Our Bodies, Our Gods — Body fluids are confusing. Take saliva for example. In your mouth it’s great, helps you digest food, but as soon as it leaves the body it becomes offensive, even “dirty.” Ew! Like blood or snot, once it’s out of the body it’s “matter out of place.” Vomit and feces are…

More on Landscaping Religion — The interior landscape is influenced by the exterior. Caves, with their shadowy twilight zones, are a great place to start any mythic journey as they are womb-like and occupy a very special place in the religious imagination. Jesus was born in a cave and resurrected in one; Elijah spoke to…

How much of our lives are influenced by these American-made machines? — They’re in our games. Red Light Green Light, also known as Statues, has been around for over a hundred years, and there’s a milk-drinking version that was featured on the Emmy Award winning TV show Cartoon Express that ran from 1954 to 1966. Kids at home could compete and win…

Another look at material religion in Japan — I took the high-speed bullet train down to see the Chiran Kamikaze Peace Museum, built at the site where 1,038 Tokka kamikaze pilots gathered, partied, rested and raged before dying in their rocket-powered Okah “cherry blossom” plane-bombs. …

What can the Tears of the Kingdom monster teach us about ourselves?

Famous Boulders From Around The World — People form intimate relationships with boulders. Like caves, boulders are a big deal in our collective unconscious. Archaeologist Christopher Tilley (2004) argues that our prehistoric identities were created for the most part near irregular stone outcroppings in the landscape. These stones were considered ancestors, gods, social sites, and landmarks —…

In search of Landscape Theology — In what we currently call the United States, common pilgrimage sites are canyons, caves, boulders, and waterfalls. Snoqualmie Falls, for example, is celebrated as one of the tallest and most powerful waterfalls on the continent. Comparable to Niagara Falls (it’s actually taller than Niagara), some call it a Garden of…

Something happens when an elusive, world-encircling hyperobject, usually pushed into the background ubiquity, gets moved into the spotlight. A new gestalt forms. Generally, when we turn any part of our environment into art, we reframe ourselves too, and shift into a wider, deeper perspective, what philosophers call “decentered consciousness;” we…

Why do artists remix this American cliché? —