Priscilla Stuckey

Reconnecting people with nature through writing and spirituality

Nature Spirit

Nature :: Spirit

the blog of Priscilla Stuckey

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Snuggle for survival

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The phrase leaped out at me—from the pages of Scientific American, no less. Martin Nowak, a mathematician, biologist, and director of a program in evolutionary theory at Harvard, was arguing that cooperation, not just competition, advances evolution. In Nowak’s words: Life is therefore not just a struggle for survival—it is also, one might say, a…  Read More…

Natural spirits

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In a recent interview on 13.7, NPR’s opinion blog about “Cosmos and Culture,” theoretical physicist Marcelo Gleiser says, Spirituality is a word that has been kidnapped by religion and that invokes the existence of supernatural spirits and the like. He sees things differently: I use the word in a very different way, as an expression…  Read More…

The terror of letting go

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A reader, Gwen, commented about the terror that arises when a person gives up old certainties. Here’s how I felt that fear in a new way. A few months ago I received an email from a friend I’ve known for decades. I’ll fuzz the details here to blur her identity. Recently, after raising a family,…  Read More…

What Is natural? What Is supernatural?

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“Natural” and “supernatural” used to be easy to tell apart. The natural world followed laws of nature—in short, anything we can see and touch. The supernatural did not. Mind-body split The division makes sense if you accept the idea of Descartes (borrowed from Plato and the Greeks) that mind and body are separate. After Descartes,…  Read More…

Burned by God?

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A few months back I was sitting at a potluck of a religious group I know. Actually, it was a “formerly religious” group since almost all of us had left the religious communities of our youth. The conversation at the table turned to the fact that secular thought is growing around the world. The third-largest…  Read More…

Why Nature-Spirit?

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Most of my life I’ve suspected there was more to this world than meets the eye. Now, having lived a few years and done some close investigating, I know that the amount we cannot see or touch is simply staggering. Yet in recent centuries in societies that trace their origins to Europe, the invisible power…  Read More…