Search This Blog

Welcome to Quarry Hill's Blog!

Quarry Hill Creative Center in Rochester, VT, founded 1946 by Barbara and Irving Fiske, is Vermont's oldest alternative community and at one time was probably also its largest. In the 60s -80s, as many as 90 people lived here.
It was and is visited each year, often in summer (but in every season, really) by visitors from all over the world.
We welcome interesting and creative people who are peaceful, bring no weapons, don't believe in hitting children or killing animals, and enjoy the beauty of Vermont and of themselves.

Most of us do not adhere to any particular dogma or religion, though many do find Eastern philosophy closest to our own thought (some of us are also members of the Quakers/Society of Friends).
We value the individual, particularly people who are energetic and have a sense of humor.
Visitors are welcome-- and prospective residents, too. There are some places for rent, others for sale. If interested, get in touch!
And, please follow the Blog and comment whenever you like!

"The symbol is the enemy of the reality, and the reality is ever one's true guide, true friend, true companion, and true self." Irving Fiske, 1908-1990

Friday, August 17, 2012

The Existential Budddhist

I think many readers of this Blog would enjoy The Existential Buddhist, http://www.existentialbuddhist.com/
which speaks of "Dharma without Dogma." It's the creation of an old friend of mine, and one of my first boyfriends, Seth Segall, a recently retired psychiatrist from Yale. Take a look at his Blog and see what you think.
Seth and I met when he was going to Harpur College, now Binghamton University, in Binghamton, N.Y. When I went there to visit him, I met, for the first time in my life, really, young people near my own age (I was a couple of years younger than any of them) who were funny, zany, philosophical, and interested in the arts as well as in having a damn good time...
We were together for a while, a couple of years, it seems to me. In January 1967 I was caught living in the boys' dorm with Seth and kicked out with the stern warning-- to which I paid no attention-- never to return to that part of New York.
I had a lot of fun there, and met wonderful friends. I met one of Seth's best friends, Art Spiegelman, the cartoonist, who had already (at a very early age) been working for Topps Bubblegum and drawing for various odd little publications. Years later he would win the Pulitzer Prize for MAUS, his graphic novel (which changed the way people see graphic novels) on his parents' imprisonment in Auschwitz, with Jews presented as mice and Nazis as cats.
I know he thought of Seth as  a special and deep-thinking friend, a person who, along with his other close friend Jon Sheldon (now a doctor, I think), had a strong influence on Art.
When Seth and I were no longer together, Art and I became lovers and then friends...

I feel that Irv's PIscean nets cast far and wide. Seth, himself a Pisces with the same birthday, March 5, as my father, I believe became interested in Eastern thought and philosophy through hearing Irving give talks on Buddhism, Tantra, Hinduism, Sufism, and so on...

I hope you enjoy his and his readership's thoughts on the Dharma.

Ladybelle

No comments:

Post a Comment