Summer 2013: Heaven & Hell

This is Parabola’s 150th issue. Publishing four times a year, it has taken more than thirty-seven years to reach this milestone, achieved through the contributions of countless writers, artists, editors, publishers, designers, printers, and those who work with them. Above all, it has taken the steady support of the magazine’s readers, year after year, decade upon decade. To celebrate this anniversary, we picked a theme dense with meaning. Heaven and Hell are extraordinary concepts. For many of us they are, as The Encyclopedia of Religion defines them, “symbolic expressions in various religious traditions.” Expressions of “a state of bliss ... or an abode of deity” and “a state of spiritual impoverishment and ... an abode of evil.” For others they are places, as real as earth and sky...

[Cover Text & Illustration: by Paul Hoffman/paulhoffmanillustration.com]

Ending the Beelzebub Wars:
Beyond “Us and Them”
Stephen A. Grant

“We have met the enemy and he is us.” — Pogo1

A STRIKING FEATURE of G. I. Gurdjieff’s teaching is the cosmic scale of history, referring back to ancient civilizations thousands of years ago and pointing toward the evolution of humanity in future millennia. He and his fellow Seekers of Truth had rediscovered the forgotten science of seeing reality, and he had passed on the ideas and inner practice to his closest followers, P.D.Ouspensky and Jeanne de Salzmann. Nevertheless, with a cosmic perspective, versed in the history of early Christianity, he knew that the appearance of the Fourth Way would be a process drawn out over several generations.

The Night I Died
Tracy Cochran

Head down, hugging a grocery bag, I hurried past gutted buildings and empty lots, back to my ex-boyfriend’s apartment in Hell’s Kitchen. It seemed like a good idea at some point, having dinner together as friends. But the little Spanish market on the corner of Ninth Avenue and West 35th Street was the only pocket of light and warmth for blocks. Ahead there was nothing but deserted streets and a cold wind blasting in from the dark Hudson River.

Hearing the Cries of the World

Hearing the Cries of the World
Mark Nepo

THIS STORY IS SO OLD we don’t know who told it or who it’s about, except that it speaks to all of us. We no longer know if it was a “he” or “she” at the center of the story. No doubt the story has grown for every telling. But for this telling, let’s call our central character Kwun and let her be a heroine.

Emanations of Divinity:
The Cosmology of Hieronymus Bosch
Lee van Laer

PERHAPS NO OTHER single piece of artwork in the entire Western world so deftly summarizes the intersecting forces of Heaven and Hell as Hieronymus Bosch’s THE GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS. Painted between 1490 and 1510, and now in the collection of the Prado Museum in Madrid, the famous triptych is one of the world’s most astonishing accomplishments in cosmological iconography.

Awakening to Giftism

Awakening to Giftivism, in Pune
Nipun Mehta

In the 1930s, Gandhi convened India’s independence movement leaders for a pivotal meeting. It wasn’t a productive meeting. Polarities widened and rifts deepened as Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (widely known as “Iron Man of India”) threatened to quit. No resolution emerged, but Gandhi left the meeting and quietly gave up salt from his diet. A month later, the same people found a common ground for cooperation. It’s hard to say how Gandhi’s sacrifice of salt affected the outcome of that meeting, but Gandhi’s life offers repeated examples of how he believed his practices of inner transformation could create external impact.

Tracy Cochran's Blog

Parabola Community Blogs

Intense City
An active and thoughtful blog by Luke Storms.

Practice of Presence
How to seek daily what we truly desire by Patty de Llosa.

Doremishock
Discussions on literature, history, esoteric religion, philosophy, and the natural sciences from writer, composer, artist, photographer, and poet, Lee Van Laer.

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Fall 2013 Power, deadline 5/01/13
Winter 2013 Letting Go and Liberation, deadline 8/1/13

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