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Father’s Day is here again and it may be no coincidence that every year it falls within a week or so of the Summer Solstice, a time when pagans like me celebrate the masculine energy of the sun, the s-u-n, our father who art in orbit, hallowed be thy light. On the solstice you can usually feel the penetrating rays of El Sol, as the Northern Hemisphere of the earth tilts toward the sun in a great bow of respect, calling on us to reflect …
Okay, everybody sing along to the tune of Happy Birthday: ♪ “Happy earthday to you! Happy earthday to you! Happy earth day every-body — (keep holding the note) — regardless of kingdom, phyla, class, order, family, genus or species; regardless of color of skin, fur, feathers, scales, leaves or bark — (Resume singing) — Happy earthday to you!” And this is Scoop here with the real nitty-gritty and the dirty low down. And yes, the earth gave birth to all of us: the microbes and …
Friends, it’s gratitude time in America — time to raise the praise, pass the platter, and remember that it is mostly gravy for you and me on this rocky little planet. And this is Scoop with my annual list of perceived blessings and very soon we will have holidays, First of all, looking back at history, I feel deep gratitude for living in this place at this time, on the fertile continent of Turtle Island. And just think, in only the past two hundred years …
John Lennon sang it out loud and clear back in 1968: “War is over.” He may have been a little ahead of history, but he was giving voice to a growing disgust with the warlike ways of our species. Other great singers of our time offer similar sentiments as they pose the perennial questions: When will they ever learn? How many times must the cannonballs fly? Where have all the young men gone? War — what is it good for? We should have declared that …
The dark, oh the dark! It’s not really so stark, the dark. Just a time without light, a bark without bite. A time to rest from the glare of the sun, A time to get something done, or undone. Inside your mother you could not see. The womb of the world is a black hole in space. The dark is the place of fertility. In the dark you can see your original face. Without the dark we would not know there was light. We would …
It was a significant moment in the history of the Dhamma, that winter of 1971 in Bodhgaya, when S. N. Goenka began to teach his 10 day retreats in vipassana meditation, attended primarily by young people from the West. Most of us had come to India on a pilgrimage to check out the source of this ancient wisdom tradition that we had been reading about at college in paperback books; the writings of hip scholars like Alan Watts and the spiritual beatnik poets. I attended …
Labor Day weekend marks the last sigh of summer — and just when you were starting to relax, here’s Labor Day to signal the start of the busy season. It’s time to get hyperactive again! The speed-up has a lot to do with the autumn chill that causes our metabolism to kick into a higher gear, and then we begin acting out the legacy of our Paleolithic ancestors who had to do major hunting and gathering in order to survive the winter. You can find …
Lately I find myself engaging with friends in an ancient and revered form of discourse whose origins lie in the dim past of humanity. To take part in this talking ritual requires only that you have reached a certain age and are willing to expose your innermost self. I am referring to the art and practice of “geezing.” Often it starts with an innocent greeting such as, “How are you?” When we were younger the answer was usually, “Fine, how are you?” Lately however, with …
“Our task in the coming era is to relocate ourselves in the cosmos and to renew our kinship with all of earth life. It is time to join again in the dance-drama of biological and cosmic evolution.” -D. H. Lawrence Reflecting on the scientific story of evolution we find a lineage of bodhisattvas, saints of compassion stretching back millions of years through epochs of geological time. We owe our existence to the struggles and sacrifices of uncountable numbers of beings; creatures who had to shape-shift …
Strange as it may seem, I like to think of myself as a fool. Once I embrace my essential foolish nature I no longer have to pretend to be wise or hip or awesome. Instead I can just be me, someone a little weak of will, usually caught up in some mundane drama, and completely clueless as to the meaning of life or what I am doing here. Knowing that I’m a fool, I take great comfort in the observation of the Taoist rascal Chuang …