Sure, there wasn't a magic guy with a flying sleigh, etcetera, but there was an aspect of the human experience, a generosity, that we could sensibly personify as the chubby fellow in red. Santa didn't live at North Pole, but in the human heart. Yes, Santa was our parents - humans incarnating a mythological role, each becoming for a moment here and there the avatar of that Christmas Spirit. Read more
Welcome to another Random Wednesday episode of The Zen Pagan. This week, just a few links for your reading and listening pleasure. It’s a holiday edition, so let’s start with some Christmas music. This article by Michael Brendan Dougherty about The Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York” is from last year but still more than worth a read: It is a masterpiece of compact storytelling: … Five words to tell us it’s a Christmas song and a love song. Four more... Read more
Seriously, it's getting cold out there. Warm clothing is seasonally appropriate. A good comfortable base layer is essential, and it's right up against your skin -- intimately close. Read more
To deal with social problems of all sorts, we need collaborative harm reduction policies, not harsh criminalization. Read more
This was my meditation lecture to my karate students last week. I hope that it might inspire others to think about the ways that the activities and organizations that they take part in, promote or fail to promote cosmopolitanism. Read more
"Every man should have a built-in automatic crap detector operating inside him." -- Ernest Hemingway Read more
The ethnic identities that our families pass along to us are part of our lived experience. But race is an artificial construct, invented to justify exploitation and keep oppressed people from uniting. Read more
The allure of fascism is that you, friend, can be part of that glorious struggle! Join our Great Leader, let some of his cosmic energy fill you up! Read more
And then it hit me, the great truth I was there to learn, with all the subtlety of a stalactite falling from the ceiling of a cave: We're all in this together. Like it or not -- and sometimes you won't like it -- we're all in this together. Read more
As horrible as a Trump administration is likely to be, perhaps it is the best outcome that the past two decades of American politics have left us. But going forward there’s one thing that’s clear: we must hope and pray the the Democratic Party is teachable. Read more
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