The Night of the Hessian Soldier
I stood on the street below my apartment on East 6th Street in Manhattan, waiting for an unmarked van to pick me up and drive me to an unknown location. I did know the person who contacted me, but in…
East Hill Farm
Once upon a time… many years ago, when a now very old man was but a youth, he felt something was mysteriously missing in his life, but he didn’t know what it was or where to find it. He wasn’t…
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 your mind, still sharp now, from so many decades ago.…
To Hold One’s Own
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 given to me by my mother, which makes it precious.…
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, a carbon-neutral sailing vessel. She was famous, her mission had…
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…
Desire for Truth, by Roger Hawkins
Robert Orgera, Photograph of a Statue of Buddha, in Provocative Proximity of a Cage (Wikimedia Commons) One day, as a small child, I was struck by…
Kissed by Fire
As I walked out of the somber rooms of the funeral home into the bright August sunlight, carrying my husband’s ashes, I teetered between two realities: This, now, is him,…
The Pipe of Reconciliation, by Joseph Epes Brown
Dr. Joseph K. Dixon, A Native American sends smoke signals in Montana, June 1909, National Geographic Creative. The sacred pipe of the Native Americans is a potent…
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…
Whence Cometh Our Help?
Little Water. Dalarö. August Strindberg, 1892. Oil on cardboard. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm Is there such a thing as deciduous ideas? Ideas that have had their season. Some flare into color as…
The Unfinished Painting, by Mark Nepo
Lascaux Cave Paintings, ca. 15,000 BC Dreams and art are the smoke signals connecting the one tribe over time. Stories and myths do the same. Often…
Family, Faith, and Faygo: A Journey Through the Dark Carnival of the Juggalos, by Kitty Stryker
Members of the Left Coast Juggalos “cramming into the ride before a show,” circa 2004. Photograph courtesy of Ape Boy “There is a love and a…
Desiring Peace: A Meditation on Dag Hammarskjöld, by Roger Lipsey
IMMMERSED IN HIS WORLD, DAG HAMMARSKJÖLD SITS FAR LEFT AT THE HIGH PODIUM DURING A MEETING OF THE UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY, NOVEMBER 1954. (UN PHOTO) The…
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…. “You must have an aim, a serious aim,” G.I. Gurdjieff stated during a…
Plant Healing and Shamanism in the Deep Amazon, by Jorges Hachumak with David L. Carroll
Photograph by Johannes Hofmann The following passages from an unpublished manuscript by a respected Peruvian shaman describe how he works with the controversial Ayahuasca and other…
Behind the Mask
In 1955 I was fourteen, and I became fascinated by the rebellious adults of the Beat Generation and their criticisms of American culture. Hearing adults express and clarify feelings I…
Living as Spiritual Practice, by Tracy Cochran
The Life and Death of Laura Rothenberg In February 2003, I went to Laura Rothenberg’s apartment to talk about her book, Breathing for a Living, which she wouldn’t live to see…
Holy Women
Mother Mary Joseph, founder of the Maryknoll Sisters. The history of Christianity is marked by the stories of countless holy women who struggled to assert their full humanity and to…