Torah

What is “Experiential Holiness?”

SHORT ANSWER: IT’S PART OF the tagline for this blog. Longer answer: it’s a way of seeing and living that recognizes and hopefully honors the interconnectedness of all things, and That which makes them (it?) all possible.

“Holiness” is a tricky word. My trusty go-to 1972 Funk and Wagnalls defines “holy” as “regarded with or characterized by reverence because associated with God; having a divine origin; sacred” as well as “having spiritual and moral worth.” “Holiness” is “the state or quality of being holy.”

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Etc, Torah

365 Names of God: The Beloved

THE BELOVED is most commonly a Sufi term, but not exclusively so. The idea of God as Lover may be outre to some, but the connotation of passion and all-involvement is a powerful one for many mystics (including the author of the Biblical Song of Songs). Some say the challenge of living with the mysterious mind of a spouse is perfect training for living with the mysterious Mind of God.

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Crit

Words to Bring Back: “Illicitator”

– Definition: n. An auctioneer’s shill

– Used in a sentence: “Some of these political rallies seem to reek of illicitators.”

– Why: It’s obscure, yes, but how many illicitators have YOU spotted recently?

Etc

Why I Love: Astronomy

Fig. 1.

IT’S THE QUIET THRILL OF your first look through a telescope and seeing Saturn’s rings for yourself. It’s the hush before the planetarium show begins. It’s the ancientness of the constellations. It’s knowing that others before you, perhaps all the way back to Australopithecus, saw the same stars/planets/Moon you do. It’s the quaintness of the constellation (and star) names.

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Crit

First Graf(s): The Book of the Damned

Fig. 1

CHARLES HOY FORT HAS A special place in my weirdological heart, as he was the first writer to compile an exhaustive list (four books full, in fact) of oddities and anomalies. He is thus the (unwilling) intellectual godfather of every “strange but true” book, magazine, radio show, film and television program (network and streaming) since the 1920s. The recipient of a modest endowment, Fort spent his spare time combing through old newspapers and magazines at the New York Public Library looking for articles on aerial phenomena;

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Living, Writing

Night, Fog, and One Hell of a Bang

IF I HAD KNOWN THAT our galleon would collide with a freighter, I would have worn a life jacket.

The time was February 1988. Through a curious series of circumstances, I had signed aboard the replica galleon Golden Hinde II a few months earlier as a deckhand and docent, sailing around the Bay Area and down the California coast giving tours of our fine ship. Our plan that night was to motor (yes, we had a small engine) from San Francisco to the Farallon Islands, then sail down to Half Moon Bay. We left San Francisco well after midnight in order to take advantage of the outgoing tide, and were soon past the Golden Gate Bridge and into the open sea.

A cold and foggy 3 a. m. found me atop the foredeck on bow-watch (front lookout) with a couple of other chilly souls.

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Etc

And Now, A Moment of Science

SWIMMING AGAINST THE ANTI-INTELLECTUAL TIDE that these days governs too much of mediated public discourse is a modest little one-minute radio programlet called StarDate. It’s “the longest-running national radio science feature in the country,” according to the description on the StarDate website, and airs daily on more than 300 stations around the United States. A production of the University of Texas’ McDonald Observatory, each episode features something about astronomy (both historical and observable), planetary or space science, exploration, or even stellar mythology. (Everything stops in our house at 9:50 every morning so we can hear the broadcast on San Francisco’s KCBS.) You can catch it on the unstreamed local airwaves, or also listen online at http://stardate.org. Tune in, turn on and look up!