There’s No Place Like Home
Category: Religion and Philosophy

Sufi Al-Hallaj was crucified in Baghdad in the 9^th century. His crime? Declaring that he and his God were One.

Sound familiar? Hmmm…let's see here. There's the Inquisition. Witch hunts. The Holocaust. Tibet.  All those wars through the millennia that have been and still are fought over the difference between one tribe's god(s) and another. As a spiritual seeker, do you ever wonder why you have a hard time stating your truth? Perhaps it's that karmically- encoded imprint of how many lifetimes you have been tortured, exiled and killed for seeking experiences beyond the mundane to directly access your God.

I am moved to share this quote from Al- Hallaj~ "I have meditated on the different religions, endeavoring to understand them, and I have found that they stem from a single principle with numerous ramifications. Do not therefore ask a man to adopt a particular religion (rather than another), for this would separate him from the fundamental principle. It is this principle itself which must come to seek him…"     

My teacher was saying last night that you are a product of your truth. To me, that means that I have the potential to embody the aspect of that multifaceted principle I am drawn to illuminate. It is my spiritual center at which I feel fully at home.

If you truly want to make a difference in the world, take full advantage of this time in history and go home. Allow yourself to be found by the seeking fundamental principle. Seek allies and teachers in your discovered ramification. Be tolerant of those manifesting different facets.

Delve into your Truth. Become it. Take your truth into the world through your thoughts, words and deeds. Integrate it into your life's work.

The African Pygmy tradition creation myth says:

In the beginning was God,

            Today is God

            Tomorrow will be God.

Who can make an image of God?

            He has no body.

            He is a word  

                        which comes out of your mouth.

That word! It is no more,

It is past, and still it lives!

So is God.

We are at a time in the evolution of the human species where we each are able to be discovered by the facet of the fundamental principle with which we authentically resonate and relatively safely express it.

Cultivate some of the many tools available to communicate your divine essence- Toastmasters, volunteering, blogging, voting etc.  Bring your vision of God through your eyes into the world.  

Dig deep down and find the courage to go beyond the past transgressions. This is our time (the New Aeon is upon us)~ and the window is open now (who knows for how long…). If not now, how many lifetimes are you willing to wait for another chance to express yourself?  This is an amazing evolutionary opportunity to transcend your karmic history and reveal the product of your Truth.

Then go ahead and click your heels together three times, just like in the Wizard of Oz, and say to yourself, "There's no place like home."  

11:18 PM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Happy Summer Solstice!
Category: Religion and Philosophy

Nearly every religion of the world shows traces of influence of nature and the heavens. The Old Testament of the Jews and writings by Egyptian culture are a mass of astrological and astronomical allegories. Nearly all the Greek and Roman mythologies may be traced to star groups. The ancient systems of measuring the year were based upon the equinoxes and solstices. The energy of nature right now at the time of the Summer Solstice is outward. It is solar and expressive, full of life force. You can see it in the budding and flowering plants. Astronomically, it is where our exposure to sunlight for a single day is at a zenith. In fact, at the North Pole the sun does not set on the solstice. Astrologically, it is the moment where the Sun shifts from the sign of Gemini to the sign of Cancer. This year the Summer Solstice occurs on today.

The Druids, the priestly/professional/diplomatic corps in Celtic countries, celebrated Alban Heruin ("Light of the Shore"). Modern Druids still gather at standing stone circle Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain in England to mark the event and celebrate this time as the marriage between heaven and earth. As it comes up, the sun rises exactly over the Heel Stone, one of the stones that lie outside the main circle at Stonehenge.

The Summer Solstice has often been called Midsummer.  Shakespeare's fantastic play A Midsummer Night's Dream evokes the magickal air about this cycle of the year. It is said that on Midsummer Night, elves and fairies come out in great numbers.

The Christian overlay of this natural holiday is the Feast of St. John the Baptist, usually observed on June 24^th. This observance is one of the oldest feasts introduced into both the Greek and Latin liturgies to honor a saint. His feast day is offset a few days after the summer solstice, just as Christmas is fixed a few days after the Winter Solstice. Symbolically, just as John was the forerunner to Jesus, Midsummer forecasts the eventual arrival of the Winter Solstice.

The first (or only) full moon in June is called the Honey Moon. It was considered the best time to harvest honey from the hives.  Additionally, between the planting and harvesting of the crops, June was the traditional month for weddings and remains a favorite month for marriage today. In some traditions, newlywed couples were fed dishes and beverages that featured honey for the first month of their married life to encourage love and fertility. The surviving vestige of this tradition lives on in the name given to the celebratory retreat from the day-to-day world the couple takes immediately after the ceremony- the honeymoon.

Celebrate the peak of the power of the sun by bringing to the light the magickal side of yourself and revealing your true nature. Blossom in the fullness of nature, express yourself creatively and revel in the potency of this part of Earth's annual cycle.

Who knows- maybe you'll even encounter an elf or fairy…

What are you doing to mark the Solstice?

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If you keep flying in the face
Category: Religion and Philosophy

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If you can’t seem to
Category: Religion and Philosophy

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One Hi at a Time
Category: Religion and Philosophy

I recently started working with a new client whose office is in a downtown San Diego high rise. Since I have mostly worked from home the past several years, traveling the 31 miles from my rural home on lots of acres of open space to the urban core of one of the largest cities in the country has been a bit of a culture shock, to put it mildly.

One of the first things I noticed about this new environment was that no one seemed to smile or talk to each other. It felt like I was in a movie and the people were all animated props~ always walking silently, eyes focused forward with neutral facial expression which discouraged interaction.  Now, this isn't the kind of world I want to spend very much of my time in- it got boring after the first week novelty wore off. I'd rather be home communing with the hawks, lizards, trees, and other interesting beings, human and otherwise, who prefer to live together in a beautiful co-creative setting.

So, instead of choosing to end the job, I decided to alter the alien office landscape to better suit my needs. To be the change I want to see. So, as a personal practice, each time I get into the elevator and there is another person there, I say hi with a smile. At first, after the initial shocked look on peoples' faces, there was a response 20% of the time. Now it is up to 80% and I have moved onto offering greetings in the beverage area. That has resulted sometimes in maybe even a two sentence conversation about the weather or the news. A few weeks of saying hi to the downstairs security guards has had the outcome of that they now recognize me (though they somehow remind me of the guys in the Matrix, because of their ear pieces and suits but I have been able to get past that image) with a nod of acknowledgement. This movie is starting to feel more integrated into the world I want to live in. 

I am feeling much better about entering this separate reality by now. It is forming nicely into a friendlier environment through just making the commitment to changing myself in order to change my world and then following through with these seemingly small actions to enact the shift. You really can have an impact on making the planet a better place through these intentional acts of kindness and friendliness. Give it a try and see how you can begin to craft your reality into what you want it to be.  

11:11 AM - 7 Comments - 14 Kudos - Add Comment

Can you
Category: Religion and Philosophy

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An Eternal Instant of Inner Revelation
Category: Religion and Philosophy

It can happen to you anywhere and often does when you least expect it. Sitting in the waiting area at the airport the other day I had one of those moments. It seemed as if all else was a movie separate and apart from my personal world and I was alone in an eternal instant of inner revelation.

The outer view was only slightly different from before, even if the costume was still the same jeans and a black turtleneck. The realization had to do with the results of deep unfolding on my inside that had occurred since the last time I had sat in the same airport waiting area chair heading to the same destination a year ago.

 It was the way I felt as I maneuvered through the world that was perceptibly altered. The revelation appeared in my mind's eye as an instant snapshot of how much I had changed from the last time I was in this same position and reflected as changes on the outside.

Though this kind of event is profound, it most often happens in pretty ordinary places and feels as elegant as a déjà vu moment. Time seems to juxtapose past and present and, in an instant, you can feel yourself as you were then and as you are now at the same time. Maybe this is one of our Soul's ways of benchmarking our evolution in real time so we can have an "aha" moment and realize we really are making progress. After all, this spiritual evolution stuff isn't for the faint hearted. Sublime moments like this are what encourage us to keep going.

The incident at the airport was just one more leg of the journey that has brought me to this destination. My awareness of the opportunity for quantum life examination has been heightened yet again as I am ever on the lookout for each clue to the mystery bearing my name.

Check out the Meta Journal for more intriguing and spiritually provocative reading.

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You can't really see
Category: Religion and Philosophy

What are you doing
Category: Religion and Philosophy

Happy Earth Day!

What one thing are you doing today to preserve and protect our Mother Earth?

Let's get a great list of suggestions going and celebrate our participation in saving the planet!

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Light reveals
Category: Religion and Philosophy

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