For two weeks, author Gregg Braden had acclimated his body to altitudes of over 16,500 feet above sea level. Along with 20 other seekers, he had crossed an icy river in hand-hewn wooden barges and hiked up the steep, jagged peaks of the Himalayas to a remote monastery, with one burning question in mind. As he knelt on the cold, wet stones of the temple, Braden posed, through … [Read more...]

  Neptune entered Aries on March 30, 2025. He’ll briefly slip back into Pisces on October 22, then fully ingress into Aries on January 26, 2026, where he’ll be until March 2039. The ancient Greeks understood: sometimes the gods just like to mess with us. In March of 2011, as Neptune prepared to enter his oceanic home sign, Pisces, this trident-bearing, earth-shaking Sea … [Read more...]

In his seminal book Grist for the Mill, Ram Dass shared his experience of teaching meditation to prison inmates, including those on death row. He observed that the inmates condemned to die welcomed the teachings. They were so serene that he felt humbled to be in their presence. But when he went to the cell blocks of those with life sentences, the inmates harassed him and … [Read more...]

Some years ago, writer Elizabeth Gilbert was stuck on a crosstown bus in New York City during rush hour. As she recalled, “The bus was filled with cold, tired people who were deeply irritated – with one another, with the rainy, sleety weather, with the world itself. Two men barked at each other about a shove that might or might not have been intentional. A pregnant woman got … [Read more...]

Most people associate Whitney Houston with the iconic hit “I Will Always Love You” (from her sexy 1992 movie The Bodyguard). But it was Dolly Parton who actually wrote the song in 1973 when, as a 22-year-old up-and-coming country singer, she was struggling with a professional breakup – not a romantic one. Parton had been feuding with Porter Wagoner, her mentor and on-screen … [Read more...]