Have you tried to take a hiatus from your digital device? It is not easy. But well worth trying, if only to give you an experiential understanding of the costs of digital dependency. When we disengage from our phones and tablets and screens of all kinds, we experience the world in a different and enlivened way. We can be more present. And along with this shift in perception comes discovery—actually re-discovery—of our myriad capabilities for awareness, not only in and of our immediate environment, but in our connections to the expanded world, inner and outer, as well. It is quite … [Read more...]
Defeating Fear
We are facing a crisis of fear in the world, playing out in many ways on many platforms. And trying to keep fear at bay in the current environment is challenging as we are subjected on a daily basis to horrific reports of violence, destruction and hatred along with an accompanying onslaught of images, sounds and threats—and outright encouragement-- of anger and hostility. All this is in part designed to create and sustain fear in order to further the assorted goals of the fear mongers. Exaggeration and distraction are important tactics used by those who wish to advance their own agendas, and … [Read more...]
Imagination and Integration
As Halloween approaches and we can’t help observing, and perhaps participating in, dress-up and pretend play, I think again about the importance of imagination, and in particular how much children can remind us about expanding our capacities to know in non-linear ways. Children are impressive in their ability to easily and fluidly abandon so-called rational thought and immerse themselves with freedom and delight into imaginary worlds. In the process of such play they are naturally accessing their intuition and accomplishing important developmental tasks. My young granddaughter is expert … [Read more...]
Discernment, Imagination & Coming of Age
One of the most essential, yet difficult, skills we must learn in order to navigate life well is discernment. In other words, good judgment--knowing who and what to trust. We ask ourselves: What do I know? What do I believe? How can I be sure what is “real” and what is not, what is “true” and what is not? How will I know the difference? And as soon as we start to ask these questions, we quickly discover we have myriad other questions in need of answers: what is safe, what is good, what is balanced? Indeed, what is “reality” and what is “truth”? I unexpectedly waded deep into these … [Read more...]
Supporting Nepal Through Inner Engagement
I opened my email this morning to find thoughtful and heartfelt suggestions from William Bloom for how to provide love and kindness and support to those who have suffered in Nepal as a result of the earthquake. His words bear sharing, and I have reproduced his letter below. For those of you who do not know him, William Bloom is a gifted teacher and writer from Great Britain, who has for many years provided important contributions to the development of holistic and spiritual understanding and practices. He writes today about how to provide assistance to souls killed in the Nepal … [Read more...]
Alert and Available
How often do you worry about the future? Or feel stuck or drawn back by something or someone in the past that you can’t seem to get past? Human mind and emotion have a persistent way of distracting us from the present. We struggle with the business of being human--that is, surviving physically and emotionally--and we think far too much about it, often engendering fear. This is our nature and our habit, and it is reinforced relentlessly by our cultures (including family, work, and community cultures) and by the realities of survival. We are shaped by our pasts, by our attachments and … [Read more...]
Imagination, Make Believe, and Inner Discovery
As Halloween approaches and we can’t help observing, and maybe participating in, dress-up and pretend play, I am thinking again about the importance of imagination, and in particular how much children can remind us about expanding our capacities to know in non-linear ways. Children are impressive in their ability to easily and fluidly abandon so-called rational thought and immerse themselves with freedom and delight into imaginary worlds. In the process of such play they are naturally accessing their intuition and accomplishing important developmental tasks. My four-year-old … [Read more...]
Politics, Truth and Compassion
Are you as worn out from this election season as I am? I am beyond weary from fending off the incoming—all kinds of energetic approaches vying for my mental, psychic and emotional attention, ranging from snail mail, email, print and TV ads, the endless coverage by the media of each side’s daily talking points and the innumerable partisan surrogates appearing on behalf of each agenda, and, most difficult of all to bear, the relentless sniping and small hearted negative attacks that appear to be acceptable terms of engagement in politics. We are all being subjected to energetic fields replete … [Read more...]
The Light Shines Through Many Windows
I got to thinking recently about belief systems after listening to a radio interview with writer and director Kenneth Lonergan (about his film Margaret, now out in an extended DVD version). What caught my attention was his description of himself as a “committed atheist,” and more particularly his explanation of why. In his view, all religions are creations, stories, myths, that are constructed as a way of trying to understand something that is not comprehensible. In other words, we create belief systems to help us wrap our minds around things we can not understand. Things like why are we … [Read more...]
Indiana Jones, Winston Churchill, Coincidence and Synchronicity
What are coincidences? How do they happen? Why do they happen? What do they mean? Coincidence, as commonly defined, is when two or more events happen at the same time by accident but seem to have some connection. But this definition only considers events that are causally related. Synchronicity, a term coined by Swiss psychologist Carl Jung in the 1920s, recognizes that concurrent events may be connected by meaning, rather than cause. Synchronicity is when two or more events that appear not be connected, and are unlikely to occur together by chance, in fact do occur together in a way … [Read more...]