Sacred Time, by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Time speaks in many voices, many different images and sounds. For the Neolithic builders of Stonehenge, sacred time was marked by the Summer and Winter solstices, particularly the Winter solstice, when, at around 3:50 pm the midwinter sun would set…
Who Are You? by Tracy Cochran
Years ago, when I was a young spiritual seeker, I was invited to a daylong retreat to experience the teaching and the presence of Jeanne de Salzmann, the foremost student of the spiritual teacher G.I. Gurdjieff. The moment she entered…
A Turning Point in the Cosmos, by Mary A. Osborne
In the Kingdom of Egypt, when a mighty pantheon embodied the forces of nature, the elderly sun died each night and was born anew each morning. Lifted up from the underworld and carried across the nighttime sky by the winged…
And So On, by Kent Jones
I wanted to write a piece about the obsessive focus on “the present” and how it obscures the Now. Here is how I decided to begin. For the last few years, I’ve had conversation after conversation with close friends about…
Abba, tell me a word
Abba Anthony was living his customary day of prayer and labor in the desert hermitage he called home when a band of seekers paid a visit. We are sometime in the fourth century of our era and in Scetis, the…
A World of Sound, by Kyle Holton
Men gather for annual dances during harvest season. Photograph by Kyle Holton Listening to the Yao of Mozambique For eight years, I lived in a village…
Inanna: Relevance and Return
The Sumerian Goddess Inanna came to the notice of modern women in 1983 when Diane Wolkstein and Samuel Kramer published Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth. But she first appeared…
Driving Lessons, by Snigdha Manickavel
Chennai, India. Photograph by aotaro Snigdha Manickavel spent part of her childhood in Edmonton, Canada, before moving with her family to the temple town of Chidambaram…
Maidens & Monsters, Betsy Cornwell
The Deeper Meaning of Fairy Tales “Little Red Riding Hood”, Jessie Willcox Smith, 1911 Don’t stray from the path. Don’t disobey. Don’t eat the apple, the…
Paths are Made by Walking, by Nipun Mehta
Nipun Mehta Walking, in our high-speed world, has fallen out of favor. The word “pedestrian” itself is used to describe something ordinary and commonplace. Yet, walking…
Love and Compassion in Meditation and Action, by Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi
Photo by Chris Ensey from Unsplash.com THE NEED FOR LOVE AND COMPASSION Love and compassion are qualities essential to our stature as true human beings, and…
Meeting Remarkable Trees
Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life.John Muir I would often engage my secondary school students in the childhood art of…
Arrernte Land
A jumble of buildings squatted some distance away, dark, and low. Not a sight I, at my age of eight, imagined part of Dad’s homeland. Funny how things stick in…
Prophets without Robes or Staffs
Greta Thunberg was somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean on a rough day—high winds, high waves. She was traveling from Europe to North America by the only means she could accept,…
The Compassionate Warrior, by Elsa Marston
Abd el-Kader protecting Christians in 1860 Damascus Abd el-Kader (1808-1883) was an Algerian religious and military leader, a sharif (noble) and Sufi, elected Emir, or Commander…
Awakened Awareness
Awakened awareness practices focus on dis-identifying with the conceptual mind, specifically the false self or ego that we imagine ourselves to be. To call the ego a “false self” is…
Love and Money, by Richard Smoley
MADONNA AND CHILD WITH SAINTS,” TWELFTH CENTURY, FRESCO, CASTELLO, APPIANO, ITALY Although love has existed as long as the human race itself, it was Jesus Christ…
Making God Necessary, by Deepak Chopra
Ritual offering of arghya at the Ganges. Varanasi, India, 2006. Photograph by J Duval Why God is a verb, not a noun The practice of medicine,…
In the Hands of the Sea
I went out into the garden, to the crag, and I sat on the bench and watched the light change in the sea; looking over the fields, the holy well, the…