What's It All For?: Inaugural Episode of Unraveling Religion with Northeast Ohio's Poetic Giant Major Ragain

This initial epsiode of Unraveling Religion recorded on November 14th, 2007 in Buffalo, New York explores the question 'what's it all for?' in the largest scale we can imagine. Maj Ragain, who passed in 2018, presents in this talk the intersection of loneliness and its cure, touch, and the ways in which we can comfort one another. Sharing poetry and the makeup of what is meaningful to him, Maj examines the different frameworks of modern life rooted in an ancient and sacred wisdom.

Beginning with the wisdom of the Sundance, Maj speaks of how the soul was formless and did not know limitation. As the Soul found form, the human body, it knew limitation including loneliness. Drawing on Buddhism's Zen Flesh, Zen Bones and Zen Mind, Beginners Mind Maj's talk weaves the 'Big Mind' that includes the thread and voice that forms his poetry.

Maj's talk includes the Tao Te Ching and its author Lao Tzu sharing 'I have only three things to share: simplicity, patience, and compassion.'

Maj concludes with Meister Eckhert's notion 'if the only prayer that is said is 'thank you' that would be enough.'

 

Biography:

Maj Ragain (1940 to 2018) was born into a small, southeastern Illinois farm town. Home-tutored and raised on Vernor Lake, he earned a Bachelor of Arts in English at Eastern Illinois University, and an Master of Arts in English at the University of Illinois. He had been on faculty, off and on, at Kent State University since 1969, where he obtained his Ph. D. in 1990.

He is the author of seven chapbooks of poetry and five book-length collections, all of which contribute to Clouds Pile Up in the North: New & Selected Poems. Maj had served for more than thirty years as host to open poetry readings in Kent, monthly, downtown, mentoring hundr​eds​​ of poets through the years.