“I believe consciousness is brazenly physical, a raucous mirage the brain creates to help us survive. But I also sense the universe is magical, greater than the sum of its parts, which I don't attribute to a governing god, but simply to the surprising, ecstatic, frightening everyday reality we all know. Ultimately, I find consciousness a fascinating predicament for matter… — Diane Ackerman Copy Share
“Like tiny islands on the horizon, they can vanish in rough seas. Even in calm weather, their coral gradually erodes, pickled by salt and heat. Yet they form the shoals of a life. Some offer safe lagoons and murmuring trees. Others crawl with pirates and reptiles. Together they connect a self with the mainland and society. Plot their trail and… — Diane Ackerman Copy Share
I believe consciousness is brazenly physical, a raucous mirage the brain creates to help us survive. — Diane Ackerman Copy Share Image
To begin to understand the gorgeous fever that is consciousness, we must try to understand the senses and what they can tell… — Diane Ackerman Copy Share Image
A self is a frightening thing to waste, it's the lens through which one's whole life is viewed, and few people are willing to… — Diane Ackerman Copy Share Image
“Our lives together, our duet, also continues to evolve, and even if we can’t go back to how it was, we’re designing a good… — Diane Ackerman Copy Share Image
Hit a tripwire of smell and memories explode all at once. A complex vision leaps out of the undergrowth. — Diane Ackerman Copy Share Image
Look at your feet. You are standing in the sky. When we think of the sky, we tend to look up, but the sky… — Diane Ackerman Copy Share Image
Who would deduce the dragonfly from the larva, the iris from the bud, the lawyer from the infant? ...We are all shape-shifters and magical… — Diane Ackerman Copy Share Image
Though we marry as adults, we don't marry adults. We marry children who have grown up and still rejoice in being children, especially if… — Diane Ackerman Copy Share Image
“The etymology of the Hebrew word for prophet, navi, combines three processes: navach (to cry out), nava (to gush or flow), and navuv (to… — Diane Ackerman Copy Share Image
Knee-deep in the cosmic overwhelm, I’m stricken by the ricochet wonder of it all: the plain everythingness of everything, in cahoots with the everythingness… — Diane Ackerman Copy Share Image
Symbolic of life, hair bolts from our head[s]. Like the earth, it can be harvested, but it will rise again. We can change its… — Diane Ackerman Copy Share Image
“Most people know that 30 to 40 percent of the world's Jews were killed during World War II, but not that 80 to 90 percent of the Orthodox community perished, among them many who had kept alive an ancient tradition of mysticism and meditation reaching back to the Old Testament world of the prophets. "In my youth, growing up in… — Diane Ackerman Copy Share