Theme: MOUNTAIN The sacred mountain symbolizes the grandeur of spiritual fulfillment, a place of great strength, uniqueness, and culmination. Mountains require struggle, effort and courage on our part, as does our own unique spiritual path. Lord Shiva is identified with Mount Kailash (as pictured at left, in Tibet, with a... Continue reading

Summer-Fall 2018 Often an image insists on theming an upcoming issue of the Journal before I’ve really had a chance to think about it, and it’s always instructive to reflect on 'why this image at this particular time?' My image for our Summer-Fall 2018 issue is the Turtle or Tortoise.... Continue reading

Our theme for Winter-Spring 2018 will be The Lap. This sacred zone of the body is celebrated in art and religion all over the world, from 'yoni' yantras in India to Madonna-and-Child motifs in the West. The plate of bone supporting the mammalian lap is the 'sacrum,' a shield and... Continue reading

BACK TO SCHOOL Autumn is the season of Learning, and our theme for this Autumn Issue of Wings Surround the World is The Book. The Book is a Feminine form designed to give the experience of Knowledge through the Imagination, as we'll soon come to understand. In India, the Goddess... Continue reading

Summer-TIME "Ti-i-ime is on my mind!" (though not necessarily 'on my side,' as the dear Righteous Brothers, once upon a time, sang.) And the South Indian Wisdom Goddess of Time is KALI, so this issue is dedicated to Her, as if burnt black by the Summer Sun, She is black... Continue reading

Our theme for Spring 2017 will be 'Budding,' that stage of New Beginnings when Potential begins to become Manifest. This is a time of year associated with Early Spring, and in human life with adolescence and youth. The child is a package of potentials, but circumstances, conditions, opportunities and challenges... Continue reading

The Winter Solstice, as Nadir of the Year, is energetically similar to the Dark of the Moon and to the Grandmother Spirit. Characterized by absence of light and presence of emptiness, with active energies at their lowest ebb. Psychologically and spiritually these are times of resting in potential, of entering... Continue reading

Colorful Autumn seems to be the traditional season for the expression of Gratitude wherever crop harvests come in at this time of year (which varies in different parts of the world, of course). The theme for this Fall Quarter's "Wings Surround The World" is Color, Creativity and Manifestation - and... Continue reading

I have an idea for a new monetary system. 'Money' will be issued to people and businesses based on a system of credits-and-debits. People will receive 'credits' for everything they do that benefits the environment, from growing their own vegetables,... Continue reading

I've been thinking how we all think we have such good values, because we're Americans or because we are Christians, or Jews or whatever it is - but I think really that Germans may have better values than we do... Continue reading

I enjoyed this book! Love Alice Hoffman's writing style: so vivid and sensate. Enjoyed the way she wove in the history of Coney Island - many layers - and studded her work with gems of wisdom. And of course, the... Continue reading

Here is the review of this book I wrote for Amazon: "This book answered all my questions about Nella Larsen, and I appreciated the author's very readable style coupled with meticulous historiography. I did try to read Thadious Davis' book... Continue reading

Gary and I watched this film starring and produced and directed by Tommy Lee Jones. It was an excellent film, but not an easy one, about a homesteading woman who agrees to take three mentally ill pioneer women by wagon... Continue reading

Jimmie P is the story of the psychoanalysis of a Native American - I think they call him a Plains' Indian, but the setting is New Mexico. Jimmie is a veteran who was not seriously injured in the second world... Continue reading

This film is all about letting go and moving on as part of 'healing' from trauma. A family has been traumatized by an accidental death. Young mother, father and little girl go out in the speedboat which crashes and Mom... Continue reading

I've completed my reading of Nella Larsen's Quicksand. I thought her writing was simply superlative in Passing, and I haven't changed my opinion. I found 'Quicksand' to be well written and very interesting from the autobiographical angle, especially her trip... Continue reading

I'm reading Sinclair Lewis' masterpiece, "Kingsblood Royal," and it's helped me to bring into focus that my mother's problem with me all along was the one-drop rule - even though it was no longer the Law, she had grown up under it, and certainly, legal or not, many white people still observed it. Understanding this helps me to better understand the strange ways she often seemed to me to be 'reacting' to me, and some of the things she said. She often said she felt a very serious responsibility towards me (the responsibility of bringing me up to be 'white'),... Continue reading

I've just finished reading Nella Larsen's "Passing" and also Sinclair Lewis' "Kingsblood Royal." Both are absolutely excellent books for anyone interested in the history of racism in our country right up to the present day - although these books both... Continue reading

I just finished reading this book, The Treasure of Montsegur: A Novel of the Cathars, by Sophy Burnham, while still engrossed in "Kingsblood Royal," but I want to write my review while it's still fresh. I've read several books on... Continue reading

I thought I'd be getting off the African themes for a while in my reading, but then my husband brought home a book from the recycling center, in new condition, called "Kingsblood Royal" by Sinclair Lewis. I've never read Sinclair... Continue reading

I'm continuing my reading on African themes. I just finished Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, and have begun Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter. Both of these books were mentioned in Americanah by Amimanda Ngozi Adichie, which is what... Continue reading

For me, this is one of the Great American Novels for today. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie reminds me of Smollett in terms of her dry ironic humor, her socially-accurate characterizations and her peripatetic plot. The book is a gold-mine of realistic... Continue reading

O Mother Made of Sea-Foam, Glittering in Moonlight, In Star-light, In Salt, Whirring with the wings of Thousands of Dragonflies, Seeing with the Thousand Eyes, Glittering, of All Alive ~ I Meet You in the Cave, The Dark Cave, Lapped... Continue reading

Welcome to Musings on Life and Esoterica from my point of view ~ Continue reading