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White Crane Journal #53

Summer 2002

Editor's Note: Seeds of Change

Feature Section: Altered States

	Graphic Art: Altered State Vaughn Frick (detail shown)   Altered States: A conversation with Rudy Ballentine about Tantra and Altered States of Being Agnes Dei   Consciousness & Hallucinogens: The Re-Unification of the Sacred and the Natural Ralph Metzner, Ph.D   Poetry: Transformations Ron Madson
Intimations: Mystical Experience as Altered State Toby Johnson   Poetry: Drinking In Yevgeny Bo Young   Every Breath You Take Stephen McDonnell
	A Special Call for White Crane Submissions Called one of the most significant scandals to rock the Catholic Church since the Middle Ages, the current investigation into pederasty and the cover-up by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church is already being used as an attack on gay men in the priesthood. Who better to respond to this slander than the readership of White Crane? Because we feel this is such an important issue, we are changing the Winter issue topic from "Pilgrimage" to "Gay Priests" and invite you, the readership, to tell your stories. Probably one of the most open secrets in history, current estimates of gay men in the priesthood have been placed at anywhere from 50 to 60%. This very journal was founded by a former Catholic priest and many of the most forward thinking members of the gay spiritual community are themselves former priests or monks.   -- Speak truth to power. Now is the time to tell our stories and tell the truth. --
Give Me Fever: Disease As Vision Fred Schloemer, Ed.D., LCSW   Sex Changes Nilos Nevertheless   Ecstatic Dance Balance Janeson   Announcement: Zuni Mountain Sanctuary Events	graphic by balance janeson
Poetry	A Fragment after Rilke Jamie Parsley   Being in this place -- in this heady moment -- means everything. Everything needs us -- this temporary moment, which for some reason neither you nor I will ever completely understand -- keeps whispering our names -- you and I who stand here, transparent as shadows Once. Just once -- not one thing more. And you and I also -- just once. And not ever again. Yet, once is enough -- once is more than enough. For you and I to have been one with the earth -- with everything beneath us, this sacred ground on which we tread without a thought or a prayer -- that can never be taken from us.   Jamie Parsley is the author of four books of poems, Paper Doves, Falling and Other Poems (1992) The Loneliness of Blizzards (1995) Cloud (1997) and The Wounded Table (1999). He lives in West Fargo, North Dakota.

Bodhisattva Watch: You are the Universe

"The 'U' in universe stands for 'you.' You are the Universe, looking in the mirror. When you observe the universe, you are seeing U-rself."

"To me to live a one-life-only in a one-life-only universe provides a poetic parallelism. How precious life is! Every day, every person one meets, every experience--that's all we're going to have. It distresses me that so many people go through life in an alienated spirit, not realizing that this is the only opportunity they have--they'll never have it again."

 

astrophysicist John A Wheeler
cited in the may june 2002 issue of Science & Spirit Magazine
www.Science-Spirit.org

 

Joseph Campbell: Expansion of Consciousness

 

 

I have noticed in the Orient that when the Buddhists build their temples they often choose a hilltop site with a great command of horizon. One experiences simlutanously in such places an expansion of view and diminution of oneself--with the sense, however, of an extension of oneself in spirit to the farthest reach. And I have noticed also, when flying--particularly over oceans--that the world of sheerly physical nature, of air and cloud and the marvels of light there experienced, is altogether congenial. Here on earth it is to the lovely vegetable nature-world that we respond; there aloft, to the sublimely spatial. People used to think, "How little is man in relation to the universe!" The shift from a geocentric to a heliocentric world view seemed to have removed man from the center--and the center seemed so important! Spiritually, however, the center is where sight is. Stand on a height and view the horizon. Stand on the moon and view the whole earth rising--even by way of television, in your parlor. And with each expansion of horizon, from the troglodytal cave to the Buddhist temple on the hilltop--and on now to the moon--there has been, as there must inevitably be, not only an expansion of consciousness, in keeping with ever-widening as well as deepening insights into the nature of Nature (which is of one nature with ourselves), but also an enrichment, refinement, and general melioration of the conditions of human physical life.

from Myths to Live By

 

 

THE ART OF POWERFUL LIVING A COACHING RETREAT FOR MEN with Coaches: Harry Faddis, Alfred DePew, Michael Cohen If you are seeking greater clarity, vision & direction in your life Easton Mountain Retreat Easton, N.Y. July 21- 26, 2002 Toll-Free 1-800-553-8235 www.gayspiritcamp.com -- Brochure available on request -- Call 917 648-7585

 

Reviews

 

Lovers' Legends: The Gay Greek Myths by Andrew Calimach Steven LaVigne

Godtalk: Travels in Spiritual America by Brad Gooch Steve Bolerjack

A Wolf At the Door and Other Retold Fairy Tales edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling Steven LaVigne

The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz Wil Biggers

Books on CDs Bob Arenberg

What We Have Lost by Jeffrey Beam

The Pairing of the Johnson's by Taj Evangelista

If the Buddha Dated by Charlotte Kasl Two Ravens Talking

Legend of the Rainbow Warriors by Steven McFadden Toby Johnson

 

Announcement: LGBTI Health Summit

 

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