Clackamas Town Center

My heart goes out to everyone affected by the Clackamas Town Center shootings yesterday afternoon.  To the families of the deceased including the shooter and to the young lady who is recovering from her injuries and her family, my prayers are with you during this difficult time. To all the patrons of the mall, I’m so…

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Body Soul Reflection

In order to talk about spiritual matters, well to talk about anything really, our logical left brains categorize things, make structure and meaning out of things, which has led us, along with hundreds of other influences, to talk about the soul and the body as separate entities.  Spiritual and religious teachings reinforce this by talking…

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Grounding & Sacred Space

I’m not sure why it’s not part of everyone’s regular practice, but somehow grounding and creating sacred space before doing meditation or ceremonial work got lost for quite a few spiritual practices and groups over the past couple of hundred years.  Students look at me funny when I say they need to get grounded before…

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Soul Groups

Soul groups play a crucial role in the development of souls throughout their existence.  While each soul is unique and develops individually, it is also interconnected with the other members of its soul group and with its teacher in a living web of relationships that nurture and foster everyone involved.  Soul groups are formed within…

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Do It Differently

Christmas is upon us.  Which means a raft of activities all this month leading up to the grand holiday itself.  Not only is there decorating and shopping and holiday parties and school events, plus church events and volunteering and charity work and that extra toy for the toy drive….Ok, that’s just one part of it. …

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Your Own Experience

“You don’t have to be a chicken to make an omelette.”  One of my more favorite quotes and very, very true.  There are many ways to learn and personal experience is only one of them.  But in a world that has moved from agrarian conservatism where tradition is survival because trying something new can get…

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Perception & Desire

I’ve been there myself and I see it all the time in friends, acquaintances, and clients.  We want something so bad that we ignore all the facts and evidence around us that we aren’t going to get it and can’t have it.  And we seek out any piece of information that supports our desire to…

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Sacred space confronts us

Sacred places turn our assumptions on their heads.  In such places it is impressed upon us viscerally that the notion of people as owners of the land and shepherds of creatures is not the case.  Our temples and churches and monuments appear shallow echoes of timeless forms when contrasted with sacred places that have existed…

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Civil Religion and Historical Markers

America, like many other countries colonized by immigrants, is a nation of dueling cultural perspectives on sacrality and the sacred nature of nature in particular.  In the past 300 years America has acted with colonial fervor to replace the previous existing culture, the Native American tribes, and to exert control and ownership of the land,…

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