Let Me Tell You About My Father…

John Stanazzi

I invited some of the special people I know ~ from poets whose work has appeared in Combustus magazine to a dancer friend of mine who immigrated from Hungary ~ to share with us some of the wisdom they’ve received over the years from their fathers as well as what has been passed on to their own children.

Read More

Sweet Gratitude

“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.”
~Albert Schweitzer

Read More

Is Writing Poetry Akin to Taking a Shamanic Journey? Interview with Ruth L. Schwartz, Ph.D.

“After having personally practiced shamanism, shamanic healing, and shamanic journeying for more than half a century, I can say that there is nothing I have encountered in reports of the spiritual experiences of saints, prophets, psychedelic drug experimenters, near death survivors, avatars and other mystics that is not commonly experienced when following classic journey methods using a drum.”
—Michael Harner, The Foundation for Shamnic Studies

Read More

An Artist Dreamed: Interview with Ethiopian painter Yared Nigussu

I was in France at the time and I met a young guy in my French class. And he was an ex-child soldier. I saw him as always really sad. You didn’t ever see a smile on his face. We’d go for coffee or a drink, and one day I just asked him, “Hey man, why don’t you ever smile?” And he just explained to me that his childhood was stolen from him. I told him that if I was a writer I would write something, but I am a painter. So I painted his portrait.

Read More