Back inside, I’m shown an antique cabinet in which members of the community, famous for their homegrown produce, dried herbs. The Oneida Community was an upstate tourist attraction right from the start, second, Valesky says, to Niagara Falls. I’m...
Why Dream? Life is a difficult assignment. We are fragile creatures, expected to function at high rates of speed, and asked to accomplish great and small things each day. These daily activities take enormous amounts of energy. Most things are out of ...
That evening, in her apartment, still in Warsaw, Ana takes down a book from her shelf – a rather thick, ordinary paperback. It looks old, because it's worn out and somehow shabby. But it's not ordinary. I can tell by the way she handles it so caref...
Sometimes people carried anger around for years, in a secret box inside their bodies, and it grew tighter like a hardening knot. The problem with it getting tighter and smaller was that the people did, too, hiding it. Liyana had seen this happen even...
It used to be obvious that the world was designed by some sort of intelligence. What else could account for fire and rain and lightning and earthquakes? Above all, the wonderful abilities of living things seemed to point to a creator who had a specia...
Once it happens you can’t remember how you started out: innocent, barreling into the tunnel, shooting out at each station like a dolphin out of a dim green pool. Pneumatic doors inhale open, puff shut, lock with a solid thump. Up and down the line,...
Where have I been? she wondered. Is a life that can now be considered an absence a life? For some time things had been going badly for her. She could cite nothing in particular as a problem; rather, it was as if life in general had a grudge against h...
When you're and only child in a family with an only parent, you look at other, bigger families with envy. Mary Alice had a family with a station wagon, a split-level house, and a pool. But then I looked up and saw Mary Alice's toes, as she stood at t...
I think that life would suddenly seem wonderful to us if we were threatened to die as you say. Just think of how many projects, travels, love affairs, studies, it–our life–hides from us, made invisible by our laziness which, certain of a future, ...
I cannot have a man who is afraid of everything, I don't have the time to soothe insecurities and fears, I cannot have a man who is standing on a stone by a creek, watching for the fish to swim by and every time he sees a fish he says "Oh look, this ...
What a shame it would be, if upon death, one who lived his life following his religion, were to find out that there is no Heaven and no Hell and that all souls just go out and back to the places where they came from, finally free from the monsters th...
I have always been a lone wolf and in the real sense of the word (people say it all the time but it's usually not true.) I feel like I watch people and I wonder why they do things. Especially when it comes to love and relationships: most of the time ...
Rats! There goes the bell... oh, how I hate lunch hours! I always have to eat alone because nobody likes me... Peanut butter again... I wish that little red haired girl would come over, and sit with me. Wouldn’t it be great if she’d walk over her...
It is the custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for next morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have wandered during the day. If you could keep awake (b...
...My dad, may he rest in peace, taught me many wonderful things. And one of the things he taught me was never ask a guy what you do for a living. He said "If you think about it, when you ask a guy, what do you do you do for a living," you’re sayin...
If I could just have him until the day was over. Just a few more hours. But he was gone. I clasped my hand tightly over my mouth and felt a trembling that started deep inside move out to make all of me shake. I had a mighty impulse, it truly was migh...
I mean, in the last few months alone, I've been pinned in a big set of white-water rapids, been bitten by an angry snake in a jungle, had a close escapewith a big mountain rockfall, narrowly avoided being eaten by a huge croc in the Australian swamps...
Love is the divine Mother's arms; when those arms are spread, every soul falls into them. The Sufis of all ages have been known for their beautiful personality. It does not mean that among them there have not been people with great powers, wonderful ...
To reclaim our natural power and this birthright of real magic, we must get naked and face ourselves. The truth of Who You Really Are is vast. It is genius. It crackles with electricity and sensuality and other forbidden, dangerous things. You have l...
Hello," Life says, "Remember me? We started out together here When you were just a bundle Of innocent amazement. Remember how you saw the world With nothing but wonder? We were such rowdy playmates then. We painted on the sky with clouds And made mag...
Telling me I’m pretty is nice and all, but if you really want to make my day, tell me I inspired you to read a book. Say you picked up a novel I’ve raved about and that you fell in love with it, too. Or tell me the time we spent reading aloud tog...
