Intrinsic Heart

Why doesn’t the soul fly when it hears the call? A fish on the beach always moves toward wave-sound A falcon hears the drum and brings the quarry home. Why doesn’t every dervish dance in the sun? You’ve escaped the...

When I was a kid, “Wanna bet?” was a common phrase in the neighborhood.  And if I asked you, “Wanna bet whether when you go out for a walk tonight you’ll see someone in a yellow jacket wearing a sharp-looking...

Everything that was broken has forgotten its brokenness. I live now in a sky-house, through every window the sun. Also your presence. Our touching, our stories. Earthy and holy both. How can this be, but it is. Every day has...

The urge to escape seems almost automatic, even with small things. A moment’s discomfort, and attention wants distraction, wants to get away and make things other than how they are. Yet if we’re willing to stop for only a moment...

When he was 43 years old, the great spiritual teacher Thomas Merton had a profound mystical experience. What follows is an excerpt from his description of that experience, which took place on an ordinary day, while running errands in downtown...

What does it mean to be nobody? One kind of ‘nobody’ identifies as someone who feels less than, unimportant. Another kind self-identifies as an outsider. And another equates being nobody with being ordinary, average. Yet almost everyone wants to be...