Challenge Your Traditions
Holiday traditions are wonderful things. They connect us to our family and culture. They allow us a kind of time warp where we are connecting the previous generations with ourselves and those to come. Traditions help us weave ourselves into a bigger tapestry, help bring memories to life, and reaffirm our role in our community.…Details
To Stand Witness
THE MEDUSA MYTH has always been a favorite of mine. I mean, it’s cool right? As a kid it’s a great story like Godzilla vs. Mothra. There is a horrible monster doing horrible monstery things which needs to be vanquished. And there is a hero who looks just like every other guy and he gets help from the pretty gods and he gets all these cool gadgets and he goes out, screws up his courage and defeats the monster.…Details
Cord Connections
When we think about how we are connected to people we think of emotions: love, friendship, grief, shared misery, and hate. Or our connections can seem to be formed from thoughts, communities coming together through mutual interests, perspectives, or goals. Spiritual aspects of life call us into connection whether through intimate relationship or community which gathers to practice, learn and grow.…Details
Filling Your Own Cup
We’re taught to get the work done first and then we can do what will make us happy. You know, “Do your homework or you don’t get to go out and play.” It’s practical, it builds a good work ethic, it’s a virtue to be able to work hard and achieve, blah-blah-blah. …Details
The Cure for What You Don’t Know
One of the scariest things in life is not knowing. Not knowing how things will turn out, not knowing if you’ll succeed, not knowing if you’ll be able to actually do it, not knowing if you’re going to survive…The unknown can be absolutely terrifying because it can be anything. …Details
Respect Your Divinity
It’s true we teach people how to treat us by how we treat ourselves. But those actions also teach others how they should be treating themselves and so we become ripples in a pond moving ever outward. When our own divinity, our own precious light in this world, is the last thing on our list, when we see caring for ourselves as a condiment to living rather than the foundation for health and well-being, we show to the world the powerful message that we don’t matter and we can’t matter.…Details
Materialized Practice
There is a phrase which has stuck in my mind for decades: “So much hinted at in play never materialized in practice.” – Anne McCaffrey. I think of it every time someone talks about their beliefs as something different than how they live.…Details
Restrictive Boundaries
I highly recommend and support having healthy boundaries. They proactively show people how to treat us so interactions are positive, help protect us when actions or choices are abusive, and foster trust within ourselves and with others so we can unfold ourselves fully and participate with the world.…Details
Mistaking Transformative Moments
There are times when we want the world to slow down so we can get off, times when we just wish it would pull over for a moment because something has obviously come loose and we need to make a crucial adjustment, and others where we are waiting for the right moment to jump in and get things done so time seems to stretch like taffy into infinity.…Details
Reward the Increments
One of the cruelest things about Christmas Day is we have built up months of excitement which is rewarded with a brief instant. Even the best explosion of presents often leaves people disappointed, not because they didn’t get what they wanted, but because the reward isn’t equal to the effort or the expectation.…Details
Balancing
Somewhere along the way our notion of balance becomes about stillness. That balance is about perfect measures bringing everything to a point where nothing moves. It’s the essence of perfection, to be perfectly balanced in a stillness that proves everything is exactly equal, measured, compared, in exacting relationship to each other.…Details
Lessons & Choices
On the one hand it’s important to evaluate a situation which has occurred. To look back at what elements came together in order to facilitate it, what your part was in it, and what lesson there is to be learned from it.…Details
A Rose By Any Other Name…
It doesn’t take long for a child to develop the ability to determine categories or the “thingness” of things. They very rapidly learn that while this cat is pure black and the other is all kinds of colors, they are both cats.…Details
Body Meditation
Our bodies hold a tremendous amount of practical wisdom which can help us on our spiritual path. Unfortunately we often treat them like a blind hound dog that needs constant monitoring and correction that periodically will lead us to something interesting but for the most part is a huge amount of work.…Details
Wearing Masks
I like masks. Not the made in China, you can’t breathe through them, Halloween kind from the store at Halloween, but beautiful Mardi Gras masks and hand crafted fantastical masks used in ritual and ceremony, masks made by craftswo/men who put a little bit of magic into them and that can take you to another place, let you be someone completely different and yet authentically you. …Details
Fun House Mirror
It’s truly impossible to see or know all aspects of ourselves because we can’t be impartial, kinda by definition. People and situations hold up mirrors for us so we can see who we are and the ramifications of our actions more clearly. …Details
Testing A Healing Practice
It’s not uncommon for people to have a double standard when it comes to traditional and alternative healing practices. With regular medicine we demand efficacy. We’re not going to do something that isn’t going to work and we want to know that it works up front before we engage with it.…Details
Words Come After
Putting words to things is a way in which to manifest them. We know this because we all realize from a very early age that saying a thing out loud makes it real. We will avoid having to say the words for as long as possible in order to keep things from being final.…DetailsResolution Punishments
95% of all New Year resolutions are punishments disguised as hopes. We pick the things we don’t like about ourselves, the things we think are broken or bad, not up to par or holding us back, pick a punishment and then set out to implement it.…Details