BEING ALIVE IS A RISKY BUSINESS. No matter who you are, where you live, or how much privilege you enjoy, insecurity is the price tag on human existence, with suffering, danger, and loss close at hand in the best of times.
These mortal hazards have only intensified in our age of pandemic terror. Yet, while contemporary dangers have multiplied on many fronts, the perennial questions stalking the human race have hardly changed at all.
How can you live in a world where all things end? How can you love, knowing that you will eventually lose? How can you “turn the obstacle upside down,” as the Stoics recommended; find the opportunity in catastrophe; and use adversity as fuel for self-discovery, compassion, resilience, humor, and excellence?
I was diagnosed with a fatal illness in my late 20s, fled my life, and spent 10 years on the road as a dharma bum, seeking teachers and wisdom to prepare me for what lay ahead. I would not have chosen this experience, trust me, nor could I deny that it gave me my life. I’ve spent the past 35 years as a memoirist, seeker, teacher, and survivor, exploring this pivot between living and dying and how our greatest obstacles morph through practice into sources of strength.
This story is from the September/October 2022 edition of Spirituality & Health.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the September/October 2022 edition of Spirituality & Health.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
ONE WORD TO BEAT WINTER BLUES: BIOMIMICRY
CREATURELY REFLECTIONS
THINKING ABOUT RESTITUTION
THE HEART OF HAPPINESS
WAITING IN LINE
OUR WALK IN THE WORLD
ENTER THE SAUNA
Journalist Emily O’Kelly shares some uplifting research on the benefits of sweat bathing, a global healing practice not just limited to Northern climes.
the trail of ATONEMENT
One Ashkenazi Jewish family escaped pogroms in Russia and then flourished in South Dakota, but the “free land” of their new homestead had been unfairly taken from the Lakota by the United States. Generations later, a celebrated investigative journalist set out to tell the truth of the Lakota and her family, calculate The Cost of Free Land—and pay it back.
STALKING YOUR Mind
Stalking the Mind is part of an ancient Indigenous American Medicine Way to tame your guilt, fears, and shame. What we’re “stalking” are our thought patterns and beliefs that seem to create the opposite of happiness and wellbeing. It’s a powerful psychotherapeutic journey of healing without the diagnosis or labels.
LEAVING MESA VERDE
After 21 years of service at Mesa Verde National Park, RANGER DAVID FRANKS recently guided his last tour of the pueblos and cliff dwellings. He says he was fortunate to assist the archeologists with a variety of work and never lost his amazement with their ability to figure out how and when things happened. The question he still wrestles with is much deeper: Why they left?
BECOMING YOUR OWN LEAD RESEARCHER IN HEALTHCARE
PEGGY LA CERRA, PHD, downloaded a health app to aggregate her medical records and was stunned to see the phrase \"aortic atherosclerosis.\" What she did next is a helpful model for all of us.
ARCHETYPAL ASTROLOGY
\"Is astrology true?\" is the wrong question, writes RABBI RAMI SHAPIRO. He suggests that the truth is out there, but out there is really in here.
WELLNESS IN THE WILD
Spa aficionado MARY BEMIS takes the [cold] plunge at Mohonk Mountain House.
