The ever present option

Don’t Eat the Marshmallow

I just ran across this great TED Talks video by Joachim de Posada on DuckGoesMoo! De Posada discusses an experiment involving children, marshmallows, and self-discipline.  Two important things stand out to me: 1) self-discipline really appears to be a significant factor in success, and self-discipline can manifest significantly in very small ways; and 2) self-discipline is not common. I believe self-discipline can be learned with effort and that such an investment in the self is about the most wonderful gift you can give your dreams.

Full Moon Reflections

One way of understanding personal divinity is that it is the pattern resulting from the light of love shining through the Dreaming that makes up who you are.  Divinity is love, but it expresses differently through each of us.  What is love?  One answer is that love is the universal magnetic, the somethingness that runs throughout the universe and makes this whole crazy creation happen.  And it is always inside you: the divine does not exist separate from you, but as the very essence of yourself.

New Moon Reflection

Even though it is often very painful, keeping an open heart toward the world and relating out of love is absolutely vital.  Love is the essence of the gifts we bring to this world; if we do not relate out of love, we do not give ourselves the opportunity to be who we are and to do what will most fulfill us.  Know that your heart will be fatigued by the pain and the sorrow it is bound to encounter.  Instead of using this as an excuse to stay closed, use it as the motivation to find practices that renew and refresh your heart.

Full Moon Reflection

Tapping into divinity is not something really different from authenticity so much as it is the real heart of authenticity, the stillness from which the authenticity can arise.  For whatever reason, we seem to need to travel backwards to that origin if we want to be conscious of its flow through us and into the world.  The Great Source is within us all, every moment, whether we accept it or not.  We are divine, and we create the world.  To let God’s will be done is to be who you are in the fullest and most abiding sense and to let that be the source of all action.  To make the Source the source, to release the pettiness of the moment for your place in the flow, the infinite love of being that is already coursing through you becoming your guide, allowing your resistances and blockages to melt and open wide to love and being loved and being love.

Statistical Analysis Finds “Anomalous Cognition” Proven

In Rob Brezsny’s latest newsletter, he had a link to “An Assessment of the Evidence for Psychic Functioning” by Jessica Utts, a professor of Statistics at UC Davis.  While I’ve heard of the research supporting the existence of psychic abilities of some sort, I’ve also heard that same research maligned as methodologically unsound or inconclusive.

Ms. Utts does us the favor of examining the results of a number of different experiements, not for proof of psychic function (they all had statistically significant results), but for replication of results across experiments and laboratories.  This is ostensibly the definition of a scientific reality: reproducibility.  Ms. Utts finds that the results are similar enough across the board to suggest that psychic function has been proven, and that further experimentation is unlikely to produce any stronger evidence than already exists.

10 Ways to Open Your Mind

However you may feel about Deepak Chopra, his commentary on closed minds (found courtesy of Rob Brezsny’s Pronoia Resources) is apt.  I particularly like his ten ways to open your mind:

1. Stop believing that you’re right. Examine the compulsion that forces you to be right all the time.

2. Don’t make every argument us versus them.

3. Be less attached to winning and more attached to the truth.

4. Don’t color every issue with morality. Right and wrong are generally useless when it comes to finding creative solutions.

5. Write down the five fundamental beliefs that guide your life. Now write down the best arguments against those beliefs.

6. When you are the most emotional about any issue, assume that you are blinding yourself. An open mind is calm, centered, flexible, and tolerant of opposing views.

7. When you are thinking of saying an idea that you know came from someone else, let go of it.

8. Most people either automatically agree or automatically disagree. Examine this trait in yourself and give it up.

9. Be aware of how you feel before you speak. Feelings are closer to the truth than words.

10. Walk in someone else’s shoes before you judge them.

A Prayer

I acknowledge my dependence on the Grand Web:

on those who come before and after,
on those who are now,
on those who give of themselves even unto death that I may be nourished and thrive,
on those I do not know and cannot name.

I offer the best of myself in gratitude:

for this opportunity to be alive and create;
for my body, mind, emotions, and spirit;
for the guidance and support to live and create with integrity, authenticity, and divinity.

I express my awe and reverence for the ineffable, for what is beyond even the bounty of all that is and is not.

Front page

WELCOME!

I seem to be paying a little attention again.  I spruced up a few things.

A Change of Perspective

Describing the amount and depth of the transformation in my life since the solstice is difficult.  With everything that is different now compared to three months ago, my expectations have given way to a sort of constant, quiet awe.  My gratitude for the bounty that is my life grows daily.

Lately, I’ve been reading through Rob Brezsny’s Pronoia.  Pronoia is the state of being Terence McKenna was in when he said, “I believe reality is a marvelous joke staged for my edification and amusement, and everybody is working very hard to make me happy.” I’m learning something, and I’m changing my attitude.

Another book in progress is James Endredy’s Ecoshamanism.  I don’t agree with everything I’m reading, but the text has been engaging.

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