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)
For the past hour or so, one of my neighbors has been shoveling the sidewalk. He is a young teenager; for a while a younger girl was out with him, too. They both had shovels and were working pretty vigorously. … (READ MORE)
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)
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)
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)
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)
I didn’t buy a coffee mug, but I did take the picture. If only remembering was as easy as buying a souvenir. Memory, though, it much more ephemeral. I’ll remember this day. Sometimes I will deliberately recall it. Sometimes, images… (READ MORE)
At about 10:30 am, I left my house and walked over to the Capitol. I knew that by leaving the house at that hour, instead of at 7am, I would be outside the fence, but I instead practiced in the… (READ MORE)
If I had been born a different person and chosen an entirely different career path (say a secret service agent), I might have had a view like this today. Would it have been worth it? So interesting to watch the… (READ MORE)
Yesterday’s inaugural concert spurred all sorts of memories from me. When I was a child, we went a number of times to the Clearwater Revival Festival and other folk festivals where Pete Seeger was a headline. He is just ten… (READ MORE)