Priorities

The shaman, who is the predecessor of the hermit, was always a risk-taker isolated from the clan or group, depending upon himself or herself for physical surviv...

Walls

The function of a wall is to demark, to separate two worlds. There are short boundary walls, enormous fortress walls, and great symbolic barrier walls as in anc...

Universalizing

Though we are obviously socialized in order to function as human beings, our particular circumstances can override our logic, intuition and intelligence if we d...

Moon from a distance

In the night’s stillness, the moon is small and aloof, its soft light barely sufficient, barely necessary. Still, a strong luminescence reflects from pebb...

Mirror to the self

Plato taught that every person wants happiness no matter how wicked they are because whatever they do they do it believing that it will bring them happiness. Of...

Ownership

People tend to forget that both Gotama and Jesus were wandering ascetics. They were homeless and deliberately without property. “The birds have their nest...