The Empty Path | Page 2 of 16 | Nonaligned faith and practice in the present

I had forgotten

Tags depression, empty path, mortality04/25/20192 Comments

For several months I have felt as if I were slipping back into clinical depression again.

The outward signs are here. The fogged thinking, lack of enthusiasm, fussiness, longing to sleep. The undertone of despair. All too generalized to ascribe to any one or cluster of causes.

Yet somehow the subtle bodily symptoms I’ve come to recognize over the decades are not really present. As a scientist in the medieval sense—someone who seeks to know—I’ve looked inwardly for years at

…

“A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief”

Tags historical Jesus, Jacob Barosin, Yeshua02/20/20191 Comment

Mike Shell

"Portrait of Jesus," Jacob Barosin (c. 1955)

When I was a little Lutheran preacher’s kid in 1950s Ohio, the most familiar images of Jesus were ones with children gathered round and sitting on his knee. These accompanied songs like “Jesus Loves Me.”

I was blessed with caring parents and a child-friendly neighborhood, and my father’s sermons were about Jesus’ compassionate humanity. These childhood portrayals of Jesus did not clash very much with my personal experience of family and community.

"Christ at</a></p><a href= …

Why have you forsaken me?

Tags Jesus, mortality, photography, poetry01/20/2019

Mike Shell

אֵלִ֣י אֵ֖לִי לָמָ֣ה עֲזַבְתָּ֑נִי

When Jesus utters the cry
“Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?”
It is the cry

Of Job, that is,
the cry of every sentient being,
“Why am I dying?”

The only answer that comes back
from the universe is,
“Because you are mortal.”

Image: “Pebble,” by Mike Shell. Pebble on a Jewish gravestone, Evergreen Cemetery, Jacksonville, FL (2012) …

Migraine

Tags photography, poetry01/19/20192 Comments

Mike Shell

What is it
I’ve decided I can’t
cope with
that hasn’t happened
yet

That I’d rather
lock my jaw or
pluck out my eye
than face?

A day?
Two? Three?
Before either I
see through to it or
can no longer

…

Reposting: “Imbolc: In which Walhydra admits that she does harbor a smidge of hope”

Tags Groundhog Day, Imbolc, Walhydra's Porch01/17/2019

Mike Shell

On Monday, January 29, 2007, I published this essay on my old Walhydra’s Porch blog. Coming out of the darkness of this particularly dark winter, I feel like it’s worth sharing again. (See Gather Victoria’s post, “Feast of Light: Reviving the Magical Foods of Imbolc,” for a new piece on the festival.)

By now the gentle reader knows what an unrepentant grouch Walhydra wants everyone to think she is…but there’s

…

Winter mammals

Tags photography, poetry, Winter Solstice12/07/20181 Comment

Mike Shell

“Walden pond ice,” from Rimager’s Walden album on flickr

There’s something wrong with
how we do winter, making it
the busiest time of year. Our calendar

Is all wrong. Yes, the sun
starts back
on the solstice,
but that just means
we should be rolling over in our sleep
and waiting for spring.

Why—though the empire insist—
do we stay above ground,
scurrying around
as if
everything has to

…

Curing and healing

Tags curing, healing, Jesus12/03/2018

Mike Shell

“Ten lepers,” image from page 94 of "In His footsteps : a record of travel to and in the land of Christ : with an attempt to mark the Lord's journeyings in chronological order from His birth to His Ascension" by William Etridge McLennan (1896)

American culture has been fixated from the start on two principles inherited from the 17th century English society that established the colonies: the mandate to cure physical, social, and moral ills, and the primacy of ownership.

Whether Puritan, Catholic, or Dissenter, those first immigrants and refugees all thought that they could do better out from under the ruling hierarchy of their home island. Either that or they were hired or indentured by those same higher-ups, who claimed to own the

…

Crippled Wolf

Tags Crippled Wolf, tattoos, Walhydra's Porch11/29/2018

Mike Shell

Friends,

For those of you who don’t know him, let me introduce you to Crippled Wolf.

Running wolf tattoo Crippled Wolf first came to me in a dream on Friday, October 29, 2004, one morning after a total lunar eclipse.

I first shared his story on Walhydra’s Porch four years later.

In the dream,

…

“Yule Blood,” from Walhydra’s Porch (2008)

Tags Walhydra's Porch, Winter Solstice11/28/2018

Mike Shell

Friends,

Here’s a blog post I wrote a decade ago about Yule.

To set the stage for this, you need to know that Walhydra is a writer’s alter-ego of mine, a grouchy old crone who is forever annoyed to have been reincarnated as a 60-something gay male would-be writer.

Yule blood

Sunday, December 28, 2008
First sliver of New Wolf Moon, after Winter Solstice

…

Ignore the news cycle. Cooperation is hardwired.

Tags Antonio Damasio, cooperation, Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, joy11/04/20181 Comment

Mike Shell

There ain’t no good guys, there ain’t no bad guys.
There’s only you and me and we just disagree. — Dave Mason

What is it we all fear? We fear what our culture—or, rather, whatever part of our culture we pay attention to—tells us to fear.

At the moment we are all afraid. All of us. On whatever part of the spectrum of belief we stand, there is nothing else in the pubic conversation right now except

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אֵלִ֣י אֵ֖לִי לָמָ֣ה עֲזַבְתָּ֑נִי