 
 Consider This! · A series of
short essays in which we explore reality, religion, the
spiritual process, assorted New Age and New Thought
subjects, health & healing, and life generally. The
first selection there, called The
Simple Way, offers a quick overview of our
philosophy and path. First-time visitors may want to
start with that. To go there now, click HERE
Nancy's Page · An assortment of spiritual considerations in the form
of essays, articles, letters, suggestions,
recommendations, or whatever, all emanating from the
clear mind and expansive heart of a very determined
seeker. This feature used to be called “Anna’s Page”. Go now
The Quiet Room · A place of prayer and meditation, this is the site's
most frequently visited feature. Whatever else may seem
the circumstances of your life, here you are never
alone. Go there now
Letters · Letters to The Zoo Fence
on a variety of spiritual subjects, and our responses. Go now
The Gazebo · Here we present spiritual ideas or concepts that are
more or less still “in process”, thoughts we are working
on (or, more likely, thoughts that are working on us!).
Some may be a little off the wall, so go there prepared. Go now
Open Forum · As its name is intended to suggest, this feature of
The Zoo Fence is a space where visitors to The Zoo Fence
can express their views, share their experiences, ask
& answer questions, or simply think out loud. Even
just read what others have written. Go now
Ampers&nd · Here we present selections from the work of the
world's great teachers. We have featured Swami
Vivekananda, Kahlil Gibran, Unity's Reverend Wayne
Manning, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Elsa Joy Bailey, J.
Krishnamurti, Jack Schwarz, Bo Lozoff, Walt
Whitman, Dada Mukerjee (writing about Neem Karoli Baba),
Angela Passidomo Trafford, J. Vaughn Boone, the Dalai
Lama, Sri Swami Rama, Ken Wilbur, Sri Nisargadatta,
Richard Rose, Mark Twain, UG Krishnamurti, Ibn 'Arabi,
Ramesh S. Balsekar, University of California professor
Stephen Cox, physicist Robert Lanza, Erik Steele, MD,
Professor Gary E. Schwartz of the University of
Arizona, and an anonymous friend in Hawaii. Currently, there is an excerpt from Matthew Fox’s book “Hildegard of Bingen – A Saint for Our Times”. Go there now
Open Space · An assortment of written material, including essays,
poetry, and journal entries, contributed by visitors to The Zoo Fence. Go now
Eco-Consciousness · This page is about the planet, its inhabitants and
environment, and what we need to know and do about them.
There are some nice “eco-links”
here, too. Go now
December Card · Here, every December into January, we share some of
the joyful messages sent to us by visitors to The Zoo
Fence over the preceding months. The rest of the year,
we leave the page in place, but with no links to it,
except this one. (We did not post a December Card in
2009, and will likely not do so again. For more about
that, please click here.)
Go now
Links & My Space! · Links to a variety of other interesting and
like-minded sites. Go
now
Walking with
Theophyle · The continuing antics of
“Brother Theophyle”, a fellow seeker on the path to
Truth, who, we hope, will remind us all to laugh at
ourselves. These are available as graphic cartoons and
in text version. Go
now
Definitions · Explanations of what we mean by some of the words we
use. Wherever such words appear on the site, they will
be hyperlinked, and by clicking on them, you can jump
directly to their definition, find out what we mean, and
then jump back to continue reading. Some visitors have
told us it was helpful to browse through these
definitions during their initial visit, because doing so
gave them a preview of our mindset. Go now
Here's A Thought · On a pop-up accessed from the “Here’s A Thought” icon on our Home Page menu (near the top right of the page you probably just
came from), we offer brief thoughts and ideas gathered
from various sources that we hope will be inspiring,
uplifting, intriguing, entertaining, or otherwise
useful. We change them frequently, and archive them
here. Go now
Integral Health · Here we
offer a variety of perspectives on health-related
matters of interest to spiritual seekers (and others).
As you consider the material you find here, please
remember always to talk with your physician before
making decisions about any program of diagnosis,
prevention, treatment, or health maintenance. Go now
Books and Stuff · Here we offer several different selections of our
writing:
 Take
Off Your Shoes · In 1981, we published a
book called TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES. It takes its title from
God's command to Moses to “take off your shoes for you
are standing on holy ground” (Exodus 3.5). This book
explores the true nature of our reality, and the ways in
which each of us can effect immediate, positive change
in our lives. Go Now.
“Take Off Your Shoes” is also available at Barnes & Noble NOOK and Amazon.com’s Kindle
The
Cranberry Tales · We call these,
“children’s stories for adults, too”. They were
originally published by us in hard copy in a very
limited number in 1989. When they first came out, Downeast Libraries wrote, “This collection of short stories about
animals living on a farm in rural Maine is notable for
its lack of cutesy and condescension to the child
reader. It comes out somewhere between the Brementown
musicians and E.B. White, and that’s not a bad
neighborhood.” Go Now.
“The Cranberry Tales” is also available
at Barnes & Noble NOOK and Amazon.com’s Kindle
A
Continuing Fiction · We describe these as
“the stories of an aging American male person coming to
the realization that there is no such thing”. The person
is Peter K Wensleydale, and the story begins in 1973
with Peter's presentation of a letter to his boss at the
American Embassy in Gazinga. “It’s a letter of
resignation, sir,” Peter says, adding, as gingerly as if
he were handling a stick of dynamite, “mine.” Go now
The
Sacred Riddle · Here we consider, in a
variety of formats, the fundamental mystery of life,
which we call The Sacred Riddle. Go now
In The
Beginning · This book is subtitled “The
Eden Conspiracy Unveiled”. It explores the why of the created universe, and asks was “The Fall” at the Garden of Eden a catastrophe or a divine conspiracy? What did Jesus mean at The Last Supper by “this is my body, this is my blood”? Go Now.
Also, we have posted two excerpts from this
book, one addressing The Fall and another about The Last Supper, as described below:
The Fall: Catastrophe or
Conspiracy? · This is an extended excerpt
from our book IN THE BEGINNING. In this selection, we
suggest that mankind's understanding of The Fall as
reported in Genesis and other traditions may be
mistaken; and that The Fall was neither an error nor a
sin, but part of God's Plan. Go now
The Last Supper: This Bread,
This Body ·
This too is an excerpt from our book IN THE BEGINNING.
In this piece, we suggest the betrayal of Jesus by Judas
at the biblical event commonly referred to as The Last
Supper may not be what it appears, and that in Truth far
more was going on there than has met most eyes. Go now
“In The Beginning” in its entirety is also available at Barnes & Noble NOOK and Amazon.com’s Kindle
The
Blog ·
An internet blog entitled “Anecdotal Evidence” where
we ventilate a variety of ideas, theories, and arguments
on “worldly” topics, by which we mean subjects that do
not specifically relate to the spiritual quest, path,
and process, all the while recognizing and acknowledging
that there is nothing which does not so relate! Go
now
Art Gallery · Here are a collection of very beautiful paintings that
ask nothing of you but to be there. If the philosophy
and spirituality of the rest is more than you bargained
for, you may want to jump directly here. You will also
find a link to a graphics-free page, describing the
artwork in text alone. Go
now
Gnocchi · These simple line drawings named after the Italian
dish appear here and there throughout The Zoo Fence. (A
gnocco is a kind of Italian dumpling.) There is a list
of them here. Go
now
Editor's Desktop · Assorted notes and other stuff. Go now
Flags over The
Zoo Fence · Here we are delighted to
display the national flags of visitors who have signed
our guest register or otherwise informed us of their home country. Go now
Books &
Videos · Here, in association with the
internet bookstore Amazon.com, we offer a selection of books and
movie videos that we like very much and we hope our
visitors will enjoy. Go now
Thisenthat · These are links to a variety of “non-spiritual” (as if there were such a thing!) sources that we hope visitors
will find useful and interesting. There are also a
couple of games. Go
now
Selections &
Sources · Scattered throughout The Zoo
Fence are an assortment of brief quotations and other
selections. Here we list them. Also on this page are
citations and references for items that appear in The Quiet Room and on other pages of
The Zoo Fence. Often, where we offer a quotation by
someone else, clicking on the letter “Q” beside
it will take you to this page for its source. Go now
Site Search · With the help of the folks at PicoSearch and at Google,
we have a full search capability at The Zoo Fence.
Simply, go to our Search page, enter a word or set of
words, and if it's on The Zoo Fence, PicoSearch or
Google will find it! And list your search results in
context. While there, check out our other internet
search boxes. Go
now
Copyright
Permissions · Virtually all of the
material, text and graphics, that appears on The Zoo
Fence is protected by Copyright or Trademark provisions
in law. Here you will find information about that, and
about copying stuff from the site. Go now
Technical Stuff · Virus alerts and some other stuff that takes only a
few minutes to read but which may avoid hours of
headaches. Go now
Miscellanea · This feature
is essentially a catchall, a space where we put anything
that does not seem to belong in any of the spaces
mentioned above but which we are nonetheless moved to
share with visitors to The Zoo Fence. Go now
Before
you proceed any further, please consider the
following “DISCLAIMER”
very carefully:
We have no credentials that you too do
not have. We are simply spiritual seekers writing here
on the basis of our own personal experience. In effect,
then, what you find on The Zoo Fence is an expression of
personal opinion based upon personal observation of our
own lives. Please read it as such. If any of it is of
any use to you, we are delighted. But please do not
mistake it for authoritative guidance or advice on any
subject. We neither wish to, nor are we qualified to,
issue anything like that. While this disclaimer applies
to everything on The Zoo Fence, it applies all the more
to the material at Integral Health concerning any medical, psychological, nutritional,
self-help, or any other health-related issue, program,
therapy, or regimen. As regards those kinds of
questions, we urge you to consult a licensed health-care
professional before making any decisions or taking any
action. As regards everything else on The Zoo Fence,
your best guide is your own common sense.
Inevitably and rightly, there is a lot on The Zoo Fence about the Bible and other scriptures considered sacred by various traditions. As you read it, please understand that nothing written here is, or is intended to be, an academic considration. We are not theologians, biblical scholars, or historians. In the context of this website, our interest in the passages of the Bible and other sacred writings is solely as spiritual seekers who have undertaken a personal, inner journey for the Truth of who and what we are. We know that many of our statements, and perhaps even all of our conclusions, will not reflect, and perhaps may even contradict, current orthodoxy, theology, and history. We mean no disrespect by that, but it does not concern us, for again we are not academics, and this is not an academic undertaking. For us, the Bible and other scriptures of the world’s spiritual traditions, are a guide and a tool and a vehicle which can facilitate and accelerate our passage along the spiritual path only if we understand its message to us. Therefore, we take it to be our duty to discover and understand its meaning to us personally, to decipher what the Universal Teacher intends for us to see in it and to do by it. All of that is what we hope to share with you, and we ask that you read it in that spirit.
The Zoo
Fence is a product of The Laughing Cat, a corporation founded
by two renunciate seekers,
Stefan and Nancy Nadzo, husband and wife, who consider themselves to be monks,
and in fact who sometimes refer to themselves as the
Monks of The Sacred Riddle. They are intensely
spiritual, but not necessarily religious in the common
sense of the word. That is, they are far more interested
in finding the Truth and then realiz-ing it (making it
real in and as themselves and their lives), than they
are in where they find it. They have, and they belong
to, no organized group; there is no hierarchy, no
identifiable structure, no membership, no boundaries, no
secret handshake. These are simply two ordinary people
who, in their words, “left the world” in the mid-1970s
to live a life in search of Truth.
For more about “The
Sacred Riddle”, please click here. For more about TZF’s
perception of the difference between “spiritual” and
“religious”, please click here. For a quick read of our pespective, please click here. For a bit about our spiritual journey, please click here. For more about Stefan and Nancy, please click here.
Why “the
zoo fence”? One night in 1974, in a fishing camp on the
windward side of Molokai, in the Hawaiian Islands, one
of us had a dream about publishing a journal called “The
Zoo Fence”. The name probably originated from the
practice of the Honolulu Zoo to allow artists to display
their art work on its fence in Waikiki; but beyond that,
who knows what the subconscious meant by the phrase! In
any case, it made sense in the dream, and when, more
than two decades later, The Laughing Cat decided to
issue a newsletter, the choice of a name seemed already
to have been made. (For one interpretation of the name,
please see the item “Why the zoo fence?” on our Letters page.)
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Thank you for visiting. We
hope you enjoy yourself here. We wish you joy and love
in everything you undertake.
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