An Irish Heart & Wood Ticks - Larry Heagle

The songs and lyrics were all familiar to me, but they moved me all over again, especially the two poem-melodies to Kim. But also Ian and Gerald F. Mark, the interviewer, seemed to know Larry well and obviously had a 'spiritual' dimension to his perspective. Larry's reflections are genuine and beyond the usual superficial comments that so many artists engage in. In fact, he speaks to the 'holy longing', the ache for a genuine 'more' and the honest facing of loss that so many people are wrestling with day by day. It confirms for me again that religion as an organized movement has lost its roots in genuine spirituality and has become all about 'orthodoxy', ethical rule keeping, scolding, guilt projection, and--these days especially--politics. But it is the worst kind of politics--ideologically falling off into some black hole on the far right, with little or know grasp of compassion as the heart of all spirituality. So, it is little wonder that spirituality is more and more separated from religion. It's sad, however, because for millenia the diverse religious traditions of the world were also the primary bearers and locus of authentic spirituality. But not anymore. There is nothing more dangerous than religion gone awry. Except perhaps for atheism gone awry, as in Stalin, Pot Pol, and their millions of colleagues.