Meditations and Reflections

I’ve been thinking about Vipassana meditation. That old Buddhist practice of simply observing: breath, body, sensation, thought. Not trying to change anything. Not striving. Just noticing what is here.

There is a thought that has stayed with me for some time. That astrology may have begun not as prediction, but as poetry . Long before telescopes or scientific models, people looked up at the night sky and saw something extraordinary. The planets moved. The stars returned in their seasons. The Moon waxed and waned with quiet regularity. But more than that — it all seemed to mean something . In ancient Mesopotamia, the earliest astrologers began to record the movements of the

So, one begins to wonder: how much more historically “true” is one religion than another? Egyptian religion, Greek religion, the traditions of Mesopotamia — all of them were once held with deep conviction by people who felt they knew the gods. Perhaps all religions, at least in part, are shaped by human attempts to understand something larger than ourselves.

In my meditation this morning, I was thinking of the kabbalistic sphere of Yesod, where we experience a descent into the Underworld — the place of dreams and vision. I know of two ways of doing this: to visit the Greek Persephone and Hades in their kingdom of the afterlife; or to descend with the Mesopotamian Inanna to a confrontation with her sister, Erishkagal, queen of the underworld. I felt I wanted some other ideas; and I found myself thinking of the biblical story from

The Healing Power of Animals There are few things in life as centring as the quiet presence of an animal. This morning, as I walked with Harley and Heidi through the soft gold of early autumn light, I was reminded again of just how deeply they help to steady me. The rhythm of paws on grass, the easy wag of tails, and the occasional glance back to check that I’m keeping up — it all slows my breath and returns me to the simple heartbeat of the moment. Animals have always been p