I find myself thinking of Margot Adler. She was born in Little Rock, on the 16th of April, 1946. Not much later the family relocated to New York City, and that would remain her base for the rest of her life. The family were “the” Adlers. Her grandfather the noted early associate of Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, who later developed his own school, Individual psychology. Her father was also a noted psychiatrist. Adler earned her undergraduate degree at... Read more
Six Markers of a Modernist Buddhism James Myoun Ford Buddhisms, Ancient & Modern There I was, on Facebook, when I was pointed to an article that purported to compare “traditional” Buddhism with “secular” Buddhism. The author appeared to belong to a Traditionalist school of one sort or another, and, interestingly, to me, at least, is also a pretty far right person politically, identifying, it appears with the alt-right. This generated several trains of thought for me. One... Read more
The very generous folk at New World Library have just gifted me with a copy of Zen: A Short Introduction With Illustrations by the Author. I guess its one of the perks that come when someone gets confused for a moment and thinks I might be an “Influencer” in the Zen Buddhist world. I was pleased to get it. My feelings about Alan Watts shift like the tides and currently my positive feelings are in full flood.... Read more
Tafari Makonnen was born on this day, the 23rd of July, in 1892. In 1930 would assume the throne of Ethiopia as the Emperor Haile Selassie I. Through the vagaries of mysterious karma, and possibly at least in part to the royal family’s claim to be descendent from the biblical Queen of Sheba and King Solomon, he would find a lasting place in religions as a central figure in the Rastafarian movement. Mildly ironic, of course,... Read more
One of the interesting themes to my young life as a boomer was the background reality of the space race. Like most all children in the country I followed the space program avidly from the announcement of Sputnik when I was nine years old, to that moment sitting with friends and watching a snowy black and white television broadcasting Neil Armstrong’s first step onto the moon’s surface on the 20th of July, 1969. Fifty years ago. I continue... Read more
As it happens, it was today, the 18th of July, 1992 that the first picture was posted to the World Wide Web. The image was of Les Horribles Cernettes, Angela Higney, Michele de Gennaro, Colette Marx-Neilsen, and Lynn Veronneau. And here is the picture. The group was, according to Wikipedia, “an all-female parody pop group, self-labelled “the one and only High Energy Rock Band”, which was founded by employees of CERN and performed at CERN and other HEP-related... Read more
The story that forms this sermon is inspired by a tale recounted in Simons Roof’s Journeys on the Razor-Edged Path. From that place I try to outline the arc of a spiritual life. Read more
Of course today is Bastille Day. And a tip of the hat to that revolution marked by the storming of the prison in 1789. It is also the anniversary of another uprising of sorts, a counter riot to the spirit of that revolution which also took place on the 14th of July, but two years later in England. It is commonly called the “Priestley Riots.” Joseph Priestley is much more than the patron saint... Read more
By calculations noted at good old Wikipedia today, the 13the of July, marks the conclusion of the siege of Jerusalem and its sacking by Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylonian army. As the actual year isn’t precisely certain, it could be 597 before our common era or maybe 596, I’m not especially comfortable dating it precisely beyond saying it was the summer of one or the other year. Jerusalem’s king was forced to watch his sons all be executed before he was blinded.... Read more
It was on this day, the 10th of July, 1871, that Valentin Louis Georges Eugene Marcel Proust was born in Paris. His was a well to do family, his father Catholic, his mother Jewish. It is said that as he aged, Proust became “an atheist and was something of a mystic.” I rather like that combination of contradictions. It can invite a life of mysteries. The well to do proved critical for him. Except for a brief period... Read more
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