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Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
The Witch, The Swan, And The Middle Class
I’m not praising the middle class, but we are returning to the problem of why so many of our poems carry no values except private ones. I think the universities have had a part in this. One could say that the M.F.A. programs de-class a young poet.
July 1982The White Horse: Seth On Animals
Seth says the inner intent always forms any exterior change, which contradicts the Darwinian assumption that outer motivation propels the development of new abilities. It is not the survival of the fittest that is the prime purpose of a species. Survival is merely the means by which a species can attain its goal of enhancing the quality of life, as it experiences life through itself.
June 1982Teaching, And The Mood Of Relativity
Many years ago when I first taught college English, I made a discovery in the first or second week of teaching, namely, that the main obstacle to instruction, to one’s ability to teach someone something they don’t already know, is the mood and spirit of relativity.
June 1982City/Country Miners
Some Northern California Veins
This time he’s more me than I am and we have been here together many lifetimes before and we are drinking each other alive. This is the moment to die. Nothing can get better. Nothing does.
May 1982A Book Of Games
A Course In Spiritual Play
Your mind can smile. Did you know that? Try it right now and you will see. Amusement without mockery is divine. Laugh softly at yourself. Notice how everyone does the best he can. There is no one undeserving of a gentle pat and the light touch of your love.
May 1982Theme For English 1200
“As a white person,” a student asks me, “are you uncomfortable teaching black literature to blacks?”
“Of course,” I answer. “Of course.”
March 1982There Is A Place Where You Are Not Alone
“Rely on yourself” and “Do not rely on yourself” alone are not conflicting ideas. One must rely on what he is, but what he is is not alone.
March 1982Seth On Suicide
Seth’s oceanic desire is to remind us that no death comes unbidden, that death is as spontaneous a creation as our own lives, engineered by our beliefs, which, no matter how distorted, cannot destroy in some final deed of discipline the impulse to be.
March 1982Learning To Die
In every spiritual tradition life is not something that you automatically have, it is something that you must choose, and what makes you choose life is the challenge of death — learning to die, not eventually, but here and now.
March 1982Going To The Movies
To set aside the myriad differences which separate us from others, even those we love, and for a moment actually feel their consciousness is unparalleled as an evolutionary tool. It carries us far beyond our fortresses of pride and certainty.
February 1982Personal, political, provocative writing delivered to your doorstep every month—without a single ad.
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