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

As I look at the map and retrace my path, I’m rather mystified by the route I took. Some of it makes sense; some of it worked out so well...

Day 4 began with me leaving Lake Forest and heading up to Wisconsin. Wisconsin, as close as it was, might as well have been another...

I left the idylls of Ohio for the ills of the interstate. At least it went by quickly. The moment I got off the interstate, I saw...

Silver Spring, Maryland, where I lived at the time, is terminally suburban. It creeps up to the border of Washington, D.C., and sprawls...

When they heard about my impending cross-country trip, my friends Wayne and Sue arranged a Talking Stick ceremony for me. We had done...

In early 1991, while being smudged with a combination of five herbs sacred to the Yaqui tradition, I had a spontaneous and rather...

Holly was my friend, probably my best friend for a while, in college. She appeared sometime during my sophomore year. She was a little...

You may have gathered by now that were I to start my college education all over again, I’d study quantum physics. Of all the hard...

The Republic of Tuva, located in southern Siberia at the geographic center of Asia, is home to some of the extended nomadic people who...

URUMQI (China), Dec. 22 (Xinhua news agency) — Chinese scientists are conducting laboratory work hoping to identify a 2,800-year-old...

Today was a difficult day, but I’m not entirely sure why. My car was repaired in record time, and cost half as much as the original...

Secret Training Methods of the Ancients Revealed! Impress your friends! Attract more women! Be the life of the party! Tired of wasting...

Flying reindeer? Red and white clothing? Climbing down the chimney bearing gifts? You may be surprised to learn the origin of these...

A friend saw a terrific bumper sticker this morning: You’re just jealous that the voices are talking to ME! Leave a comment.

by Jason Godesky, The Anthropik Network I’m dazzled by so much that Jason Godesky has to say, but this article is, to my mind, one of his...

A Neuroscientific Look at Speaking in Tongues By BENEDICT CAREY, The New York Times, November 7, 2006 The passionate, sometimes rhythmic,...

Heard a very moving commentary on NPR last night. A guy named Kevin Kling, who apparently is pretty well known (though I’ve never heard...

One of my big challenges is how to get (and stay) Unstuck. I’ll have a little breakthrough, and think I’m finally able to make...

Everyone knows that E=mc2. Shamanism is what dances on top of the equal sign. Alberto Villoldo, Dance of the Four Winds Leave a comment.

Shamanic ecstasy is the real “Old Time Religion,” of which modern churches are but pallid evocations. Shamanic, visionary ecstasy, the...