This is an Index of Content on Spirituality.
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In The Midst of Mystery
Always life presents us with such a mix of things, sometimes wonderful, sometimes chaotic or fearful, always, it seems paradoxical. Here are a few quotes about the mystery that is at the heart of creation. May you, this day, find peace and joy in the always present beauty, abundance, and diversity that is the Great [...]
We Are More Than We Know
In Cabeza de Vaca's account of his journey from Florida to the Pacific, between the years 1528 and 1536, he tells how the Indians came to him and his companions asking them to cure the sick. The two white men were themselves half starved, lost and filled with blank despair but the Indians felt that [...]
Paying Attention?
Paying Attention? Boring I may be, but not bored, for that so-called vacant stare you think you see is really an acute awareness of Presence everywhere, shimmering in leaf and stone, and resonating, always—that holy Voice that tells me nothing is ever alone. I am listening, listening. And that is prayer, if anything is. [...]
Introduction to Taoism, Lesson One, an Online Course
Taoism is a way of life practiced since the very earliest times in China. Its roots appear long before 500 BC. So it’s a very old wisdom indeed—a wisdom deep and profound, practical but also fanciful, earthy but also mystical, playful but also instructive, and yes, often romantic. All forms of wisdom. Origins of the [...]
Taoism and Nature, Lesson Two, An Online Course
Until recently, many Chinese were still living and practicing the way of life Lao Tsu taught. There are many aspects to this way of life, and in each lesson in this course we will take up different ones. Here we look at an important concept: the notion that there is something called a “natural state” out [...]
Voices Imagined in Spring
A unique glance at springtime in a season of suffering through imagined voices of the Great Feminine Archetype Me: All these lilies here are my Mama’s lilies. That is, they are the offsprings of bulbs that were growing in the bog near the house my stepfather built for Mama [...]
Timeline of Christianity
1000 BCE Jewish writings assembled, the Torah, the earliest part of the text that was subsequently known to Christians as the Old Testament 990 BCE David, already king of Judah, anointed king of Israel, brings into one realm the twelve tribes of the Israelites, makes Jerusalem his capital 960 BCE [...]
In Honor of That Not Spoken, A Poem by Glenda Taylor
I speak, till you cry out "Partial! Only Partial!" Then I go silent. I paint, until you say "One, only one of the limitless possible," and so I cease to paint. I wish to publish, yet you whisper, "Ah, but you'll be penned to one perspective and who will know you know there is another [...]
Perspective
Many years ago, I was privileged to spend some time with an incredible man named Hyemeyohsts Storm. He described himself as a “breed,” his mother being Native American and his father German. Storm was, in my own experience, a wise, insightful mystic, as well as also being what Native Americans call a [...]
Courage for the Moment
Many of us are exhausted with the various social, political and moral dilemmas of our time. We do well to listen to the wisdom of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor and theologian, who spoke out strongly about the moral dilemmas faced by German citizens in the 1930s and paid for his [...]
Keep Walking, a Poem by Rumi
Keep Walking, by Rumi, Translation by Coleman Barks Keep walking. Though there's no place to get to. Don't try to see through the distances. That's not for human beings. Move within. But don't move the way fear makes you move. Today, like very other day, We wake up empty and frightened. Don't open the door [...]
“God Is A Verb” Quotations
“God is not what we think It is. God is not a thing, a being, a noun... all the names we have for God and all the ways in which we relate to God are a few degrees removed from the source of creation that precedes even nothingness…The closest we can come to thinking about [...]
Calm Amidst the Turbulence
As I have navigated the turbulent currents of this week’s corono-virus events, I was reminded of something I wrote in my journal last summer; re-reading it this morning helped to steady me. I send it along to you with hopes it will do the same for you. Here it is: Seated on [...]
Thomas Jefferson Writes About Jesus
Jesus Christ, detail from Deesis mosaic, Hagia Sophia, IstanbulPhoto by Edal Anton Lefterov, via Wikipedia, CC 3.0 “I have promised to write someday about my views…This view would purposely omit the question of his divinity and even his inspiration. To do him justice, it would be necessary to remark the disadvantages his doctrines [...]
Kabir, Mystic and Poet
Kabir, 1825 Painting of Kabir Weaving, Public Domain Kabir was a mystic and poet born in India around 1398. As an infant, he was abandoned on the streets of Benares. He was taken in and raised by a Muslim family. As an adult, he became a weaver–of cloth and of words. He wrote [...]
The Jewish Tradition, by Dawn Warren
The Hebrew language, culturally considered the Jewish language, has flourished since before the 10th century B.C.E. In Hebrew, the word Torah means “teaching” or “law” and refers to Judaism’s founding legal and religious texts. The Torah calls the Jewish people “a nation”, referring to them as a group of people with a common history and a common destiny. That [...]
Quotation: On Wholeness and Being, Stephen Levine GalleryQuotation: On Wholeness and Being, Stephen Levine
Buddhism, Consciousness, Energy, and Matter: Quotations, Doubt, Certainty, and Humility: Quotations, Hinduism, Individualism: Quotations, Intuition: Quotations, Mysticism, Mysticism: Quotations, Oneness and Unity: Quotations, Spiritual Diversity: Quotations, Transformation: Quotes
Quotation: On Wholeness and Being, Stephen Levine
"…This vastness at the center beckons us yet deeper into wisdom, and compassion is the Unnamable to which so many mystics throughout the ages have referred. It is both our birthright and our unbirthright because it is said by some adepts that we were born to discover we are the unborn, the essential suchness from [...]
Timeline of Some Ancient Writings
Timeline of Ancient Writings In my years of research, I have learned that it is useful to have a timeline of "who said what" "when." As we all know, versions of history and philosophical concepts change dramatically down through the years. Here is a timeline of some ancient writers or writings. Obviously the dates are [...]
Wisdom for This Unusual Day
Wisdom for This Day The words of Hazrat Inayat Khan: Rumi says your worst enemy is hiding within yourself, and that enemy is your nafs or false ego. It is very difficult to explain the meaning of this ‘false ego.’ The best I can do is to say that every inclination which springs from disregard [...]
On Centering GalleryOn Centering
Change: Quotations, Consciousness, Energy, and Matter: Quotations, Cross-Cultural Mythology, History and Culture, Intention and Expectation: Quotations, Mysticism: Quotations, Native American, Oneness and Unity: Quotations, Poetry, Psychology, Spiritual Diversity: Quotations, Spirituality
On Centering
On Centering The quotations are all from the book The Tao of Symbols, published in 1982 by James N. Powell “…Where is the still center of this turning universe? Are we to bow down several times each day in the direction of the stone in the central city of Mecca as [...]
Have We Forgotten What We Have All Been Taught?
Father and Child at US Border, AP imaage “Let the children come unto me…It is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish... Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me...” Jesus, Christian, quoted in Matthew 18 “Give justice to the [...]
Wholeness and Courage
Wholeness and Courage A quote from Marsha Sinetar: “…Wholeness exists to the extent an individual is conscious of and receptive to his innermost self…When we think about our own growth we probably think simultaneously of two co-existing and equally necessary elements: self-knowledge (i.e. knowing who the self within us really is and awakening to the [...]
That Intersecting Place, by Glenda Taylor, 2014
I came across this today, and I was glad to be reminded. I had posted it on the TowardCommonGround.org website back in 2014. Some of you responded then with deep insight. I include it here because, well, I guess I needed it this week again! This is only one slant, one among many [...]
Dancing With a Tornado: An Easter Story, by Glenda Taylor
Today, a week after the occasion of my 80th birthday celebration, which was a Dances of Universal Peace Four Day Camp at Earthsprings Retreat Center, my heart, mind, and body are still vibrating with the energy of the time some fifty people spent together dancing, singing, praying, eating, laughing, and most of all, being [...]
Why Did He Do That?
"Why did he do that?" I hear that question a lot these days, about any number of so-called deviant behaviors. For most of us, answering it seems somehow more and more urgently important. We do, after all, live in a time when, for example, gun sales are reaching record highs as [...]
