Not-yet-published pieces, stories, essays, rants, and random strangenesses

This is a sermon I gave today. I was the guest preacher at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Brevard here in Melbourne, Florida. I...

by Edgardo Krebs Special to The Washington Post Saturday, August 11, 2007; Page C02 After learning of the death of the Peruvian shaman...

I frequently had night terrors as a child, though apparently what I experienced was not what the psychologists call “night terror.” True...

My friend Kate lived for several years in Yuma, Arizona, and worked as an environmental lawyer on an Army base. She and her fiancé Ken...

The news report was bizarre on so many levels. First, the opening salvo: “An amusement park in China has built what it claims is the...

Ever since Alfred Watkins announced his discovery of a network of ancient alignments criss-crossing the British countryside, the history...

by Tirthankar Mukherjee, The UB Post (Ulaanbatar, Mongolia) Thursday, July 05, 2007 Kalidasa, the Indian poet-dramatist whose Meghadutam...

Kunuk documents conversion of last great shaman by Mari Sasano, Canada.com Friday, September 29, 2006 Though cinema has only been around...

by Shadi Rahimi, Indian Country Today SAN FRANCISCO—They climb mountains on a quest for a vision. They beat drums and shake rattles....

Writer, psychologist, and medical anthropologist Alberto Villoldo tells an interesting little story about a famous neurosurgeon who is...

by Allan Coukell | Published in the June 2005 issue of The Walrus magazine Hovsgol Province, Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia—On a sunny afternoon,...

The woman who ran the campground was a coal miner. She and her husband both were. There are a lot of coal miners around Gillette....

A propos of the news that Mayan priests purified a sacred archaeological site to eliminate “bad spirits” after President Bush’s visit, SF...

From today’s Mumbai (India) Financial Express newspaper. Shamanism has more to it than just rituals that look exotic in documentaries by...

by JUAN CARLOS LLORCA | AP | March 9, 2007 12:20 AM EST GUATEMALA CITY — Mayan priests will purify a sacred archaeological site to...

Justin Erik Halldór Smith (no relation) is a writer. I want to be such a writer someday. He is also a professor of philosophy at...

My first shock was the realization that Kyle, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Reservation, where I was to meet with Vincent Blackfeather,...

As I leave Pipestone, I say on the tape, “Ever since St. Paul I thought that everything was new and it was all beginning. It’s getting...

The Butterfield Café had a terrific breakfast special: 2 eggs, 2 cakes, 2 sausage, 2 bacon, $2.75. The bacon was extraordinary. The...

The drive itself took, what, fifteen minutes? Twenty at most. At the time, St. Paul was definitely I arrived early at Mazakute Episcopal...