This guest post is by Art Vandelay. You can read a bit about him on the “Denizens” page.
We are the universes favorite memory downloaded
our pains absence from photos stars exploded
each breath etched life cycles light recycled
our nature’s inertia to nature spinning infinite
Love. forgiveness. stretching generations our children’s fingertips
Self maps across spines spirit vines speaking
metamechic meanings divine tree breathing sacred pictures Continue reading
Nowhere is the breakdown of the old story of command and control more evident than in the modern “health care” arena, with its ever-increasing cost and complexity, reliance on drugs and technology, and faltering ability to make us healthier or better cared for. When my parents were diagnosed with cancer, the very language used by their doctors was a language of war. In older cultures, by contrast, illness was seen as an indicator of disconnection, disharmony, or imbalance. People, not diseases, were the focus of treatment.
“If you treat disease, you win some, you lose some. But if you treat people, you always win.” ~ Patch Adams
Last week, I attended a noontime lecture at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Public Health. The speaker, Lewis Mehl-Madrona, is a Stanford trained doctor in clinical psychiatry who researches so-called narrative medicine — the healing practices of indigenous elders. His goal is to introduce their healing wisdom into mainstream medicine and to transform medicine and psychology by coupling it with various narrative traditions. He opened his talk with this:
“If you want to change the world, keep talking and tell a story.”
Since today is Martin Luther King Day, I wanted to share one of the greatest speeches by a great role model for living into the New Story of connection and belonging. In this speech, King sets a high bar for our nation:
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
This guest post is by Phila Hoopes. You can read a bit about her on the “Denizens” page.
A few months ago, in a storm of grief over the way the world is going, I wrote to author/teacher/medicine woman Deena Metzger, “Knowing what you know, being sensitive to all you perceive, how do you not despair?” She answered: “Because I know that Spirit exists and that some of us are being guided and so we are doing what we are called to do and that has to be sufficient. And because — I don’t want God to despair too.”
I have shied away from those words; their challenge was too devastating. I’ve buried myself in purposeful overwhelm, busybusybusy applying my skills to good causes, and when fatigue forced a halt, burying myself in lesser distractions – conversations with friends, an old movie, a brain-candy novel, surfing the Internet. Checking the stats for this blog, frustrated that no inspirations were coming for new content (surprise!) and bemused that the most popular page, by far, was Quotes on the Dark Night of the Soul. Refusing to admit – despite all indications – that I was (unadmittedly, only borderline-consciously) traversing a similarly shadowed valley. Continue reading
This guest post is by Duane Marcus. You can read a bit about him on the “Denizens” page.
As I was looking at the new image of the Pillars of Creation from the Hubble telescope I was reminded of a thought I had while collecting crystals at Diamond Hill Mine. We had been poking around in the muddy piles for several hours finding some nice pieces. I was on my knees in a spot where I was finding a lot nice crystals. The sun was low in the sky making the crystals sparkle around me. I picked up a nice clear orange piece and held it up so the sunlight shone through it.
I was struck by the realization that I was holding in my hand pieces of a star of unimaginable age that were subsequently forged into this beautiful crystal by tremendous heat and pressure deep within the core of the earth many millennia ago. It also occurred to me that I, too, am composed of that same star stuff. The crystal and I are one and the same. I could feel the exchange of electrons between us at that moment. Continue reading
Don’t force solutions. Let them find you.
Problems may beg to be solved, but they have another, more interesting purpose: to prick our curiosity and wake us from a slumber of sameness and complacency. To hint at the hidden dimensions that lie beneath the surfaces of everyday life.
Problems prod us to soften into the unknown. Or to stand on our head, turn sideways, and see reality — or what we think is reality – afresh. Old ways of coping, of sliding by, no longer work. We are invited to give up control of the eventual outcome, and for that we need to call upon imagination. Continue reading
This day, in the Christian world, is a celebration of new life, of the birth of the Christ child. This story invites a re-awakening of the spark of love within each of us, as divine consciousness embodied. All of Christ’s teachings are stored in our very DNA and can be accessed by anyone, regardless of religion.
It’s not random coincidence that miraculous humans emerge at times of struggle, to lead and inspire others to live from that divine light in the face of great hardship and suffering. Examples abound: Gandhi and Indian independence, Martin Luther King and Civil Rights, Nelson Mandela and Apartheid, Aung An Suu Kyi and democracy, Wangaari Matthai and tree planting, Malala Yousufzi and the right to education. All of these, and others, stood up to forces of oppression and darkness that sought to silence them through fear and violence. Continue reading
This guest post is by Duane Marcus. You can read a bit about him on the “Denizens” page.
We are stardust,
We are golden,
And we’ve got to get ourselves
back to the garden
~ Joni Mitchell
I went to college to study science of horticulture. I came to believe that if something cannot be measured empirically then it could not be true. I have spent most of my life working with plants. Through this work, cracks in my belief system began to appear. Mysteries abound in the garden. I came to understand that all things are connected, that all things are energetic beings. Trees, rocks, rivers, the soil, the mountains, the deserts, people, animals all share the same source. We are all parts of one entity made up of the same swirling atoms exchanging energies with one another and with the vast universe. Continue reading
One day, fifty-two trips around the sun ago, a soul made its leap into the body of a baby being born. The young mother had an artistic spirit and was already stretched to her limits with three children. She wouldn’t let herself admit her misgivings about this fourth because her husband, a soldier, was a good man who loved his growing family.
The soul saw all this and chose this family for its earth walk, and to help the child weather the coming storms, it bestowed these gifts: Continue reading
What do you want out of life? Who do you want to be when you grow up? These are questions we all have heard since childhood. Ambition is revered in our culture, even exalted. Without it, we are told, people are nothing; they are losers sitting on their couches watching daytime TV.
I enslaved myself to ambition for many years. I’m still motivated by it, though in a hybrid that oscillates between crass materialism and blinding spirit. In its purest form, my ambition comes more from within, in contrast to the culturally-sanctioned outward motivation I was taught. Like Rumi, I am burning with desire to serve the Beloved. To bring forth words and images, in the most beautiful, clear, inspiring and moving way I can possibly manage. Continue reading