I was a free range kid. When I was four years old, my father bought a piece of raw land on a small wild lake in Ontario. To my young eyes, and my young feet, it was a long way from the end of the road to that piece of land. As I helped to create a trail through the … Read More
The Nobility in All of Us
Nobility. Not an idea you encounter much these days. In that respect it’s like concepts such as integrity, or compassion, or generosity. Not long ago I was in a meditation, a favorite form that I refer to as drifting. Passive rather than dynamic, one of allowing rather than directing my meditative experience. Toward the end of the meditation I was … Read More
The Black Dot
How do you get your life back when you look ahead and see only darkness: a problem, a challenge, or pain that dominates your attention and drains your energy? No clarity, no solution, no way out or even forward. Even when you’re not thinking about it, it’s there in the shadows, waiting for a gap in your attention so it … Read More
Sensory Doorways to Nonordinary Reality, #3
Part 3: Awakening by Altering the Movement of Time Ordinary reality is what you experience through five physical senses, limited to three dimensions, constrained by linear time. When you expand beyond any of those limitations in a conscious manner, you’re working with non-ordinary reality. You have seen in the first two of these Sensory Doorways articles that it is easy … Read More
Sensory Doorways to Nonordinary Reality, #2
Part 2: Awakening by (re)opening the senses Every animal has a dominant sense, a sense that has been developed to a high level in order to help it survive. Often you can identify the dominant sense just by looking at the animal. Which of its sensory organs is largest? In these exercises you use the names of animals to remind … Read More
Sensory Doorways to Nonordinary Reality, #1
Part 1: Awakening by point focus In the next three articles I’ll describe powerful ways to expand your consciousness beyond the physical. What makes them unusual is that their starting point is the input of your physical senses. They engage the physical senses to transcend the physical senses. You might think of them as shamanic shortcuts to direct experience of … Read More
The Outer Courtyard of the Spiritual Heart
It’s where you find self-acceptance. From time to time I become aware that I am in an unloving place within myself. This shows up as judgment of others, usually of what they do or do not do. Sometimes it is about their appearance. I’m not proud of that. I don’t like to admit it. And I have learned to face … Read More
Where have all the elders gone…?
Gone to care homes, every one. When will we ever learn when will we e-ver learn? Do you have in your life someone who demonstrates any or all of the qualities named below? When I’ve worked with groups of people who are trying to become more conscious of what eldering is about, or who an elder is, these qualities are … Read More
The 23rd Psalm, compassionately revisited
As a child I was captivated by the beauty and strength of the images and message of the 23rd Psalm. After the first three verses, however, that feeling was lost. I was repelled by the confrontational aspect of verses four and five. This was not my idea of a desirable existence. Gone were the green pastures and still waters. The … Read More
Earthbound Love
If you’ve read more than one or two of my posts, you’ve noticed that I hop from one topic to another, and that the hops are sometimes rather large. This post is another of the metaphysical/spiritual ones. It attempts to capture one aspect of larger Experience. I’ve made many journeys beyond the physical, into past lives and realms where even … Read More