Browse Topics

Men Are From Earth, And So Are Women

Marion Woodman On The Inner Marriage Of The True Masculine And The True Feminine

Yes, the new consciousness is emerging in a fiery birth, which explains all this chaos within and without. All the selfishness and judgment, the religious posturing that says, “Anyone who doesn’t believe exactly the way I do and have the same God that I do is inferior to me” — all of that is dying a violent death. We are being driven by the earth itself to begin functioning with a world consciousness rather than a national consciousness. We need to consider all the different nations and peoples and animals and plants as one unit, because that’s what we are, and our survival depends on our recognizing this. Global warming, for example, is everybody’s responsibility. It requires a global solution.

Trying

Recently samples of baby products — diapers, formula, wipes — have begun showing up in my mail. Packets of coupons with smiling infants on them arrive in envelopes that say, “Congratulations!” in big red letters.

501 Minutes To Christ

Outside of a psychotic who attacked me a few months ago (I stuck his head into a snowbank until he promised to leave me alone) and a middle-aged fellow who drives around town shouting obscenities from a riding mower, there is not much happening here in Middlebury, Vermont.

The Saint, The Murderer, All Of It

Li-Young Lee’s Poetry Of Reconciliation

I believe the only possible ethical consciousness is one that accounts for the whole human being, that doesn’t leave any of it out — and this is precisely what poetry can achieve. On a social scale, this would be a government that accounts for all of its population — the poor, the rich, women, men, children, old people, black, white. Poetry is a way to integrate all of who we are: the saint, the murderer, all of it. By this, I don’t mean to suggest that we give the murderer free rein, but we have to account for that aspect of human psychology and understand it, not just push it aside.

Wash Your Bowls

There’s an old Zen story that I like very much: A monk comes to the monastery of the storied Master Zhaozho. Diligent and serious, the monk asks for instruction, hoping for some esoteric teaching, some deep Buddhist wisdom, or, at the very least, a colorful response that will spur him on in his practice. Instead the master asks him, “Have you had your breakfast yet?” The monk says that he has. “Then wash your bowls,” the master replies. This is the only instruction he is willing to offer.