“Spring and Memories”
“The potent muskiness of the wisteria smelled like the perfume of a woman he could no longer have. The lighter, lily-of-the-valley fragrance of the forsythia recalled innocence long lost. Sturdy, dimpled, violaceous blooms of magnolia reminded him of the youthful exuberance of Mayfield Street and the languor of the Deep South, both of which states […]
Continue reading“Musicians as Priests”
“The best composers played vital roles in spiritual evolution; they functioned like psychopomps for the living, leading the way to the regions of soul. These artists, having mounted Jacob’s ladder themselves, re-created its rungs in sound, so that their music’s receptive listeners could likewise ascend. Music possessed this power more than any other art. Music […]
Continue reading“Live Music”
You are with me, my friend, as we watch music, in its incantatory beauty, rise from Silence to swallow whole our hearts and souls. There is the singer angled toward her creation like a goddess about to bring the dead to life. Behind her is the fiddler, his long hair flowing as he strums. Beside […]
Continue reading“Childlike Holiness”
“As Skylar brought to mind other sayings of Jesus regarding the Kingdom, he remembered the words about children: ‘Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.’ Skylar mentally ran over his stored images of Saints: Adi Shankara, Ramana Maharishi, Teresa of Avila, Ramakrishna, Swami Ramdas, Saint […]
Continue reading“Similar Souls”
“Skylar had learned that souls come into human life with tendencies, impressions, and goals. Some take bodies and walk the earth in order to master things practical and material, others to saddle Spirit with a body and ride, still others to learn emotional lessons that serve to diminish the control of ego and heighten altruism. […]
Continue reading“Vrede’s Kiss”
“Vrede kissed him neither like a tyro unsure how to form her lips nor like a flirt, whose automatic, routine movements demonstrate her mastery of the art. Their kisses came slowly, their lips lingering in place after making contact. Some invisible quality of calmness emanated from her, causing him to noticeably slow himself, as if […]
Continue reading“The Self”
“One came to know the Self, not the personal self, but the Self that united everything, the One Consciousness that was Reality: the Eternal, the Peaceful; the Blissful, the Pure; the Self that had always been in existence and always would be but which, in ignorance, the cloudy dreams of passion generated by the ego […]
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