Tag Archives: Spiritual Path
Everyone’s experience with the pandemic is unique, but for some of us, one of the gifts of the current global retreat is the experience of slowing down, an opportunity to become present, to discover who we are. We lose so much in all our doing—mostly we lose ourselves. One of my therapy clients, expressing her feelings about how her life has changed so dramatically since the pandemic, made this comment: “My life has become unfamiliar to me.” Our outer lives…..
I sometimes stop by the Starbucks at Waikoloa Beach and sip green tea as people from all over the world in aloha shirts, tank tops, and flip-flops flow in and out. The visitors to Hawaii have stepped away from their normal lives at home for a sense of freedom from their regular responsibilities. It feels like entering another dimension here with the vivid colors, soft breezes, fragrant flowers, soothing ocean water, and slow pace. The frequencies of the Island help…..
Thinking has so far never been able to solve the human problems of war, conflict, suffering. And what about basic questions like: Who are we? and Why are we here? Thought comes up with these questions but can thinking answer them? There must be another approach to life besides the mental approach. As a spiritual mentor recently pointed out to me, humanity is in a process of transition from thinking to being. When I was in high school, I did…..
Our lives appear to be a journey through time and space from birth to death. It seems we came from somewhere and are going somewhere as we live out the archetype of the pilgrim, the sojourner here on Earth. The strange thing is most of us don’t know where we came from, how and why we got here, or where we’re going. The spiritual quest starts as a search for answers to these fundamental questions. This quest is often referred…..
My first semester in college, I signed up for a philosophy class. The professor was short and stocky, had long hair and an attitude of defiance, even anger, which, I guess, was a sign of the times—it was 1968 and colleges were filled with defiant, angry people. I still remember the sound of his cowboy boots as he stomped up the aisle to the chalk board. I was already intimidated. “Who are you?” he wrote, the chalk clicking loudly against…..
Once during a weekly staff meeting at hospice, we were asked what we must let go of when facing death. Mary, one of the other therapists answered, “Well, for starters, we have to drop our idea of who we are.” I don’t know what the other therapists thought of what she said, but her answer resonated with me. I had been attending courses at an ashram in India on my vacations from work, and this was exactly what we were…..
Sitting in the sand one Saturday at Mesa Lane Beach, looking out over the ocean, I reflected on my work at hospice. I thought about how some things—the heartbreaks, the losses, our deepest wounds—can’t always be faced or felt directly. Sometimes we need to get at them sideways through the cracks in our surface lives. But we need to access them one way or another in order to heal and grow. Otherwise, our unfelt pain traps our life energy, our…..
The sun-drenched pool at Carnelian Woods Condos looked inviting. Tahoe’s thin mountain air was warm, and the water felt like silk. Stu (my partner and a spiritual mentor) and I had already hiked down to Emerald Bay and back up in the scorching sun, eaten Indian lunch buffet at Nicky’s, bicycled along the Truckee River, and had hot fudge sundaes, twice. Drying off in the sun after a dip in the pool, I reflected on our lives over the past…..
Several years ago, Stu and I lived in a small town that was home to a number of people who thought of themselves as quite spiritual and otherworldly. Overhearing conversations around town was interesting. Once at a restaurant, we heard two young men sitting at the bar talking. “Where are you from?” one asked casually. Reply (in a mysterious tone): “I’m not from anywhere. I’ve always been here.” Questioner: “No, but really, where did you come from?” Reply: “I come…..
That November day back in 1963 began just like any other day. I was sitting at my desk in the back of Mr. Martin’s seventh grade Spanish class. It was still a time of innocence then—especially for someone like me growing up in a small town in a conservative family. My parents would dress up every Friday night for their square dance class—Mom in her full skirt and Dad…I don’t remember what he wore. But they both went out the…..
