Spirituality https://www.thesunmagazine.org/rss en-us The Feeding Some leeches have two jaws. Others have three. Some have teeth on their tongues. There are protective leeches who hover over their eggs, and leeches who carry their newborns in pouches like tiny kangaroos.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28988 Sun, 31 May 2026 15:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/606-the-feeding 606-26-rios-preview.jpg 606 - Rios - Glatt The Good End of Pleasant Street When our landlords came by to introduce themselves, they stood beside a shelf of our books on how to avoid suffering: “Develop a mind that clings to nothing,” said the Buddhist Diamond Sutra; Be Here Now, read the spine of a Ram Dass book. Dan was a general contractor and wore a flat cap and a half grin. Or a sneer. I wasn’t sure which.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28987 Sun, 31 May 2026 15:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/606-the-good-end-of-pleasant-street 606-14-easley-preview.jpg 606 - Easley - Lanier Practice Losing Everything I challenged my students to interrogate their own religious inheritance, and I spoke frequently of the “ethics of faith.” I asked whether they’d arrived at faith through honest inquiry or by suppressing their doubts.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28957 Tue, 31 Mar 2026 10:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/604-practice-losing-everything 604-14-duval-preview.jpg 604 - Duval - Percesepe Selected Poems It all reminds me of that moment when you take off your sunglasses / after a long drive and realize it’s earlier / and lighter out than you had accounted for.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28942 Sat, 28 Feb 2026 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/603-selected-poems The Danish Then I felt a small admiration for the Man With The Danish, who hoped to give away excess food rather than throw it in the trash. Maybe I should have accepted the Danish, although I didn’t want it. By turning it down resentfully, I might have discouraged him from ever offering food to a stranger again. But there’s no time to think when someone thrusts a sudden dessert in your face.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28898 Wed, 31 Dec 2025 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/601-the-danish 601-40-began-preview.jpg 601 - Beban - Sparrow The Body Eats I want to keep eating. I want life. More life. I want to turn from the simple facts of my existence to consider bigger mysteries, to fret about what might be, to remember what is no more. I want to imagine something other than this food in front of me, already a commodity on some assembly line, moving away from me.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28897 Wed, 31 Dec 2025 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/601-the-body-eats 601-20-easley-preview.jpg 601 - Easley - Safransky Tassajara The abbot declared your beloved pit bull had Buddha nature, / so you carried her sixty muscled pounds to the mountain // monastery, where we sat sesshin and she ate wool socks, / a box of chocolates, and eight pages of Robert Aitken.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28893 Wed, 31 Dec 2025 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/601-tassajara The Patron Saint of Suburban Foxes jamesdavismay@gmail.com . . . Her own orange, though, deepens / in shadow to red, like condensed autumn, and makes her almost invisible / against the brick she edges past / on her burnt-matchstick legs

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28885 Sun, 30 Nov 2025 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/600-the-patron-saint-of-suburban-foxes 600-14-stolow-preview.jpg 600-Stolow-May Silent Disco “We’re here to have fun,” she says. “Be the full expression of yourselves! You can go anywhere or stay right here—wherever the music moves you.”

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28848 Tue, 30 Sep 2025 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/598-silent-disco 598-45-Wolf-preview.jpg 598-Wolf-Miller The Cat Who Woke Me Up The hierarchy that places humans above cats has broken down. I know, in a way I once didn’t, that cats and dogs and birds and bees and every living creature are conscious in a way that’s too hard for most of us to acknowledge. We’re all a bunch of narcissists who imagine that no life-form is quite as appealing as this one we call human. We’re unable to share the stage unless the animals are the supporting players.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28846 Tue, 30 Sep 2025 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28846 598-14-Safransky-preview.jpg 598-Safransky-Safransky Skill Set leathtonino@gmail.com . . .What it amounts to is that I feel / beauty all over, almost everywhere, the grass // growing from a mud puddle earlier today, the shadows shifting on distant mountains. . .

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28845 Tue, 30 Sep 2025 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/598-skill-set Selected Poems A mourning dove calls: Why / do you grieve? This world, / I answer.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28844 Tue, 30 Sep 2025 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/598-selected-poems 598-22-Feinstein-preview.jpg 598-Feinstein-Baggett Sunbeams

I want to be with those who know secret things / or else alone.

Rainer Maria Rilke, “I Am Too Alone”

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28841 Tue, 30 Sep 2025 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/598-sunbeams 598-49-antley-preview.jpg 598-Antley-Sunbeams Radar and Revelation I don’t interpret UFO phenomena literally. I can’t help but see the moral anxiety and end-of-the-world panic expressed by them. But that doesn’t mean I think these encounters don’t happen.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28839 Tue, 30 Sep 2025 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/598-radar-and-revelation 598-4-Gross-preview.jpg 598-Gross-Askey Mad to Live When my children began to tattoo their skin, / even modest images scared me. / I winced at each new embellishment, / wishing them innocence, not scars.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28833 Sun, 31 Aug 2025 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/mad-to-live-dane-cervine-poem-597 Avium You don’t know what’s with Marjorie, // but you almost love her as you gird your loins for a cure / worse than the disease. Imagining two years of drugs / in your still-able body that climbs hills and sings, // you can’t stop wondering how you got this thing. Yet / it must be said avium blesses you with a meaning hardly / to be believed. . .

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28832 Sun, 31 Aug 2025 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/avium-kathryn-jordan-poem-597 Eight Tenets This morning I tell myself, Everything is possible—the first tenet of qigong, the Chinese practice where you stand or sit and start scooping energy out of the air like it’s invisible ice cream. Reaching out and scooping, pulling back and placing energy on your heart, energy that allows good things to happen in all situations. This makes me feel super ninja and ready to meet the day.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28825 Sun, 31 Aug 2025 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/eight-tenets-elizabeth-hawes-incarceration-spirituality-597 597-14-povenz-preview.jpg 597 - Povenz - Hawes The Healer He was riding the train to his teaching job when he heard about Skimmer’s bike accident in a post from another college friend. It was noon in Tokyo, where he was an English instructor; his conversation school opened in thirty minutes. Skimmer had been one of his closest friends in college. They’d lived on the same floor for two years and had shared an off-campus house with others for three years after that. Skimmer had started mountain biking their first semester in the house. Sometimes he would have accidents, and his blood would smear the bathtub while he dressed his wounds. But then he would clean, and when Skimmer cleaned, he scrubbed and wiped and penetrated each corner, calling upon a small orchestra of sprays and rags, brushes and solutions. It was like watching Leonard Bernstein scour a tub.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28757 Wed, 30 Apr 2025 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/593-the-healer 593-20-watanabe-preview.jpg 593-watanabe-keast.jpg Sunbeams

In the beginning was the beat, and the beat was the rhythm of God, and the rhythm of God became the harmony of humanity.

Clarence Glover

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28966 Wed, 30 Apr 2025 11:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/605-sunbeams 605-49-litchkofski-preview.jpg 605 - Litchkofski - Sunbeams Reason To Believe Cohen: Do you think part of that evil spirit is found in every human?

Sullivan: I don’t think we’re born with it, but we have receptors that can connect to it, and we decide how much attention we give it, how much we turn toward its allure.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28734 Mon, 31 Mar 2025 12:00:14 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/592-reason-to-believe 592-04-bonnet-preview.jpg 592-Bonnet-Cohen The Loneliest Monk Listens rick.chess@gmail.com The first step is to imagine. / No, before that: breathe. Breathe, and know / breath. That’s where it begins.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28737 Mon, 31 Mar 2025 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/592-the-loneliest-monk-listens 592-22-druart-preview.jpg 592-Druart-Chess Keening for the Cailleach swan2347@gmail.com The best nights are when moonlight comes through the trees, casting indigo shadows across the ice. My partner swoops around, his arms swinging in front of his crouched body. “It’s the closest we get to flying,” he said once as he sailed past me. Another time: “Maybe this is how a dolphin feels carving through the water.” He loves the tension of the blade slicing across the surface, the whoosh of his skates drawing elaborate patterns on the ice, the crunch of a hockey stop. I listen for the occasional owl.


]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28694 Fri, 31 Jan 2025 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/590-keening-for-the-cailleach 590-16-barkdoll-preview.jpg 590-Barkdoll-Swan Sunbeams The challenge of running The Sun continues to occupy me. Sometimes it occupies me like a conquering army, sometimes like the Holy Ghost. Either way I’m grateful for the chance to do this work month after month, year after year — a man happy to have found his cross to bear. Yes, even living your dream can feel like a burden now and then. But, my oh my, to live your dream! And not just when you’re sleeping, but every morning when you open your eyes. Then you sit in the dark and write a few words. Then the sun comes up.

Sy Safransky’s Notebook, May 2006

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/25681 Thu, 30 Nov 2023 05:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/25681-sunbeams From Somebody To Nobody To . . . I think that any kind of myth you have about what you think is happening is too small and heady for what really is. What really is, is that this is the manifestation of God. And it’s all just fine. It’s horrible but fine. I mean fine with all of its horror.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/25466 Sun, 30 Apr 2023 04:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/25466-from-somebody-to-nobody-to Losing Our Religion It seems every year a new survey comes out in which the category of “no religious affiliation” grows larger and larger. A small portion of those people embrace the label atheist or agnostic, but the vast majority don’t, and some would say the phrase “spiritual but not religious” applies to them.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/21915 Fri, 31 Mar 2023 04:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/21915-losing-our-religion Sunbeams

Not everybody feels religion in the same way. Some it’s in their mouth, but some it’s like a hope in their blood, their bones.

Tillie Olsen, “O Yes”

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/27000 Fri, 31 Mar 2023 04:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/27000-sunbeams This Month In <em>Sun</em> History Sitting with his first wife, Judy, and a friend on a sunny beach in Algeciras, Spain, Sy Safransky embarked on a spiritual journey that ultimately led him to create the magazine you now hold in your hand. In March 1970, for the first time, he placed a tab of LSD on his tongue. He was twenty-five years old.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/24887 Tue, 28 Feb 2023 05:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/24887-this-month-in-em-sun-em-history Messages In the months following Mom’s death in February 2021, I tried to get her to say something to me, to speak to me. If anyone could communicate from beyond, I thought, it was her.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/21642 Wed, 31 Aug 2022 04:20:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/21642-messages Market Street The sea of people looked like a great heartbroken circus, wild living art, motley and stylish, old and young, lots of Buddhists, people from unions and churches and temples, punks and rabbis and aging hippies and nuns and veterans — God, I love the Democratic Party — strewn together on the asphalt lawn of Market Street.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/22691 Thu, 31 Mar 2022 04:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/22691-market-street Sunbeams

Silence is something that comes naturally when you are watching, when you are watching without motive, without any kind of demand, just to watch, and see the beauty of a single star in the sky, or to watch a single tree in a field, or to watch your wife or husband, or whatever you watch. To watch with a great silence and space. Then in that watching, in that alertness, there is something that is beyond words, beyond all measure.

J. Krishnamurti

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/24635 Fri, 31 Dec 2021 05:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/24635-sunbeams