The Mind Trap

Today has been an interesting day. While mowing an acre of grass, taking a hoe to the vegetable garden, and enjoying a three-mile walk with Sophia, I’ve been pondering life, this appearance of duality that is physically dubious and yet remarkably, manifests shamelessly as the material world. It is the veritable impossible dream. I’ve been …

Life’s Little Secret

I can pretty much guarantee that few will be interested in this little secret, because it is the rather large lie, the frustrating fallacy, the charlatan concept that is ardently guarded by riveting, nearly unconscious resistance. I used to encounter that same thing when I’d write about death. That little idea doesn’t seem to be …

Waving Your Bubble Wand

Are you any less present when what you are present to is anger or hate? Granted, it feels crappy, but Is presence itself any less present when your skies are filled with intense black clouds? Can you not be present? Is that even possible? Wherever you go, there you are. You can’t get away from …

Wildly Crazy

This world is wildly crazy, duplicitous it seems as well. Even when you are compassionate and caring, empathic, feeling the hurts and wounds of others, sometimes tending to your own tender heart means adding pain to another’s. I think that is why empaths stay so long in harmful relationships, or at least why I did. …

It’s a BIG Day!

I’m celebrating! My new book is up on Amazon and soon to be available on kindle. The official launch is next week, so this is your early notice. The publisher is planning a splash. Exciting! Working with New Sarum Press was a great experience. They took a great book and with their loving care, sharp …

The Truth Lies in the Fire

There are times, even now, when the fact that I did my best wasn’t good enough. I know, deep down, that my life, and those it touched, couldn’t have been otherwise and yet, I ache with the recognition honed from years of new experiences fired in the kiln of inner work, that I hurt others, …

What all great healers know …

I’m being schooled on healing … on what it is and what it is not. It’s been an eye-popping ride. So much that we do — the intent for a result — the idea of a healer and healed — the belief in disease and health — the need for improvement in that which is …

Is Your World View Your Self View?

I’ve been looking at Adyashanti’s statement, “World views are self views, literally,” and following it down the rabbit hole. I remember years ago parroting the New Age belief that if someone sees something in another it actually resides within them … seeing another’s hate is seeing my self-hate; another’s perceived guilt is my own … …

The Certainty of Uncertainty

We humans are fascinating creatures. I speak as we since I generally find commonality in our human condition(ing). I realize many gurus point to the possibility of overcoming the human condition, offering a variety of titillating escape routes, but I cannot imagine how that could be. Living is living after all. It is duality roiling …

The Struggle that I Took On

I wonder … if I hadn’t had the experiences life granted me, who would I be? If instead of adversity I had been given ease, abundance, and love, would I be this version of me? It doesn’t seem so. Looking at a friend’s pictures, a friend who hasn’t seen death, who still is surrounded by …

Fear: A Muscle You’ve Built Out of Nothing

Do this; do that. Say this; don’t say that. Wear this; don’t wear that. Buy this; oh my God, don’t buy that. Eat this; whatever you do, don’t eat that.  Everyone’s got something to say, especially when they are selling something to go with it, but it’s shelled out for free too. Consummate salespeople that …

Will You Celebrate?

Will you celebrate life, your life, right now, right here, exactly as it appears? You can do what you’re going to do and still celebrate. Can you stop … and sit down … and let life be as it is or are you still jonesing for a fight, even a small one, so much so …

Round and Round and Round

Each ‘you’, could be replaced with I/me. I write from my experience. The habitual keeps you going round and round on the same track. It tends to spiral downward at a slow enough pace that is it unnoticeable. It is not fresh; it is dead. It is old thinking, old fears, wrapped in the guise …