Sunshine?
I was talking to my Dad earlier today. My parents live on Long Island, where they are in the middle of getting three to six inches of snow. He said that the weather forecasters indicated that they were just missing… (READ MORE)
Perception and Illusion (maya)
I have been thinking about perception and how as soon as we have more than one person looking at the same thing, each person has a different story, a different truth, a different explanation. Add to that the mysterious systems… (READ MORE)
Prithvi (the earth element) and Muscular Energy
The first of the mahabhutas is prithvi or earth. When I think of the earth element, I think of stability, grounding, earthiness, nurture. My experience is that I can more deeply connect to this element in ourselves by emphasizing what… (READ MORE)
Wintry Mix
As I write, big fat flakes of snow are falling against a pale gray sky that is struggling to turn to daylight. It is too early to know how much of the storm will be snow or freezing rain or… (READ MORE)
Baksheesh and Brahman
I spent a few hours this weekend reading Joseph Campbell’s Baksheesh and Brahman, which is Campbell’s journals from a year in India from 1954-55 (I’m now about a third of the way through). Campbell writes that he went to India… (READ MORE)
Mahabhutas (the great elements)
The mahabhutas are the grossest, most physical of the 36 tattvas described in Kashmir Shaivism. They are: prithivi — earth or solidity; ap (or jala) — water or liquidity, agni (or tejas) — fire or formativity; vayu — air; akasha… (READ MORE)
A Personal God (Ishta Devata)
My earliest exposure to eastern mysticism was through Salinger and the Beats, which I read avidly in high school and even junior high. The Beats were hipper and smarter than I could ever hope to be (and they weren’t so… (READ MORE)
“This confused war”
My dear friend from college, Dan Harper, just posted the following on his website. I feel fortunate to have a friend who inspires me to me more learned and more concerned. Martin Luther King would have been 80 today. On… (READ MORE)
Hot Water Bottles and Wristwarmers
One of my father’s joke bits of wisdom is “everything in moderation, including moderation.” When I first studied philosophy academically, I was very much taken with Aristotle’s concept of the “golden mean,” which (this is a gross oversimplification) advocates living… (READ MORE)
Akasha (space)
When we can connect to the essence of the element of akasha, space, within ourselves, we feel less crowded by things pressing in on the outside, whether it be actual confinement or overcrowdedness or the sense of crowding from having… (READ MORE)