Channeling RD
What would RD do? That's been the recurring question lately. “RD” is shorthand for spiritual teacher and author Ram Dass. It was the name his Maui support team called him when they spoke to him, or about him. People whose identities grow larger than life sometimes need shorthand aliases to remind them of the difference between their public persona – like a separate entity with superpowers – and the flawed little human still living inside it. After a hemorrhagic stroke nearly killed him in 1997. the man who was born Richard Alpert in Boston in 1931, was left partially paralyzed in a wheelchair, with expressive aphasia showing his speech. The stroke happened on Maui, and made him unable to leave the island for the rest of his life. A prisoner of paradise, you might say. For the next two decades he continued his career, writing, teaching and guiding followers around the world. One of his themes in the later years was death and dying, which he described as “taking off a tight shoe.” Hi...