"The Internet is my Religion" - "Together we are the Creator"

"Today we are the creators. We each have our own unique skills and talents to contribute creating the kingdom of God. We serve God best when we do what we love for the greatest cause we can imagine. What the people in this room do, is spiritual, it is profound. We are the leaders of this new religion. We have faith that people connected can create a new world. Each one of us is a creator, but together we are the Creator."

Rethinking time and the physics of life

"If the theory of syntropy is correct, three levels of time must exist. The sequential time to which we are accustomed to, in which energy is divergent and entropy prevails, would be typical of expanding systems, such as our universe. On the contrary, in a converging system the flow of time would be reversed as it happens in black holes. There are also systems in which diverging and converging forces are balanced, such as atoms. At this level time is unitary and past, present and future coexist.”
read more in the article "Luigi Fantappié and the physics of life"

Alan Watts - On shifting the manner in which we think.

From where does consciousness rise in the brain?

A great article on the new understandings of the nature of consciousness in the brain which may revolutionize our assumptions.

"A review and update of a controversial 20-year-old theory of consciousness published in Physics of Life Reviews claims that consciousness derives from deeper level, finer scale activities inside brain neurons. The recent discovery of quantum vibrations in "microtubules" inside brain neurons corroborates this theory, according to review authors Stuart Hameroff and Sir Roger Penrose. They suggest that EEG rhythms (brain waves) also derive from deeper level microtubule vibrations, and that from a practical standpoint, treating brain microtubule vibrations could benefit a host of mental, neurological, and cognitive conditions."

"The theory, called "orchestrated objective reduction" ('Orch OR'), was first put forward in the mid-1990s by eminent mathematical physicist Sir Roger Penrose, FRS, Mathematical Institute and Wadham College, University of Oxford, and prominent anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff, MD, Anesthesiology, Psychology and Center for Consciousness Studies, The University of Arizona, Tucson. They suggested that quantum vibrational computations in microtubules were "orchestrated" ("Orch") by synaptic inputs and memory stored in microtubules, and terminated by Penrose "objective reduction" ('OR'), hence "Orch OR." Microtubules are major components of the cell structural skeleton."

"Orch OR was harshly criticized from its inception, as the brain was considered too "warm, wet, and noisy" for seemingly delicate quantum processes.. However, evidence has now shown warm quantum coherence in plant photosynthesis, bird brain navigation, our sense of smell, and brain microtubules. The recent discovery of warm temperature quantum vibrations in microtubules inside brain neurons by the research group led by Anirban Bandyopadhyay, PhD, at the National Institute of Material Sciences in Tsukuba, Japan (and now at MIT), corroborates the pair's theory and suggests that EEG rhythms also derive from deeper level microtubule vibrations. In addition, work from the laboratory of Roderick G. Eckenhoff, MD, at the University of Pennsylvania, suggests that anesthesia, which selectively erases consciousness while sparing non-conscious brain activities, acts via microtubules in brain neurons."

"The origin of consciousness reflects our place in the universe, the nature of our existence. Did consciousness evolve from complex computations among brain neurons, as most scientists assert? Or has consciousness, in some sense, been here all along, as spiritual approaches maintain?" ask Hameroff and Penrose in the current review. "This opens a potential Pandora's Box, but our theory accommodates both these views, suggesting consciousness derives from quantum vibrations in microtubules, protein polymers inside brain neurons, which both govern neuronal and synaptic function, and connect brain processes to self-organizing processes in the fine scale, 'proto-conscious' quantum structure of reality." 

"After 20 years of skeptical criticism, "the evidence now clearly supports Orch OR," continue Hameroff and Penrose. "Our new paper updates the evidence, clarifies Orch OR quantum bits, or "qubits," as helical pathways in microtubule lattices, rebuts critics, and reviews 20 testable predictions of Orch OR published in 1998 -- of these, six are confirmed and none refuted." 

"An important new facet of the theory is introduced. Microtubule quantum vibrations (e.g. in megahertz) appear to interfere and produce much slower EEG "beat frequencies." Despite a century of clinical use, the underlying origins of EEG rhythms have remained a mystery. Clinical trials of brief brain stimulation aimed at microtubule resonances with megahertz mechanical vibrations using transcranial ultrasound have shown reported improvements in mood, and may prove useful against Alzheimer's disease and brain injury in the future.

"Lead author Stuart Hameroff concludes, "Orch OR is the most rigorous, comprehensive and successfully-tested theory of consciousness ever put forth. From a practical standpoint, treating brain microtubule vibrations could benefit a host of mental, neurological, and cognitive conditions."
The review is accompanied by eight commentaries from outside authorities, including an Australian group of Orch OR arch-skeptics. To all, Hameroff and Penrose respond robustly." 

"Penrose, Hameroff and Bandyopadhyay will explore their theories during a session on "Microtubules and the Big Consciousness Debate" at the Brainstorm Sessions, a public three-day event at the Brakke Grond in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, January 16-18, 2014. They will engage skeptics in a debate on the nature of consciousness, and Bandyopadhyay and his team will couple microtubule vibrations from active neurons to play Indian musical instruments. "Consciousness depends on anharmonic vibrations of microtubules inside neurons, similar to certain kinds of Indian music, but unlike Western music which is harmonic," Hameroff explains."

On Psychic Problems.....

The preeminent scholar and philosopher Manly P. Hall who founded the Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles. He's the author of "Secret Teachings of All Ages" which he wrote in his twenties in 1928.

He wrote many books, among them "Solving Psychic Problems and Submerged Personalities" from which this definitive quote emerged:

"We advise those who come with psychic problems to relax the tensions caused by fear and uncertainty and take a matter-of-fact attitude. Nine times out of ten this ends the phenomenon, which which is only hysteria due to metaphysical indigestion. Spirits are traditionally believed to inhabit ancient ruins, old and deserted houses, graveyards, places of executions, and similar melancholy spots. They shun the light of day, remain aloof from gaiety and happiness, and return to their graves when the cock crows at dawn. Psychological spooks frequent those gloomy and decadent zones of the subconscious which correspond to the melancholy places of the earth. They rise from the dead hopes and from the ruins of old memories, and they depart in haste at the approach of mental light. When day breaks in us, the specters fade like mist at dawn. When we clean out the gloomy ruins within ourselves, there is no suitable habitation for the shadows of lost causes."

"There is no essential evil in nature, not intent to plague mortals with horrible phantoms. Such a sad condition myst be caused by the individual, and the cure lies in the correction of the cause. Socrates paid homage to happy spirits and found each grove and glade the habitation of useful and kindly creatures ever ready to serve mankind. Having experienced the universe as full of goodness, the philosopher had no place in his own soul for fear. He lived his convictions and died with a good hope. If we do not acknowledge the existence of injustice, we are seldom the victims of any mysterious evil agency. If, however, we lack within ourselves a deep and abiding confidence about the integrity of universals, we plague ourselves innumerable deceits. The remedy is to live and think constructively, develop our internal resources naturally and graciously, correct our faults, forget the past, and dedicate the present and the future to useful and constructive enterprises. The spook, if any, cannot endure such optimism, and departs in search of a more congenial ruin to haunt."

Co-Creating: Improvisational Group Work

A great article called "Connecting for Change: Insights from an Emerging Global Transformation Movement"

"The term co-creation occurred frequently in the study. This underscores an important philosophy of group work that is emerging. The global transformation movement belongs to no one person, group, or belief system. It is a story in process, based not on pre-existing design, but rather as a product of dynamic self-organization. It is a story of people working together to address the world’s most profound challenges. Self-organization is inherent in the evolution of all living things and results in the creation of effective living systems that are more efficient and adaptive than hierarchical rigid ones. Crowdsourcing, peer-to-peer networks, crowdfunding, timebanks, and spontaneous activism are all examples of self-organizing systems that have arisen in recent times."

"The word we use to describe the emerging model for group work is improvisational. Borrowing from the world of music and dance, improvisation is a collaborative and spontaneous process that allows new kinds of order to emerge. The new group work is increasingly ordered by improvisational principles. More akin to a meandering stream or a flock of birds, improvisation follows a natural fluid set of rules, rather than rigid imposed ones. Improvisation requires attention, intention, communication, awareness of self and others near to the self, and awareness of the larger picture or pattern that is emerging. Thus, improvisation is an emergent process, and one expressed abundantly in nature—in the natural ways that systems connect, change, and reassemble to create powerful new forms and ideas."

"The boundaries for work groups and communities have expanded far beyond the local. The Internet has encouraged the sharing of resources and has changed the ways we seek and find one another. It has expanded personal relationships and allowed more voices to be heard—not all voices, but many. It may seem impractical to give voice to every individual in a networked world, chaotic, in fact. But it is precisely at this ‘edge of chaos’—where there is just enough order to recognize a pattern, yet sufficient openness to allow new ideas to take shape—that the most powerful initiatives and practices are emerging. All voices that need to be heard must be heard."

"The most exciting breakthroughs of the twenty-first century will not occur because of technology, but because of an expanding concept of what it means to be human." - John Naisbitt

Atunement

When we clear our heart in the present, and listen to our inner presence, our authenticity will shine forth and clear intentions emerge which will enable us to live more effectively moment by moment, sweetly navigating the exciting unexpected currents flowing from the cosmic heart. Atunement to the inner is atunement to the all.

Desire, non-duality and freedom...

I found this to be one of the most insightful commentaries on desire and living:

"In many spiritual traditions, desire is considered negative because it is seen as an ego desire, which is a desire based on our animalistic impulses, our need to survive. Generally, it is recommended that you not feel desires, that you push them aside or just witness them, and continue staying focused on the practice rather than attend to the content. This is suggested so you don't get distracted by feelings, thoughts, and memories that can bring a lot of inner conflict. As you see, there is a great deal of difficulty in just allowing the feeling itself. But the trust is that once we allow the feeling, we can understand it and allow to fulfill its destiny. We have to learn how to do this in a way that optimizes our spiritual realization."

"Even so, we need to understand that not all desire is the same. For most individuals desire and grasping onto the object of desire are the same thing. Desire that is related to attachment is suffering, and keeps us dissociated from our nature; this type of desire has mostly to do with the self and its object of desire, not with the desiring itself. But as we have seen, desire can function as an avenue to our nature - if we use the desiring energy that is usually directed outward, thereby creating attachment, to go inward. It takes a determination a love for the truth to stay with that energy and follow it back to its origin, thereby liberating the energy of desire to serve freedom instead of keeping us bound in suffering."

"And that is what we are trying to do here-- harness that energy, feel it fully. Even the smallest desire has a trickle of that energy, so experiencing that wanting and following it inward, feeling the energy of it, can release our mind from the content of the desire. Just staying with the energy will naturally open up into a deeper level of our existence, and this is the naturalness of the process."

"So if we want to be ourselves completely - to know our nature at its depth and be fully in the world - this requires being alive and being in touch with that energy. And that brings the erotic into love. In other words, to be able to experience divine eros, we need the purity of love, the ground of lovingness and goodness, the experience of the presence of love, plus the scintillating, erupting explosive quality that has an energy to it. Such energetic dynamic love can be very, very fine - like very gentle bubbles or a gentle vibration - or it can be explosive. This love has an erotic quality to it, and we can feel it draw us toward the divine, toward the truth, toward our inner nature. We can have the experience of desiring to penetrate the mystery, to know the spirit."

"A deep understanding of reality can follow from such a realization of desire. We can see that dualism arises when we are separated from our nature, for it is then that we experience the desire to fill ourselves. We believe there is something external that we need to have, and we deeply believe that we don't have that something. However, with the energy of desire, when we feel it as the blissful wanting of another - but with a sense of sufficiency, not from lack -we don't feel the same kind of otherness we do when we have a dualistic perspective. We feel that the other is arising from the same ground as we are. There is a sharing of a blissful communion, and that communion is a recognition that both of you are one reality."

"We can also feel a loving desire toward our essential nature as the Beloved. Then we are in a dance with that nature, an ebb and a flow with it, and we are not separate - nor are we one. There is enough differentiation for us to feel the excitement of moving toward Beloved again. We feel that we are, in a sense, ourselves in union. It is nice to appear as two, but it doesn't mean that there are two. So the appearance of two is what allows the love to have that vigorous feeling of wanting another and the enjoyment of wanting. There is a fullness to that desire, and you know that within each other, you are the same. A dualistic or a monistic view alone keeps us from the recognition that our nature is a continuous unity within which we can view and appreciate one another as manifestations of reality, recognizing that the Beloved is what you are in union with."

From "The Power of Divine Eros"

Stunning Wholeness

Stunning wholeness fills our cups
With luminous ancient radiance
Shining from the heart of the cosmos
Here we see, again.
Skin suits dancing, learning, living, serving, celebrating.
Evolutionary energy alive amidst the chaotic death rays
Coherent connections catalyze human integration
As the little Bodhisattva butterfly emerges from the collective chrysalis, smiling wide!

Riding youth through the ancient meadows of starstuff,
Galloping gayly through the timelines
Feeling, flowing, trusting the inner knowing
Allowing the unfolding,
Of love of all to emerge every step....

To reinvent organizations we must reinvent ourselves...

“Cognitively, psychologically, and morally, moving on to a new stage is a massive feat. It requires courage to let go of old certainties and experiment with a new worldview. For a while, everything can seem uncertain and confused. It might be lonely, too, as sometimes in the process we can lose close relationships with friends and family who can no longer relate to us. Growing into a new form of consciousness is always a highly personal, unique, and somewhat mysterious process. It cannot be forced onto somebody. No one can be made to evolve in consciousness, even with the best of intentions – a hard truth for coaches and consultants, who wish they could help organizational leaders adopt worldview by the power of conviction. What can be done is to create environments that are conducive to growing into later stages. When someone is surrounded by peers who already see the world from a more complex perspective, in a context safe enough to explore inner conflicts, chances are higher that the person will make the leap.”

Here’s a link to the book "Reinveinting Organizations" 

Rethink the way you feel the solar system moves - we're moving!

Laniakea: Our home supercluster

Kind of keeps things in perspective....

Spiral Dynamics and The Middle East

This article is great because it gives a very clear discussion on Spiral Dynamics and then it applies it to the Middle East conflict.

You are the Eternal Universe - Alan Watts

Jim Carrey's Secret of Life - Inspiring Message

Is Consciousness a fundamental force in the cosmos, manifest?

What is non-duality?

"What Is Nonduality?"

"At the Nonduality Institute, nonduality is understood as the realization of a very subtle, non-conceptual, unbounded consciousness that is experienced as the essence of one’s own being and of all life. This is a mutual transparency of self and other, in which everything, including one’s own being, is revealed as made of a single, vast expanse of consciousness. It arises together with phenomena; it pervades the movement of perceptions, thoughts, emotions and sensations. This nondual consciousness is not known as an object separate from ourselves; rather, it knows itself."

 "This level of consciousness has been regarded as the source of positive qualities of being, in the sense that such qualities as compassion, insight, joy and equanimity manifest spontaneously when one realizes it. These qualities are experienced as non-referential, in other words, not a specific compassion for someone, but an open-ended state of compassion that pervades one’s entire field of experience."

"Most contemporary teachings consider nonduality to be the direct unmediated perception of phenomena, along with spontaneous, unmediated expression and action. In other words, direct, spontaneous participation in life, unhampered by preconceptions. Students of this view are usually instructed to fix their attention on the present moment, or to relax into an all-inclusive awareness."

"There are two limitations with this approach. One, nondual consciousness is more subtle than simple attention. It not only focuses on phenomena, it pervades phenomena. It renders all of one's experience as suffused with a radiant emptiness. Two, the fixations that obscure the present moment are not just mental. Long-held constrictions in the body limit our perception, cognition, emotional responsiveness and physical sensation. We cannot open to our fundamental nature just with our minds, we need to open throughout our whole body. Because of these bodily constrictions, when we attempt to let go into the present moment, we generally let go only from the surface of ourselves. In order to realize nonduality, we need to let go from deep within the core of our being."

"Approaches to nonduality that focus on recognizing and dissolving mental constructions also de-construct the notion of the self. Any fixed ideas of the self, such as "I am a teacher" or "I am a good person" will obscure our realization of nondual consciousness. However, when we realize nondual consciousness pervading our body and environment, we uncover a qualitative, authentic sense of our individual self. Nonduality is neither the subject nor the object of experience. It is the unity, the oneness of subject and object."

"Nondual awakening is not dependent upon a particular spiritual lineage. When we realize nonduality, we are not realizing Buddhism or Hinduism. We are realizing our own fundamental nature—the spiritual foundation of our being is self-arising. It is naturally there, and it appears spontaneously as we become open enough to uncover it. Although the different spiritual lineages describe nondual awakening in different ways, the arising of nonduality itself is unmistakable."

From the website of the "Nonduality Institute" co-founded by neuroscientist Zoran Josipovic, Ph.D
and Judith Blackstone, Ph.D

"Let Your Baby Be Your Guru" - a great talk by Gino Yu

PART ONE

PART TWO

Emotional mastery creates new possibilities!

A thought provoking article called "Generating Emotions" shares:

"Your emotions are your inner guidance system. They fuel you as they drive many of your decisions and actions, for better or for worse. They add to the quality of your life, and can rob you of vitality. Your emotions reveal what you truly love and value. They nourish your creative, artistic and intuitive abilities. In fact, having all the wealth in the world does not matter if you do not feel good."

"You have a wonderful capacity to feel a vast array of emotions, from sorrow to elation; anxiety to peace; frustration to relief. Moreover, you can experience those emotions within minutes, each one colouring your perception, adding or subtracting from the quality of a moment. You can feel uplifted and radiant when someone compliments you about how great you look at a party, but also uncomfortable when you scan the room, catching a glimpse of someone who you have had a conflict with. As you hear the news that an old school friend of yours has been diagnosed with cancer, your emotions sink further, but are uplifted by a bear hug that you receive from an old friend that you have not seen in a long time!"

"But you have been conditioned to seeing yourself as being separate from the world rather than as being part of your world. You have been trained to only have feelings about something in response to something that has already occurred outside of yourself. If, as the ancient traditions suggest, you are participating within a holographic Multiverse, rather than being mere observer; if everything is ultimately one and that an independent, detached reality does not exist; then when you take the time to generate a new emotional response to something in your life, you effectively create a new template of possibility that is available for anyone to access. You become an emotional generator."

Poetry Surrounds Us - Vincent Van Gogh

“The more I think it over, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people. People are often unable to do anything, imprisoned as they are in I don’t know what kind of terrible, terrible, oh such terrible cage. Do you know what makes the prison disappear? Every deep, genuine affection. Being friends, being brothers, loving, that is what opens the prison, with supreme power, by some magic force. Without these one stays dead. But whenever affection is revived, there life revives."

"If only we try to live sincerely, it will go well with us, even though we are certain to experience real sorrow, and great disappointments, and also will probably commit great faults and do wrong things, but it certainly is true, that it is better to be high-spirited, even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent. It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love, is well done."

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person — somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then — even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart. That is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion."

"Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum… Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it. I dream my painting, and then I paint my dream." "That God of the clergymen, He is for me as dead as a doornail. But am I an atheist for all that? The clergymen consider me as such — be it so; but I love, and how could I feel love if I did not live, and if others did not live, and then, if we live, there is something mysterious in that. Now call that God, or human nature or whatever you like, but there is something which I cannot define systematically, though it is very much alive and very real, and see, that is God, or as good as God."

"To believe in God for me is to feel that there is a God, not a dead one, or a stuffed one, but a living one… When I have a terrible need of — shall I say the word — religion. Then I go out and paint the stars.”
 ~Vincent van Gogh ~

"Self knowledge" a piece by David Whyte

"Self Knowledge - is not fully possible for human beings. We do not reside in a body, a mind or a world where it is achievable or from the point of being interesting, even desirable. Half of what lies in the heart and mind is potentiality, resides in the darkness of the unspoken and unarticulated and has not yet come into being: this hidden unspoken half will supplant and subvert any present understandings we have about ourselves. Human beings are a frontier between what is known and what is not known. The act of turning any part of the unknown into the known is simply an invitation for an equal measure of the unknown to flow in and reestablish that frontier: to reassert the far horizon of an individual life; to make us what we are – that is - a moving edge between what we know about ourselves and what we are about to become. What we are actually about to become or are afraid of becoming always trumps and rules over what we think we are already." 

"The hope that a human being can achieve complete honesty and self-knowledge with regard to themselves is a fiction and a chimera, the jargon and goals of a corporate educational system brought to bear on the depths of an identity where the writ of organizing language does not run. Self-knowledge includes the understanding that the self we want to know is about to disappear. What we can understand is the way we occupy this frontier between the known and the unknown, the way we hold the conversation of life, the figure we cut at that edge, but a detailed audit of the self is not possible and diminishes us in the attempt to establish it; we are made on a grander scale, half afraid of ourselves, half in love with immensities beyond any name we can give."

"Self-knowledge is often confused with transparency, but knowledge of the self always becomes the understanding of the self as a confluence; a flowing meeting of elements, including all the other innumerable selves in the world, not a set commodity to be unearthed and knocked into shape. Self-knowledge is not clarity or transparency or knowing how everything works, self-knowledge is a fiercely attentive form of humility and thankfulness, a sense of the privilege of a particular form of participation, coming to know the way we hold the conversation of life and perhaps, above all, the miracle that there is a particular something rather than an abstracted nothing and we are a very particular part of that particular something."

"What we recognize and applaud as honesty and transparency in an individual is actually the humble demeanor of the apprentice, someone paying extreme attention, to themselves, to others, to life, to the next step, which they may survive or they may not; someone who does not have all the answers but who is attempting to learn what they can, about themselves and those with whom they share the journey, someone like everyone else, wondering what they and their society are about to turn into. We are neither what we think we are nor entirely what we are about to become, we are neither purely individual nor fully a creature of our community, but an act of becoming that can never be held in place by a false form of nomenclature. No matter our need to find a place to stand amidst the onward flow of the world, the real foundation of the self is in the self-forgetfulness that can occur when we meet something other than our reflection." by David Gordon Whyte 

Dave Chappelle Maya Angelou Iconoclasts - "courage to change your thinking"

We can change the way we think, and we must in order to evolve!

""Can Human Beings Drop Divisive Reactionary Thinking and Move To a Higher Level?" by Ronit Herzfeld
She starts with: "Why does so much of our political and social discourse devolve into extreme positions with little or no ability for each side to hear the other?  Why are we continually reacting to conflict in the same unproductive or destructive ways? Given the multitude of challenges facing us and our planet, it’s time to break this reactive and futile cycle.  As Albert Einstein so eloquently observed, “A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels.” The urgency of finding that “new type of thinking” cannot be overstated."

 and concludes with: "....At this juncture of human evolution, it is incumbent on us to step out of our habitual counter-productive patterns and create new, out of the box solutions.  This will require a willingness to challenge our preexisting perceptions and open our minds to the higher level of thinking that Albert Einstein called for so many years ago.  When we know what we are up against, we humans have demonstrated an indomitable and awe-inspiring ability to step up and triumph over the most difficult of challenges.  For the sake of future generations, we now need to find constructive ways to transcend our differences.

living in harmony with your way of being to "make a living"....

What If Money Was No Object ~ Alan Watts from Edgar Alves on Vimeo.

shining transformation

Lenses crack

And then shatter

Into a thousand pieces

Or are they a thousand mirrors?

We look again

And see our selves again

In a new light

The light

Of our worthy shining light

Shown back again a thousand, thousand times

With glowing radiant smiles

Of transformation embodied.

Love Radically - Kute Blackson

Releasing emotions stored in our bodies is essential for a life of joy...

From the article:

"Our bodies are aware of the things that our minds would like to push aside. The things that we have forgotten at a conscious level are still present all the time in our bodies. The good news is that it’s never too late to address these issues, and that the results can help with both physical and emotional pain."

" A few steps we can take to release unresolved emotion: 

"Find a daily physical practice you enjoy. Notice I didn’t say “exercise.” Caring about our health and fitness is important, but the intention here is a physical activity that we love. It helps to choose an activity that quiets your mind a bit. For me, this is yoga. Many people find running to have a meditative quality. It could be as simple as a ten minute quiet walk where you pay attention to your breathing and the sensations in your body."

"Receive regular bodywork. Therapeutic massage and bodywork are some of the most effective ways I’ve seen (and experienced) for releasing stored emotion. When someone works on those knots in your shoulders you have from long held anger or stress, sometimes emotions will come up. I’ve had clients cry on my table—and sometimes they’ve known and shared why; other times, the pain is old and just hanging on in the muscles, waiting to be released. It’s important to remember that a massage therapist is a facilitator for these things—not a psychotherapist. Through bodywork, we can tap into these stored emotions and begin to process them ourselves, or if needed, with another professional." 

"Make touch a part of your primary relationships. This sounds simple, obvious even. Unfortunately, we have become a very hands-off culture. Fewer and fewer of our daily interactions involve touch. As we rely on social media and smart phones for the bulk of our communication, our relationships often involve less physical contact than we need. Make a point of touching people on the arm or shoulder as you speak with them. Greet friends with a hug. Play a pick-up game of basketball instead of just watching the game. When we begin to remember that we are not just minds stuck inside a body, but body and mind working in concert, we can begin to heal old hurts in a deeper and lasting way."

- See more here."

Cosmic creativity -- how art evolves consciousness: Alex Grey at TEDxMau...

A living symphony.

 "To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common -- this is my symphony." William Henry Channing (1810-1884)

My responses to the "40 Plus Project"

WHAT 3 WORDS DESCRIBE YOU IN YOUR 20S?
Emerging, exploring, gathering

WHAT 3 WORDS DESCRIBE YOU IN YOUR 30S?
Experimenting, exhausting, expanding

WHAT 3 WORDS DESCRIBE YOU NOW? Learning, listening, integrating

WHAT IMPORTANT LIFE LESSONS DID YOU LEARN IN YOUR 20S + 30S?
In my 20s, I learned the concept of network. In my 30s, I learned about the wealth of networks and how to navigate them.

WHAT IMPORTANT LIFE LESSONS DID YOU LEARN IN YOUR 40S?
I learned about resilience, trusting my heart. That pain is a teacher. To be myself. To be human. To be trusting. To keep breathing. To have a beginner’s mind.

WHAT IMPORTANT LIFE LESSON ARE YOU LEARNING NOW?
I’m learning that integration breeds success.

WHAT HAS BEEN THE MOST DIFFICULT ASPECT OF GROWING OLDER?
It has been a challenging, yet liberating, experience to learn that most adults, including myself, have been or are still living like children when it comes to their emotional development and not taking full responsibility for themselves or their lives. Once realized, however I have discovered that intimate, present, courageous living, from the place of self love, and authentic loving connection with others becomes the basis of a truly fulfilled life.

WHAT HAS BEEN THE BEST ASPECT OF GROWING OLDER?
To realize that intimate, empathic connection with myself and others is the path of living with joy, and it’s a life-long learning journey.

WHAT DO YOU LOOK FORWARD TO IN THE FUTURE?
Living with more joy and manifesting from joy the gifts I have to give to the world. Sharing, receiving, life-long learning and trusting the perfection of my heart. I believe that awareness is the key to loving life more.

Here's a link to the original post: The 40+ Project: Gregory, 49

We Are All One - An Inspiring Short Film To Watch

An amazing adventure

This video of Joanna Macy lays out an inspiring and grounded vision why making peace with the unknown helps us be more present in the time we live in.

This is not a face that lies.

"When Abu Bakr met Muhammad, he said
"This is not a face that lies."

Abu Bakr was one whose bowl
has fallen from the roof.

There's no hiding the fragrance that comes from an ecstatic.
A polished mirror cannot help reflecting.

Muhammad once was talking to a crowd of chieftains, princes with great influence,
when a poor blind man interrupted him.

Muhammad frowned and said to the man, "Let me attend to these visitors,
This is a rare chance,
whereas you are already my friend.
We'll have ample time."

Then someone nearby said, "That blind man may be
worth a hundred kings. Remember the proverb,
Human beings are mines."

World-power means nothing. Only the unsayable,
jeweled inner life matters.

Muhammad replied, "Do not think that I'm concerned with being acknowledged by these authorities.

If a beetle moves toward rosewater, it proves that the solution is diluted.
Beetles love dung, not rose essence.

If a coin is eager to be tested by the touchstone,
that coin itself may be a touchstone.

A thief loves the night.
I am day. I reveal essences.

A calf thinks God is a cow.
A donkey's theology changes
when someone new pets it
and gives it what it wants.

I am not a cow, or thistles for camels
to browse on. People who insult me
are only polishing the mirror."

- Rumi

A fulfilled life.

It has been a challenging, yet liberating, experience to learn that most adults, including myself, have been, or are still living like children when it comes to their emotional development and not taking full responsibility for themselves or their lives. Once realized, however I have discovered that intimate, present, courageous living, from the place of self love, and authentic loving connection with others becomes the basis of a truly fulfilled life.

Pleasure Evolution?

Rob Breszny posted on FB today the following.

"Dear Beauty and Truth Lab: Though I respect what you're trying to do to boost the endorphin levels of the masses, I must insist that you begin taking into account a factor you have apparently thus far ignored: Pronoia must recognize and account for the fact that up to 70 percent of womankind never get their full orgasm experience."

"It's bad enough in the Western world, where many men don't even seem to know about the existence of the clitoris, let alone realize that sexual intercourse cannot induce a clitoral orgasm in a majority of women." "But even worse: the millions of girls who are brutalized with clitoridectomies in the Moslem world, and other hundreds of millions of Third World women who haven't reaped the benefits of Western culture's mild gender revolution."

"Here's what I say: Ecstatic female pleasure is a radical pronoiac solution to the global epidemic of male violence and ecological terrorism. I mean this literally. Sex is as much an elemental force as the winds and tides and thunderstorms. The muzzling of the female libido on a global level is the equivalent of trying to suppress the weather. And the consequences are just as weird. The tender, poignant penis has turned into the doomsday machine. Mother Earth gets wasted by the lurid hot dry 'sexy' violence of the berserk cosmodemonic phallus."

"But when I talk about ecstatic female pleasure, I don't mean simply some quantitative increase in clinically measurable orgasms. I'm talking about the kind of passion that generates compassion. Eros that lights up our political and ecological chakras. Sex beyond sex. The kind of reverent lust that enlightens you to how you're partly responsible for every other life on this planet, and gives you the power to feel the pain of people in distant locations with the same intensity you would feel an intimate companion's pain."

"Please consider filling in this gap in your otherwise enlightened program for world liberation." 

—Future Author of "The Clitoral Monologues" [Rob wrote] Dear Future Author: I agree with you. I have actually written a great deal on related subjects in one of my previous books, "The Televisionary Oracle." It's a basic text informing the Beauty and Truth Lab's ongoing experiments.

Don't go back to sleep...

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don't go back to sleep. You must ask for what you really want. Don't go back to sleep. People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds touch. The door is round and open. Don't go back to sleep. From Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks

Jyoti - WisdomFilm Preview

How Wolves Change Rivers

An eye to maintaining ecosystem health is essential to successful society...

(Medicine for the People) ღ Aloha Ke Akua - Medicine for our soul.

The heavens within my body

Heavens open

Like a heart full of joy

To all of the voices

Holding hands of light

Singing the one sound

Which is created 

By the well being of all beings

In all realms

In all time

Resonating silence

Effulgent fragrant choir

Fills every star cell

Of the galaxy 

Of my body

"Evolutionism" vs "Creationism"

At the core of the debate between scientism and religion is the disagreement as to the nature of matter, life and consciousness.

For example – as you know–  each would have an entirely different way of answering the question which is emblematic of the debate: "What is the nature of the force that governs and drives 'natural selection'?"

Were we to take a more integrated and multidisciplinary approach to understanding life we may have a more comprehensive, and intellectually satisfying, explanation of the questions of how we got here, and how we solve the world's greatest challenges.

One of my favorite ideas is consilience – the convergence of many disciplines into a more comprehensive understanding of reality. Here's a link to a book named "Consilience" which is a favorite of mine.

For those curious about these ideas, there's a number of items which are not usually brought to mind in the conversation between "Creationism" and "Evolution" 

Amit Goswami – Physicist who was first brought to my attention through the movie "What the Bleep DoWe Know?"  

Amit wrote a book called "Creative Evolution – A Physicists Resolution Between Darwinism andIntelligent Design" 

Henry Bergson who's anti-Darwin theories won a nobel prize.

Alternatively - Wendell Berry is an outspoken critic of E.O. Wilson's book  – in his book "Life is a Miracle" 

Similarly, rational philosopher, Thomas Nagel wrote an extremely thought provoking book “Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False,”   

Here's an article which sums up his book.

I offer these in the spirit of open inquiry with no conclusive result.

One thing is for certain for me – neither of the belief systems provided by Evolutionism nor Creationism offer a sound explanation which effectively explains the the origins of intelligent life and consciousness, which really inspires me to continue to learn more every day.

A model for intimacy with all life.