Sy Safransky

Stephen

I can’t believe how naive I was when I interviewed Stephen Schwartz last year. I was drawn to his warmth, his humor, the beauty of his language. I was moved by his insights about emotional healing. There’s no ideal state of consciousness, he insisted, other than the one we find ourselves in right now.

Friend Of The Sun

Hero With A Thousand Faces

One of Bill Clinton’s favorite movies, according to the newspaper, is High Noon. It’s one of my favorites, too, a classic Western about a lone man standing up against evil. I watched it again the weekend before the inauguration.

February 1993

For the World

The hurricane knocks down everything in its path. We give it a name.

Call When You Get There

There are no plants, no posters, no homey touches at the driver’s license bureau, just a few desks jammed together under the harsh glare of fluorescents, and seated behind them, in starchy uniforms and neckties, the examiners. The women examiners wear ties, too, though theirs are shorter than the men’s — either as a concession to fashion or evidence of the usual pecking order.

Freedom’s Just Another Word

I meet with Mikhail Bazankov, a Russian novelist, who tells me the dissolution of the Soviet Union has been a mixed blessing for writers. With the Russian economy in shambles, he explains, it’s difficult to get books published and distributed.

November 1992

Without A Name For You

Hannah Arendt says a fundamental contradiction of the United States is political freedom coupled with social slavery.

The Prayer Of The Body III

An Interview With Stephen R. Schwartz

This body only appears to be an enclosure. It is actually a passageway — like an entry to a cave or a cathedral. It is quite the opposite of the way we’ve been taught to perceive it.

The Prayer Of The Body

The Work Of Stephen R. Schwartz

By persistently asking where a feeling is being experienced, he helps distinguish between what is actually occurring in the body and the conditioning, the descriptions, the self-defeating ideas carried by the mind.

Forever And A Day

This moment, I realize, with all its ludicrous and painful imperfection, is as perfect as any other. It doesn’t need to be improved; I don’t need to be better.