Category Archives: Uncategorized

Ripples from the Walk for Peace

Posted in Being Peace, Change the World, Personal Growth, Spiritual Journey, Uncategorized by

I didn’t hear about the Walk for Peace from Texas to D.C. until it had made it into Georgia but once I heard I started checking in daily for clips about the walk, followed their Facebook page and also a group one. I continue to follow some and especially enjoy when they have events where they lead the lovingkindness chant.

Not only has it been a treat to watch the walk itself and the various walks and rites, etc broadcast since but it has been fun to watch tons of people who are new to all this reacting and to learn a lot about my own progress as I observe all aspects.

Following the group page for the community has been especially interesting. The most fun piece for me is watching so many people being very excited by their first steps in trying to follow a path of peace. Along with excitement I’m seeing lots of people clinging to the monks instead of doing the practices. And folks who like to pick other people apart if they don’t like a question or a remark. Folks who tell others, unasked, what they should be doing…

Lots of stuff going on other than spending time on the practice of regularly reminding themselves “This is my peaceful day” or “I am peaceful” and then walking that talk. And also lots of people committing to practice, finding a local Buddhist center or finding online teachers to learn from, really committing to the work.

Not so long ago I probably would have been up and down and all over the place about all these different paths people have gone down since the Walk and jumping in to criticize, correct, etc. Longer ago I might have put too much attention on the monks and not enough on practice.

But observing myself through the Walk and its aftermath I found myself smiling at all of it and just overall thinking how great it was to draw so many people toward a path to peace at a time when we REALLY need as much of that energy as we can get. Appreciative the monks could feel how much it was needed and get it organized and done.

I’m still enjoying checking in sometimes but I’ve already been on a journey to peace for decades so I also feel no need to cling to the monks or this experience. For me it’s just a lovely reminder about doing my practices, holding a space of lovingkindness, etc. And a profound realization of how much transformation I’ve achieved on this 40+ year journey.

I also remember how it was to be a beginner and have helped facilitate beginners a number of times so I know there are always some who cling to the teacher(s) instead of walking the walk, some who expect to meditate for a week and be transformed, some who choose to pick apart how everyone else is doing it while never comprehending they’re doing the opposite of holding a space of peace, etc.

People have to get on the path however it works for them. It almost always involves a lot of heading down a bunch of side paths instead of getting on one clear, straight path and just moving forward. And I’m just smiling to watch the various ways people are coping with this new journey they’ve found.

And profoundly grateful for the ways in which it has helped me see the progress and transformation my journey has brought to me. Profoundly grateful for the infusion of more energy into the process of tipping the web of all life into a new state where peace is the primary energy. It’s ALL good.

Doubt and being in the flow

Posted in Current Events, Personal, Spiritual Journey, Uncategorized by

For the Centers for Spiritual Living the month of May’s topic has been Divine Doubt and Reverend Theresa Fieberts has given some thought provoking talks. She asked us to consider “doubt” in our lives and where we stand, etc. which has had me pondering where doubt lives in the space of greater calm and equilibrium in which I’ve been living.

So much of my life before the spiritual path — and in its first years — was spent not just in doubt, but questioning every decision to the point of massive angst. So when Rev Theresa asked us to think about doubt I realized it works really differently now.

While doubt is still present, it arrives less often — and is really more likely to happen if I’m really tired and my head starts spinning about something like whether I’m going to have granola or a bagel for breakfast. Big expenditures are probably the main place where doubt takes over and, because it’s a huge multi-generational family habit, I’m finding that one hard to shake.

But most of the time, as I progress ever more into “living in the flow”, when I realize I’m letting doubt take over, I stop, take a breath and tune in. The more I turn the decision over to the higher self/inner voice the more likely a very strong answer falls in place. About as often as not the answer presents a choice I wasn’t even considering.

I’m especially loving how well it works in a lot of small places. My mind often decides on a plan full of “shoulds” for the day. Some part of me drags about the plan. I tune in and a different plan which at the least changes the order of mine, at most presents an alternate set of things to do, is announced. Following the inner plan leads to a day in which more things get done while I feel more relaxed at the end.

Doubt now is more… quiet. When I can stay mindful enough to notice its presence and tune in for the answer I know comes from higher consciousness, it’s easy to move from doubt to a place of certainty about the next step.

Overall I’ve also moved into a space where I feel a general calm about larger issues. I follow what’s happening in politics and government and do all I can to be sure I’m helping wherever possible to make sure the authoritarians don’t win but I’m rarely caught up in feeling panicked because for quite a while I’ve had a deep sense we’re just watching the last throes of resistance to the times of love and compassion toward which we’re moving.

Even “tanks bottom” warnings, while leading me to prep, don’t have me in constant worry, just aware of possibilities and set to ride out the possible downward spiral. Such a change from the reaction I’d once have had to the studies on the looming tanks bottom impact.

It’s been fun as I hit this moment of recognizing how very far my spiritual journey has brought me to add in thoughts about doubt in my life and how it’s changed.

The long path to equilibrium

Posted in Being Peace, Journey2Peace, Personal Growth, Spiritual Journey, Uncategorized by

In the year+ since my last surgery (with another looming soon…) I’ve finally had a chance to spend some quality time recovering from the wild ride of 2019-23 and then the various surgeries and to reflect on life and transformation etc.

On some level I’ve been aware of handling the world with more equanimity for some time now — helped by the comments of many friends about “the grace” with which I handled caretaking for my mother, her death and the sudden need to move. But various events recently have helped me see after decades of practices, emotional release work, contemplation, etc. I have finally moved noticeably along the goal of being able to hold equilibrium in the moment at least more of the time than not.

Those of you who’ve known me 50 or 60 years or more know I spent my first 30+ years in perpetual angst, always uptight, struggling to make decisions, etc. Those traits have fallen away extremely slowly since I began the spiritual journey in 1985. In fact, if anyone had told me at the beginning how long it might take to really shift into a new way of being, I’m not sure I’d have even started down the path. The blessing has been a combo of always having enough small improvements I could note and also having friends talk about how much transformation they could see.

The deep, deep work of the Fisher-Hoffman process as facilitated by the late Ellen Margron (quite different from the experience you get at the F-H Institute) created some of the biggest inroads and left me generally always in a calmer space than the high anxiety that characterized me for so long but it wasn’t until I hit this last unbelievably tough batch of years I could watch myself calmly handling events which once would have left me borderline hysterical.

In the aftermath of my mother’s death and her reverse mortgage giving me a short time frame to get out of the house – leading to the unexpected move to the condo I’d inherited from my dad here in FL – I think I was some combo of calm from years of spiritual practice and too gobsmacked by the enormity of what I had to do to have an emotional reaction.

Gay’s death – soon followed by David’s – not long after I moved landed me in a space where I suspect I was more numb than existing in peaceful equilibrium but I could also feel the benefits from long since having learned to take a breath and recalibrate.

Several recent events have found me stepping back and observing myself just not reacting to a variety of things that once would have had me amped to the max. Sometime even noticing things I’d have been irritated to observe not so long ago and just smiling at whatever was unfolding and recognizing “it’s what is” for this person, those people, etc. And it doesn’t have to be what is for me or even create a reaction in me, I can observe and let it go.

In all these years I’ve seen a lot of people start the path. Some grow impatient when it doesn’t transform their lives quickly enough and they quit. Some people achieve enough of a new life to stop the journey there without caring if there could be more progress. But for those who patiently keep moving along the path, it slowly creates shifts. As noted, I really had to mark each small note of progress to keep myself moving along.

For those of us who choose to walk a spiritual path while also living out in the world (instead of heading to an ashram, etc.), coping with jobs, politics, homes to care for, etc., it can be quite a slow journey, sometimes with steps backward before moving ahead again. Right now I’m looking at the many lovely stages of this journey and feeling SO grateful to have kept taking another step and another to arrive at this place — which I know will change yet again.

Our society’s grind culture consciousness

Posted in Change the World, Current Events, Opinion, Uncategorized by

Over the last couple of years I’ve pondered grind culture in several posts. The more I look at it the more I see how very many ways a combo of the corporate grind culture thinking promoted by CEOs and rich people plus Puritanical beliefs about wealth equaling being right with God and poverty equaling lazy and wrong with God are buried deep in our national consciousness.

It’s one of the few places where people on both sides of the political divide hold multiple judgments about others. There’s some difference about one side being willing to help people anyway and one side preferring to leave the sick and poor to die. But both talk about whether people are “deserving” or not and make life coach-style statements about hard work being rewarded and pulling bootstraps, etc.

Once I started seeing it, it began jumping out at me from everywhere. This stuff is SO embedded in our psyches. Having worked a lot of years on clearing all sorts of old beliefs dictating my behavior from childhood, I know it’s hard to let go of those ingrained habits of thinking/behaving. And since the whole country can’t go through the kinds of deep therapeutic release work that help individuals, I’ll admit I don’t have an answer for how we do it. I just know that as we try to overturn the power of billionaires and CEOs we need to address the grind culture they love to impose.

Some examples of how it appears in many aspects of life:

The “Work Ethic”

Our society worships the work ethic and quotes by the hundreds are constantly cited, discussing how hard work and diligence will bring rewards:

  • I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it-Thomas Jefferson
  • Great things come from hard work and perseverance. No Excuses – Kobe Bryant
  • I never took a day off in my 20’s, not one – Bill Gates
  • No one understands and appreciates the American Dream of hard work leading to material rewards better than a non-American – Anthony Bourdain
  • Successful people are not gifted; they just work hard, then succeed on purpose-G.K. Neilson

No account is taken in any of these “encouraging” quotes of the multi ways in which society is organized to make it impossible for more than a few to just work hard and automatically achieve the life they want.

Practices like redlining, racism in general, and not enough support from laws all combine to make it close to impossible for POC to get ahead. They get paid less, are often denied loans & mortgages, etc. But the hard work “ethic” says anyone who hasn’t become financially successful is lazy and undeserving. It’s a horrible catch-22 and applies in many ways also to all women.

The same catch extends on to most people who started off poor. Of course everyone has examples of people who did work hard and lived well but those examples are the exception. The system is simply not built to have everyone make a great living, buy a house, etc. with hard work.

The biggest obstacle comes from rich people and the corporate culture that propagandizes about hard work, etc. They purposely don’t pay living wages for full time work, fail to give decent benefits, try to get people to work as contractors instead of employees so the corporation has NO requirements of benefits or paying into social security, etc.

The rich set it up to suit their greed and then shout “Lazy” at all the people working full time — sometimes with another job as well — but not being paid enough to live comfortably. It’s wage theft and the work ethic b.s. is just made up as an excuse to treat people badly and blame the harm on the victims.

The “Deserving Poor” Myth

Dating back to Victorian times (at least) there is a myth that there are some “deserving” poor people who are disabled or too old to work but everyone else who’s poor is “undeserving” because being poor only happens if you’re lazy and not a good person. Two big problems with those are assumptions are largely ignored, even by “liberals”: (1) a huge number of people are poor because greedy employers/companies want them to work full time or more while not being paid a living wage and (2) a disturbing assumption there’s such a thing as a human who doesn’t deserve to eat and have a roof over their head.

Like all grind culture, the common sayings regarding poverty and being deserving or not are promoted by rich people to divert blame and hostility to poor people instead of everyone realizing the rich people are the ones who create the problems and keep people poor.

For more on deserving poor see https://sk.sagepub.com/ency/edvol/worldpoverty/chpt/deserving-poor and https://sites.psu.edu/aspsy/2020/12/01/the-deserving-vs-the-undeserving-poor-how-do-we-deem-whos-worthy/

In America, Grind Culture Breathing

In America (can’t speak for other countries) most people are taught to breathe incorrectly. The natural rhythm of breathing is to inhale deeply into the abs and then allow the air to fill us up slowly moving up to the clavicle then to exhale beginning at the top and slowly letting the air move out till the abs are emptied. Ideally both inhalation and exhalation should be about the same length. I see holding the abs tight and breathing so tension is created as an outgrowth of a general attitude of grinding and making everything hard.

In this country people are taught to keep their abs sucked in which means they breathe only at the top. And no emphasis is made on paying attention to keeping the two parts even in length. The incorrect breathing habit is stressful for the body and can contribute to feelings of fatigue. Perpetual stress like that can also weaken the immune system.

Some people also develop habits of holding their breath every time something is disturbing until their regular breathing pattern includes not breathing for short spells. This contributes to being tense and uneasy.

The habit of doing the opposite of what’s healthy in breathing extends into a lot of exercise. In yoga we learn the natural breathing pattern in movement is to inhale as you open up or make a move requiring strength and to exhale as you fold or stretch into a move. In gym-type exercise and physical therapy, etc. they teach the opposite. So the majority of instructions about breathing in U.S. “fitness” is to do the opposite of what’s natural and healthy for the body.

Healthy, Relaxed, Rested

In a culture where rich people rule and it suits them to keep everyone else underpaid, overworked, constantly tired and/or sick, etc. it’s a revolutionary act to choose a path where you rest as much as needed, stay calm and peaceful and keep yourself in a good state of health.

Viva la revolution!

A look at impeachment & the 25th Amendment

Posted in Current Events, Politics, Uncategorized by

There’s a lot of talk these days about invoking the 25th Amendment and or Impeachment of the President. Some people seem to be confusing the two. And most of the talk doesn’t seem to be looking at the actual numbers required.

With the caveat I never practiced Constitutional Law so my knowledge is a combo of the classes in law school and a LOT of reading and looking up legal opinions in the last 10 years, I think I understand enough about this to explain it.

25th Amendment

The portion of the amendment people want to invoke is section 4:

“Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President. Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.”

Assuming the current Cabinet would never invoke this amendment, let’s look at the possibilities via Congress. Congress can create a body to look into whether the President is able to continue and endow it with the power to declare him unfit. It would take a majority and I’m doubtful about the current Congress. But let’s assume after November the Democrats can muster a simple majority to create this body.

The President can then declare he actually is able to continue his duties. At this point the amendment requires 2/3 of the House and 2/3 of the Senate to override him.

For the House, 2/3 means 290 have to vote to override him. Democrats would have to pick up 77 seats in November to be able to do that themselves. If they have anything less than 290 seats it means they have to convince some Republicans to grow a spine and vote with them.

For the Senate, 2/3 means 67 have to vote to override him. Again, highly unlikely at the moment that 20 Republicans would develop a moral compass and vote with the Democrats. If Democrats pick up the highest possible number of seats in November they’d have 60 seats. So they’d still have to convince 7 Republicans to stop their allegiance to the 🍊thing and Project 2025.

IMO neither scenario is at all likely but I’m willing to be convinced by someone who has data to back up an argument that it’s do-able.

Impeachment

People often seem to forget impeachment is just stage one of getting rid of a President. Impeachment has the fairly simple requirement of a simple majority of the House voting to impeach. Right now unless some Republicans reverse course to actually vote out of concern for their constituents, even a simple majority is unlikely though faintly possible. But let’s assume after November this part is easy.

To actually get rid of the President the process has to get through stage 2, which is the trial by the Senate and two-thirds of the Senate must vote in favor of convicting in order to remove the President. Two-thirds is 67. As noted above, Democrats don’t have close to that right now and the most they can get up to in November is 60. Whether it happens now or later, unless a bunch of Republicans finally stand up to the Project 2025 crowd and/or go against the President, the numbers simply are not there to achievement impeachment.

See: Impeachment

25th Amendment Section 4

It’s our job to love the pet

Posted in Opinion, Personal, Uncategorized by

I started fostering a senior cat called Tucksie late October 2025 (the picture is my last baby, Salty). He’s 15 and ill and not considered adoptable. I can’t afford to have a pet on my own but in fostering the shelter takes care of the vet and provides some food, etc. so it’s a treat for me to have a little companion. He’s not so sure it’s a great deal… yet.

Because I’ve been volunteering a little bit with the animal shelter I follow several accounts on FB providing news about shelter pets. I see stories way too often about animals adopted and brought back weeks or months later. So I thought I’d provide a little timeline about how things have gone with Tucksie. And my view, which is that it’s not their job to conform to our expectations or even to love us. They’re little beings who are entrusted to our care and it’s our job to make them feel safe and loved.

Until sometime in December, Tucksie was panic stricken. He hid out in an area of my condo with a lot of boxes (haven’t finished moving my dad’s stuff out nor mine in). Other than coming out to eat or use the box he stayed mostly out of reach. He cowered every time I came near or reached for him and I’m pretty sure he thought I might be an axe murderer. We had to interact a little because he needs medicine 2x a day and from the beginning I found him sweet.

Initially he ate most things I fed him. But 4 or 5 weeks in he started getting fussy and we’ve had issues about what he will and won’t eat ever since. The “tough love” I used on my cats when they were young and healthy is harder to do on an old guy who’s already too thin and has thyroid disease. So we’ve been struggling all along about me putting down food, him rejecting it, throwing too much away… And what he likes one week isn’t necessarily something he will eat the next.

In December he started coming out to a sun room across the back of the condo and hanging out in a chair. So I went over sometimes to scratch his chin (he adores it) and give him pats. He still thought I might wield an axe but he liked the scratching and petting enough to submit.

After a few weeks I started picking him up occasionally and putting him on my bed. He does NOT like to be picked up so I kept it minimal. Initially he’d jump down immediately and go back to his safe space. In a couple weeks, though, he started hanging out on the bed a lot. And before long he’d even stay on the bed when I was on it — just well out of arm’s reach.

By February, once in a while he’d move somewhere up against me for a portion of a nap or a little of the night. As we spent more time together I increasingly felt his sweet nature & began to love his gentle being. He still cowered if I walked over to him and I’m pretty sure the axe murderer thing was still a worry. It was okay. I can love him and it isn’t his job to love me back.

Moving into March he now lets me walk over to him and give a pat and only cowers a little sometimes. He spends increasing amounts of time hanging out near me or touching me. Food is still a constant struggle. He’s now on an Rx that helps when he eats it but he’s just as on and off about it as any other food. I have learned he likes “people” tuna and so far he eats that more readily than anything. [I know, not good for him but we’re at the point I’m happy just to get food in him. And while it may cause thyroid issues it also has high amounts of some other nutrients that are good for cats.]

So, we’re five months in. I maybe have gone off the axe murderer radar. We’re frustrated with one another about food. He’s mad at me for forcing medicine into him both times each day. I think he’s a total sweet heart and I love him. He’s tolerating me more, can’t quite tell if “like” is in the mix, but maybe. It’s not his job to love me back.

The shelter often talks about 3 months for pets to settle — many people bring them back after a few weeks or a month with no understanding of how hard the transition is for the pet. I’m at 5 months and I don’t feel like we’re all the way there for him to be settled. I feel like he’s maybe still waiting to go to his original home. It’s okay. It’s not his job to make my life feel better or easier.

I do think he finally feels comfortable and safe here 98% of the time and that was my goal. I hope he also feels loved. He’s 15 and lost his home and he’s ill and making him feel safe and loved is my job. Please, if you take on a shelter pet, start off prepared to give the fur baby as long as needed for him or her to adjust and settle. It’s your job to love them.

I took on a 108 day practice challenge

Posted in Being Peace, Healing Journey, Personal, Spiritual Journey, Uncategorized by

Yikes???

For a while I’ve been feeling like it’s time to get back on a more consistent path with some of my spiritual practices. You know, after all the deaths and the grieving and the moving and the surgeries…

So I was really pleased when I saw a local kirtan leader whom I follow has a practice group on Facebook and does 108 day challenges. She’s also a yoga teacher and a lot of folks are doing yoga but she said you can choose any practice. Regular yoga practice is one thing that has never been an issue for me since I began in 1986.

But there are lots of other practices I’ve done for long periods then wandered away from. Lately I’ve been feeling I should return to my practice of chanting Jack Kornfield’s lovingkindness chant from Path With Heart for 10 minutes plus singing a 10 minute version of the Gayatri I like. So I picked that one.

The lovingkindness chant has been an on and off staple for me for many years, the Gayatri is more recent. I made up this 20 minute practice of the two early in the first term of the orange monstrosity and it served me SO well for staying more calm and at peace. But I got into Steve Nobel’s meditations on YouTube and eventually moved into doing those instead of the chants (still doing).

Now, of course, I’m also thinking about how I dropped my 5 Tibetan Rite practice and how much I love ho’oponopono but don’t remember to do it… How I keep picking yoga nidra back up and then wandering off. Questioning if I picked the right one.

I’m about 8 months in on a giant effort to change my schedule fairly dramatically from the night owl pattern I’ve had my whole life to an earlier one. It’s shaken everything up including, it turns out, trying to fit a practice back in when the schedule in general has never completely settled down.

But I’m doing it. Often I’m doing it lying down and yawning the whole way through, but I’m doing it. And it feels as good as it always did. I wanted something to calm down some of the anger I keep feeling at current events and it’s working beautifully.

I love the calm and peace it leaves throughout my body. I can always feel heart chakra expanding and energized by the end. And yet I’m dragging my feet sometimes. It’s day 19 and today it feels like an endless time till day 108.

Which is why I’m really glad I decided to take this challenge. It isn’t always easy to commit to practice and in unsettled spells in life it’s harder to do. I hold on to knowing I feel better from the chants as support for my commitment to 108 days. Right now I have no idea whether the practice will stick after 108 days or fade away or change. The yoga nidra I’ve been loving lately is a 20 minute one so I’m wondering about alternating the two after the challenge.

I love this eclectic spiritual path I’ve wandered. I’m also aware many times the picking up and putting down of various practices is part of a flow for me. Sometimes it’s the moment for a shift to something different. In this case thoughts of going back to this practice had been popping up for a while so it feels like a flow into something I was being nudged by my inner voice to do.

I know many people pick one path and are faithful from then on to those practices only. It’s possible one day I’ll arrive at something that feels like “the one” but it’s hard to imagine. Right now I’m just pleased to revisit a practice I’ve loved.

Max’s kisses legacy

Posted in Personal, Uncategorized by

My soulmate cat, Max, chose me at the Chicago AntiCruelty Society in 1987. He and his kitten siblings had been abandoned with their very young mom in an apartment. When he saw me he jumped up, meowing and frantically pushing his legs through the bars of his cage toward me.

From the beginning he was an affectionate guy and he loved to have the top of his head kissed. For all his life he’d present his head for kisses any time he was in my lap or my arms.

Jump forward 10 years. We were living in a small apartment attached to the side of Nine Gates Mystery School founder Gay Luce’s home in Corte Madera, CA. Gay had 3 kittens she’d brought home a while after her cat died. My place was always open, Gay was out of town a lot and the kittens soon thought my place was part of home.

One of the 3, Gandhi, adored Max (NOT reciprocated). The house was on a hill and there was an outside path I took down to the basement to do laundry. The path passed a tiered garden with a short retaining wall at the bottom, alongside the path (that’s Max in my arms near a different garden wall in the yard). Often when I did laundry Max would jump up on the wall and wait for me to stop and kiss his head.

Gandhi watched and pretty soon, if Max wasn’t there waiting for me to come back from the basement, Gandhi was and he wanted that kiss on the head. By a few years later, after I’d moved away, on a cat sitting visit it turned out Gandhi had expanded it to jump on the kitchen counter and present his head for kissing to any loved one nearby.

A few years later Max died and then Salty came into my life. He was 3 and had been abandoned but such an affectionate little guy. Being accustomed to 18 years of kissing Max’s head, I kissed his. He loved it so much he was soon presenting his head for kisses. I could say “gimme kiss” and he’d put his head to my mouth.

Salty stayed with me for 18 blessed years, passing away in 2024. Now I’m fostering 15-year-old Tucksie for the local shelter. He’s afraid and slow to warm up and, I think, still waiting for his original person to come for him. Slowly, tho, he’s letting me come near and accepting scritches. Initially he cowered from my tendency to lean over and kiss his head. But now he’s occasionally presenting the top of his head near my mouth 🙂

I feel Max’s presence through all these kitties loving kisses on the head. My sweet soulmate cat’s lovely soul still offering blessings.

Knots on the daisy chain of beliefs?

Posted in Healing Journey, Personal, Personal Growth, Spiritual Journey, Uncategorized by

Ellen, my Fisher Hoffman facilitator, talked a lot about how old beliefs and issues operate in complex daisy chains. Sometimes an admonition we follow unconsciously in one area of life is ignored in other areas and connects with other admonitions/behaviors in three other places, etc.

Lately I’m aware there’s a set for me with two sides toeing a fine line when it comes to deciding “am I just following the old pattern?” My maternal grandmother was born in the late Victorian era and definitely learned some of the hand-to-forehead, fainting couch type stuff. To be fair, she (and much of the family) had severe migraines, but she spent an awful lot of time lying down. My mother also tended to go “have a lie down” often, so I had plenty of role modeling about just heading off to bed.

My dad, on the other hand, was a go getter type, always busy, hard working and radiating nervous energy. My mom’s sister was also hard working (the first woman turf reporter in the world) and contemptuous of the die-away tendencies of her mother and sister.

I’ve been realizing I wound up with an odd mixture of the two. I wrote a post long ago in which I noted I wound up often feeling paralyzed amongst the many conflicting viewpoints about me held by the most influential adults (my aunt never had children so her efforts at molding someone were aimed at me). Winding up with chronic fatigue & fibromyalgia seemed unsurprising with “paralysis” as a central mode; ailments that just stop you in your tracks.

My new exploration of the push forward vs fainting couch influences has me seeing some other aspects. To the outside world through the years of zero energy, I appeared to do very little (and many people made sure I knew how lazy they thought I was). But as I struggled through the fatigue, I often pushed really hard to keep working, to keep the house clean, to keep socializing etc. Even though I did all those things far less than previously, the advice for my issues was to rest more and all the pushing, I now see, prolonged the chronic health problems.

In the last few years, juggling grieving, moving, surgeries, etc. I’m seeing I’ve been executing quite a dance around the dueling issues of pushing vs resting. Some of the time I’ve just been either in so much pain or so exhausted — often both — that pushing has been impossible. And yet the tendency to push is there. Because pushing too much and resting/avoiding too much are both patterns for me, it’s a struggle to decide which pattern I might be falling into — and to what extent has all the personal growth work moved me into a different place regarding both?

Being single and living alone gets into the mix too. If I want to eat and live in a reasonably clean house, there’s grocery shopping, cooking, dish washing, etc. And I’m fostering a cat who needs to be fed and have his box kept clean every day. Living in a condo with a small stacked washer/dryer set means more small loads to run so there’s rarely a day when I don’t need to run a load.

I listen to various married friends complain about their husbands who only do these 2 things or that 2 things and imagine how my life would change if ANYONE but me did those 2 things… or anything around the house. Even a decision to take a day of rest still involves a couple hours worth of cooking, cleaning dishes, cat care, etc.

I’m trying to handle decisions about doing versus time off with a lot of checking inward. It definitely helps and there are more and more days when I think I’m going in one direction and a check-in leads in another. But because those are deeply entwined issues for me the mindfulness required to always sense into the push vs rest question can be elusive.

Plenty of times along this journey it’s been easy to see the daisy chain of one issue/behavior leading to another but this is a new one for me to ponder a place where two opposing tendencies meet on the chain but also have their own spots.

EMDR Music

Posted in Healing Journey, muscles, Personal, Uncategorized, Wellness by

A couple of friends have been seeing an EMDR therapist and mentioned the impact of the music, which you listen to with headphones. I have zero expertise, all I know is the music works with bilateral brain stimulation and can reset the nervous system.

People who are using it in conjunction with therapy are digging deep into old issues and the music is part of an accompanying reset of the nervous system. Since I’ve been doing deep digging off and on for years I don’t feel a strong need to see a therapist but I’m also aware nothing I’ve done has ever involved resetting the nervous system so I was interested.

I am aware, because of multitudes of deep muscle issues I’ve dealt with for years, sometimes emotional release is enough to also release patterns in muscles. But there are also times when the reptilian brain continues to hold the muscles in whatever pattern has been the norm in spite of releasing the emotions held in it and it takes something more. I’m now watching some shifting in my body which suggests the nerves can be similarly held in old patterns. And affecting the muscles.

I’ve been using the EMDR music for about a week, so I don’t have any massive change to report but it’s had a surprising impact even in so short a time. Initially I didn’t have headphones but listened anyway to get a sense of it and found it very relaxing. I also felt like I slept more deeply.

Then I got some cheap headphones & started using those. I could instantly feel how much more reaction there was throughout my body. The one I’ve embedded above for the vagus nerve actually led to a bunch of muscle releases. It takes the headphones to get the back and forth stimulation on both sides of the brain.

I knew tight muscles could squeeze off nerves and cause numbness and opening muscles could release the nerves. It hadn’t occurred to me the nerves could also be holding the muscles. This work on resetting has triggered some really interesting opening, often happening long after I’ve listened to the music.

For instance, there’s been a pattern where ankle muscles meet the lower ends of muscles in the calf/shin area for ages. It’s a hard area to catch with exercise; the ones I know that work with some of those muscles have not been helping, not even the ankle releases from the Robert Masters work. But suddenly a few days in on working with EMDR a big piece on the right ankle popped open.

I’ll report more as this moves along but I have to say I’m really impressed so far with the impacts of this music. And there’s so much available on YouTube (haven’t checked Vimeo but I’m guessing there too), it’s an easy thing to try.

Resolutions and Grind Culture

Posted in Healing Journey, New Age, Personal, Spiritual Journey, Spirituality, Uncategorized by

For my whole life New Year’s has been a moment when one “must” make a list of resolutions for the coming year. Not a practice I’ve ever been into; I think some part of me resisted being tied to a list & another part knew life throws too many curves to make a plan for a year. In recent years, as I’ve come to understand how our corporate culture has molded a grind culture mentality, I see those resolutions as further invitations to the grind — another to-do list adding more time to the constant activity roster.

It took me a LOT of years on the spiritual path to finally, a few years ago, start seeing how affected I am by grind culture and a lot of American ideas about what counts as a life worth living. And then to see how the goals of being in the moment and following an inner flow are direct contradictions of the demands of grind culture.

If I were to make a resolution now (and probably for every year to come) there would be two interrelated ones: stay in the moment and stay tuned in to follow the flow. I’ve been really working these last few years at doing both. I’m a long way from being sufficiently mindful to hold myself in the moment or to stay always in the flow. But I have reached a point where I stop and tune in often during the day to decide which of several (or multitudes of) actions all clamoring in my head to be done is the best choice in the moment — or whether there is another choice I’m not hearing because of the mental noise.

My days often feel much more smooth and satisfying and I often get more done while draining less energy by listening to inner wisdom about the next moment instead of laying out a plan. An early change involved a daily check in I’ve been doing for years with a friend of mine. We started because of a blog post suggesting it as a daily text activity, checking in on how you’re feeling, what you intend to do & what you’re grateful for.

We changed it to an e-mail and have turned it into a much longer check-in than the quick few words intended by the post that inspired us. A few years ago as we both leaned in to trying to follow the flow more of the time we decided that calling one section “intentions” was too grind culture and put on too much pressure to feel like we must accomplish the list. We changed it to “flow wishes” and we’ve both been much happier with that much less judgmental & demanding title. We both often find the flow leads to something other than the plan being the thing that feels right to do. Life also often throws a curve into the plan and “flow wishes” makes that much more okay.

As New Year came and went this time I really thought about the resolutions requirement and I really didn’t want to make one. I did participate in a spiritual exercise that asked me to go deeply inward and name some words about a few aspects of the coming year and I did though I have some questions about whether I even want a word for the year that asks me to follow it instead of my inner guidance (it was a lovely inward journey anyway).

Staying in the moment and being always tuned in to the flow are such foreign concepts in our culture and time, I feel like an annual resolution to work on those — and maybe eventually to keep living with those — will be a long journey. So far it’s a slow process to keep my thoughts in the moment and my being tuned in to the flow and I’m okay with re-learning those culturally ingrained habits in baby steps.

On “being” and “doing” in “must do” U.S.

Posted in Being Peace, Collective Consciousness, Healing Journey, Personal Growth, Uncategorized by

One of the most enormous transformational journeys in my life involved going through the Fisher-Hoffman process in the 1990’s, then continuing for approximately 10 years to “process” every deep issue I could identify and release. At the end of the 9-month Fisher-Hoffman class* the facilitator warned us to be careful, once finished, about jumping too fast into things.

The release of a big block of old stuff for most leaves a sense of a hole that needs to be filled, she told us, and if you anxiously leap into filling the space immediately you’re most likely to re-build the familiar old stuff. I took it to heart and kept it in mind as I continued marching down the “release the old” path.

Eventually I reached a point where I felt as if I no longer had a strong sense of who I was. Here in the U.S. where “being yourself” is endlessly celebrated along with a strong moral certainty that having goals and working hard to reach them is the only way to be worthwhile, such a journey has been an interesting challenge.

It’s been 20+ years since I reached that moment and I have to tell you the ongoing journey of transformation has mostly just increased the sense of not knowing. All those old issues, auto-programmed reactions, etc defined so much about how I operated in the world that without them, I’m not sure. I pick up, look at and drop various “goals” and longings-to-be of different stages of life and find they no longer appeal. At the same time I don’t have a strong sense of “what’s next”.

A lot of health issues created a strong sense that healing had to be the primary objective and, of course, it has included more digging into the depths of consciousness as well as following a lot of alternative therapies to heal the physical aspects. Mostly I keep moving through what seems to be in front of me.

The Buddhist concept of “no self” has helped me negotiate through these years. Not that I have any illusion I’ve achieved that ultimate space of the Buddhist path, but I think stripping away a lot of old touchstones and auto-behaviors has brought me closer to that space and farther from the American ideal of deciding who you are and insisting upon sticking to every aspect of that.

To me life seems far more flexible and shifting and my goal has more to do with always tuning in to “hear” the inner sense of the right next thing to do in this moment. I watch people from many spiritual traditions, including the more “New Age” type spirituality paths, insist that having a plan, deciding on steps and “doing things” is a MUST and at this point I mostly shrug and think to myself it’s a deeply held American belief that needs to be culled out of the collective consciousness.

I’m not unaffected by the overwhelming majority view. In fact it leaves me uncomfortably questioning whether I’m doing something “wrong” by not having a plan and a destination more often than I’d like. But I always wind up tuning in, breathing deep and throwing off the “do, do, do” dictates in favor of listening and being…

I wrote a longer piece discussing this a while back but it’s on my mind again as I contemplate how this all applies to political activism. Stay tuned for that post 🙂

* If taken via the Hoffman Institute, the course is much shorter (a residential week or two?). Ellen had facilitated there for some years and evolved the process into a longer and, to me, much more in-depth one. Instead of being residential, hers was a weekly class with assignments to do in between, some gatherings to help one another on release work, etc. and spread over a period long enough to let everyone have time to delve into many issues. Unfortunately she died some years ago and as far as I’m aware no one else teaches the method as she transformed it.

Start the revolution… with me? without me?

Posted in Change the World, Opinion, Uncategorized by

Back in the early 70’s, I became radicalized in my political thinking. I hung around with the hippies, and particularly the folks who were protesting Viet Nam, etc. and stayed tuned in to the thinking of many on the far left. During those years I also spent a summer at the Sorbonne, which helped me gain perspective on how incredibly conservative the U.S. population really is. This perspective helped me to evaluate some of the really far left thinking and their tendency to be immovable in this insistence on every point, down to the pettiest, of their objectives being followed.

It didn’t take me long to weigh the general conservatism of the populace against the very Marxist thinking of the far left and to realize (a) as far as elections, no one was going to win an election based on a truly left-wing platform and (b) the deep hold the wealthy power elite has on politicians and policy means we’d really have to be prepared to plan and carry out a full scale revolution in order to shake off their power.

I was a history major and enough of a “history buff” to know a fair bit about the horrors that have generally accompanied revolution, so I was not prepared to jump on any bandwagon leading there. I’ve since come to believe we, as consumers, have a lot more economic power than we ever wield and there are potential answers for change if we unite to boycott, infiltrate boards, create alternative businesses, etc. But that’s a post for another day.

Periodically through all the 50+ years since I moved left I’ve noted the far-left folks unfailingly supporting candidates who will never win or deriding the ones who can and in general insisting their platform/ideas be implemented. But they never seem to have a realistic plan for how you would get out from under capitalism. In my opinion elections, in a country where too many politicians on both sides are owned by the rich, are not at all likely to create such an outcome. They also never seem to come to an understanding of how conservative most Americans are.

It’s not that I wouldn’t like to see a far more progressive swing in government. And I’m heartened by the embrace of far more progressive positions by larger numbers of Americans than before. But I’m pretty practical and, at core, since I know the real power is wielded behind the scenes and a big portion of the populace is quite moderate, I’ve always tried to work within the system to do what I could to nudge change along and voted for whichever candidate leaned a little more toward helping people than not.

A revolution or not? At some point, once you decide on a radical path and insist every bullet point on your platform must be followed, you also have to decide if you’re prepared to foment a revolution, whether violent or a transformative but peaceful reorganizing of the existing structures. Because hanging around shouting about your principles while voting for 3d parties or not voting just means the worst of the “no change” — or now the “let’s go backward” — politicians keep being elected.

The healing journey and value

Posted in Change the World, Healing Journey, Uncategorized by

My physical, emotional & spiritual healing journey stretches at this point over decades. And for much of it I was only in shape to work part time, if at all. Because of the physical aspect, it was obvious to me I really needed to address the healing because being out in the world in any normal way was impossible given the constant levels of fatigue and pain.

Having embarked on a spiritual journey almost simultaneously with discovering I had some big physical issues, it didn’t take long to connect those two, nor to realize emotional issues intertwined with both. Working on all three levels is time-consuming and takes a lot of commitment to healing on every level. If the issues are numerous and deeply imbedded, it is also a long process. I was lucky I had few commitments to stand in the way of my journey so I could devote lots of time over many years. Plenty of people heal in many ways and still do other things; I’m not saying the way I did it is in any way a must, it was just the way I had to do it.

Through the journey, on many levels I’ve understood healing is really important — and the impact of healing spreads out into the web of all life. At the same time, living in grind culture, I’ve encountered many moments when I questioned the contribution and import of healing as a basic life direction — and, surrounded by grind culture, plenty of other people made sure I knew they disapproved of a life devoted to healing rather than working hard at earning money.

I can’t tell you I’m never affected by the grind culture mentality; it’s so deeply ingrained in our culture that I struggle to free myself of it and can’t always remain immune to other people’s immersion in it. But overall I’ve long believed in the central importance of understanding ourselves as beings of energy who exist as part of an interconnected web of all living beings’ energy. As part of a web, each one of us who heals the wounds and traumas of the past contributes healing to the web.

All this healing, releasing, clearing, transforming, etc. doesn’t pay a dime. In fact, a lot of it has been expensive, especially the alternative healers who have been vital to the physical recovery piece of the journey. In the eyes of our society, the lack of monetary return means the journey is useless, without value.

The deeper I move into this journey –with the clearing away of false layers, the slow unveiling of my essential self, the growing connection to higher consciousness — the more I sense it not only has more value to me than a well-paid career but that it also adds plenty of value to society and the web of life. Not all things of value equate to sums of money.

In spite of the lack of a “normal” career or means of earning, my financial circumstances have actually grown slowly better and I attribute it to having cleared away a lot of blocks and old beliefs about money. So, an interesting side note about the value of the healing journey is it may attract abundance to you without the usual grinding claptrap.

I’m not sure what it would take for our culture to shift into a space of appreciating how key to our collective well-being it is to have increasing numbers of people keeping their physical bodies as healthy as possible, healing themselves of old traumas, beliefs, issues, and stepping forward into their essential selves. But I hope all of you who have been traveling down a path of physical, emotional and/or spiritual healing pat yourselves on the back for the great value you are adding to the world.

The “life’s purpose” game

Posted in Being Peace, Healing Journey, New Age, Personal Growth, Uncategorized by

Over the many years I’ve travelled on a spiritual path, I’ve run into discussions of “life’s purpose” SO many times. It’s especially common among New Age/New Thought teachers, but pops up in many places. The idea is each of us came to earth to fulfill a purpose. It’s our job to figure out the purpose and make sure we accomplish it.

I’ve struggled quite a bit over the years with both the notion of that purpose and wondering what mine might be. So I was very pleased during a recent Ahava Center for Spiritual Living service when the guest speaker told us our purpose is just to be here alive. Not to work a particular job or create a particular gallery of accomplishments or to found an earth-changing association. The purpose is to be here, being ourselves (around 39 minutes into the video below if you want to skip to this piece).

Besides the personal sense of relief that brought me, it also struck me the usual discussion of “life’s purpose” as something to do with a career or accomplishments is a total outgrowth of the grind culture. The capitalist push for ordinary people to feel they must work harder and then harder and somehow prove their worth by grinding themselves beyond endurance, shows up, I believe, in a lot of spiritual talk, especially from American New Age “gurus”.

They tell you you need to “do something” to manifest a vision instead of understanding if you’ve cleared your inner-belief-obstacles, established your connection to your divine Self and created a vision in which you truly believe, that can be enough. It’s worked for me many times. There’s virtually a whole industry of books and workshops for helping you to discern your “purpose”, always with a clear assumption said purpose will involve doing things, creating things, accomplishing things… Both of these assume a need to work and do and have a list of achievements — right in step with grind culture.

I’m not sure I ever had an absolute sense of life’s purpose. If I ever did, it was in childhood and adolescence, when my dream was for a career in music. I took lessons and daydreamed and assumed it would be my path. But when it was time to apply for college and I created a list of music conservatories, my family put the kibosh on that one. I wasn’t the kind of kid to buck their dictates, so I started out as an ed major.

By the time I finished college I was looking in other directions and wound up going to law school in hopes I could work on environmental issues. It didn’t take long to figure out law wasn’t for me and during the last couple of years I practiced, I’d found my way to New Age studies, yoga, meditation, etc. I really disliked practicing law and really loved the spiritual path I’d begun so I quit practicing and entered into many years of bumbling from teaching stress management workshops to copy editing to teaching yoga and workshops on journeying to peace, etc.

Health issues had shown up in law school and I was already using various alternative medicine therapies before I quit practicing. The path to heal from chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia wound up being entirely intertwined with the spiritual path. Eventually I realized I wrote all the emotional dramas and traumas of my life on my body and the way to health had to involve not just medicine, but inner work and personal growth etc.

That path led to going through the Fisher Hoffman method as facilitated by my friend and mentor, the late Ellen Margron. We dug deeper and released more “beliefs and admonitions” than anything I’ve ever done. At the end she warned us to be careful about jumping onto a new path or direction too fast because the tendency would be to recreate a path out of the old familiar stuff instead of forging something new. We needed to spend some time “empty” and allow the shifting to lead us to the next place.

I really took in that message. And I continued to use the “Fisher Hoffman process” to dig through beliefs and conditioning from the past, constantly letting go of more and then more. I lost most interest in the musical and public interest law paths of the past but had no sense of what was next other than a very clear pull to continue going deeper on the spiritual path and, especially, to complete the process of healing my weary body.

Periodically through the years I’ve worried a bit about the life’s purpose issue. Should I be figuring it out? Was now even the time? The overall feeling always came down to the sense of being still in progress and not wanting to make the mistake against which Ellen warned, recreating old structures out of anxiety to have something rather than nothing happening. And the draw toward healing the past and moving ever onward on a deepening spiritual path was irresistible.

For the most part I’ve been content to spend a few decades on a spiritual journey in which there’s no sense of purpose other than being on the journey. In some traditions like Buddhism and Hinduism there’s a lot of support for the idea of living in the moment and just feeling into the next step and the next, so the path I pursued felt like it followed a well-established route.

Still, the idea we each have a purpose and that our great spiritual goal must be to find it kept popping up, leaving me occasionally feeling uneasy about whether I should be figuring “it” out. Some inner searching always led to the conclusion that I was still transitioning out of the past, with no clear sign of who or what I am meant to be and/or do in the future. And I often wondered why there needed to be a particular career or set of achievements.

While I’ve lived somewhere near the idea Rev. Alexander expressed in her talk, it was such a moment for me when she announced we’re part of nature and nature’s purpose is to be alive. That’s it. Just be alive and do what you need to to maintain that. Whew. Done. I don’t have to dig and grind and make sure I do enough. I AM enough. And so it is.