly

September 7, 2018By Robert Bly

Finding life between sand and sea

A Parabola Bestiary: Goat, by Joseph Cary

September 6, 2018By Joseph Cary

The trouble with goats

A Parabola Bestiary: Lion, by Vincent Rossi

September 5, 2018By Vincent Rossi

Finding the true king in his cage

A Parabola Bestiary: The Cow, by Pamela Travers

September 3, 2018By Pamela Travers

Remembering the sacred mother animal

A Parabola Bestiary: Horses, by Alice van Buren

September 3, 2018By Alice van Buren

Meeting a horse to find peace, war, and the sea

A Parabola Bestiary: Tadpole, by Janwillem van de Wetering

August 23, 2018By Janwillem van de Wetering

The fluidity of who and what we are reflected in embodied transformation

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 […]