An interview with Ammachi. A tiny dark-skinned woman draped in a white sari beams as she totters down the aisle of loving devotees. Their outstretched hands are like feather plumes, waving, reaching to brush her as she leaves the crowded hall. Her face is placid, strong and fully alert, as it has been unwaveringly for the last five hours, but … Read More
A Song that Goes On Singing
An interview with philosopher & founder of Schola Contemplatonis Beatrice Bruteau. AE: In this issue we are exploring spiritual evolution and the relationship between enlightenment and evolution. You are one of the pioneering thinkers in evolutionary spirituality and your work has been devoted to bringing an evolutionary view to Christian contemplative life. In your book, God’s Ecstasy, you have said, … Read More
Memorial Day, A Poem
June, summer’s dawn The wind steady off the Delaware in the Vietnam memorial where I sometimes go to do chi kung, early morning Chinese breathing for health – repair – rejuvenation Medicinal more than Spiritual Spirit still the fabric, the meshwork between the cells of experience, of incidents, between the living and those gone late An index card, … Read More
Don’t Leave G-d Out of It: Zalman Schachter’s Views on Sexuality
This interview with Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi explores his interpretation of views on sexuality and spirituality in Judaism. Western tantra, Christian and Hindu celibacy, Tibetan sexual yoga, Buddhist monasticism . . . as we began discussing these vastly divergent approaches to sexuality in spiritual life, I wondered what Judaism had to say about the subject. Raised in a Reconstructionist synagogue with … Read More
Orchestrating Our Many Selves: interview with Jean Houston
Jean Houston on the Fallacy of Self Mastery by Amy Edelstein “I would never use the word ‘mastery’! I thought I’d tell you that right away. . . . To me, it smacks of galloping chutzpah!” This was Dr. Jean Houston’s response at the very beginning of our interview, before I had even begun to explain what we meant by “self-mastery” and why … Read More
Inner Strength for Outer Stability: Reflections on Random Violence in America
This article was originally published by Fair Observer on February 12, 2013. A combination of advanced technology, a 24 hour media cycle, and troubled, alienated youth has splashed the unthinkable too frequently across our minds’ eye. We’re becoming no strangers to eruptions of fear in our youngsters, to shadowy threats in fleeting moments of our common patterns of life. We are not … Read More
The Eye, the Heart & the Roots of American Activist Journalism
This article was originally published by Fair Observer on January 31, 2013. Amy Edelstein reflects on the influence of the Transcendentalist Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) In the digital age, where anyone with a smartphone, tablet, PDA, twitter feed or wordpress account can become a journalist, it’s hard to imagine a time that marked the advent of what was to become an … Read More