River Medicine
Mountains, deserts, rivers, rocks, unobstructed skies, the music of water, wind, soil and life. I’d like to talk about how nature is medicine for me. I’ll begin with an anecdote I came across about a couple of experiments that UC Berkeley professor Dr. Dacher Keltner,...
A Musical Offering – Simplicity
I’m taking what is for me a bold step, and offering to you this simple four minute flute improvisation that helped to calm my nervous tummy, and brought me to a moment of peace. Perhaps this perfectly imperfect piece of music could provide you with a moment of peace...
SHAMANISM – A Very Brief History
High population and large territory don’t eliminate shamans … They show up under different auspices and in different costumes. Even in our era there are urban shamans channeling messages from beyond. Some are bogus. Some are sincere. And some, no doubt, are...
SHAMAN
There was a tradition in the temple of Dodona that oaks first gave prophecies. The men of old in their simplicity, unlike young philosophy, deemed that if they heard the truth even from an oak or a rock, it was enough. – Socrates in Plato’s Phaedrus I’ve...
God is an Outlaw Path
Sometimes I’m bemused by how the individuals whose lives became the genesis of religious institutions were themselves outlaws: Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad. They were people who just couldn’t follow the rules. Outlaws. Delinquent. Threatening. Then, as institutions...