That's what my dad asked recently. We have, in the past year, begun to finally relate as adult people with a mutual respect and tolerance that was never part of my growing-up landscape, and the primary reason we have gone until now without much to say to each other. I learned early that it was not safe to share what was in my heart and mind with my parents. But all that is done now. And he has begun to read some of what I have written here, as I edit and shift it to my website. When I visited... Sign in to see full entry.
At one of my first ESP fairs as a reader/healer, a woman who owned a rental property asked me to take a look at why she could not keep it rented. She wondered if the murder which had taken place there several years ago might be affecting the energy of the house. I turned my awareness in the direction of the house, and found myself looking as if from the sidewalk at a small two-storey house. All this happened in my mind's eye: I walked up and knocked on the door. I was aware of a young woman... Sign in to see full entry.
I have discovered a few useful phrases to keep me on track: reminders and affirmations, sometimes like pressing a reset button... When facing anything or anyone I don't much like: Isn't it interesting that God has chosen to express Itself in this way? (Particularly useful when confronting a mirror...) When feeling pressured or disapproved of for being as I am: Who the hell cares what you think? These are the top two on my list-- What's on yours? Sign in to see full entry.
I watched tv with my mom again for the first time in ~35 years. I used to really enjoy the hour or two sitting next to her on her big bed in the evening, watching things like I, Claudius, or Elizabeth R, or Upstairs, Downstairs... So during my brief visit last weekend, when she was in bed with a cold, I pulled up a chair and we watched Bill Moyers with her. It's still PBS we watch together. I think maybe she enjoyed it, the shared moment and the memory, as I did. She could never enjoy watching... Sign in to see full entry.
Sometimes I don't want to do anything: I just want to be for a while... That can be meditating, too, as it changes one's normal perspective as a restless, technologically intelligent, gadget-happy, toy-loving "human doing" into a resting and receptive "human being." Sign in to see full entry.
My dad, the scientist, asked me this a while ago. He is not into philosophical or psychological exploration, and finds the whole area confusing. The usual vocabulary I use makes no sense to him, so I have thought a while about how to answer him. I look to my own experience of meditation, and how it differs from day-dreaming, praying or contemplation, or getting fascinated by a fish-tank-- all of which can induce the altered state of brainwaves that occurs with meditation. When I meditate, I... Sign in to see full entry.
According to some traditions, there is a Messiah at the beginning of every Age. Ages refer to astrological ages, each of which is about 2000 years. Jesus was the Christ of the Piscean Age. We are now entering the Aquarian Age. (apparently, the familiar equinox signs run the reverse of the annual procession.) Melchizidek has been called the Christ of the Aryan Age. He has also been identified by some traditions as an angel, as the angel Michael, and as a king to whom Abraham, in Biblical Genesis,... Sign in to see full entry.
Jim Jones... Charles Manson... David Koresh... Adolph Hitler... They all fit the qualifications for a messiah, in their own minds. A messiah feels that the truth he/she shares is absolute. The certainty that stands behind the assertions gives the messiah the weight of authority. People who are not so certain of their own truths gravitate to those who seem to really know, and they follow. If a messiah is enlarged by being followed, feeds on the energy of devotion, seeks this kind of gratification... Sign in to see full entry.
"Jesus Christ, Superstar-- Do you think you're what they say you are...?" (from the rock opera by A.L.Webber) A messiah is a saviour: someone who comes along and through word and deed swings humanity, or a culture, or an individual from a state of benightedness to one of comprehension. Or from a path of self-destruction to one of self-realization and life. Who would not want to be a messiah? What a great thing, to be so right about things that the whole of humanity is brought to joyful... Sign in to see full entry.
Over the course of this holiday, I have concluded that all families look insane to other families. And maybe they are. But some are healthier than others without a doubt, and some hold together in spite of the conflicting games, delusions, imperatives, etc. I can think of only one thing that makes any family healthy and as cohesive as a family should be, without becoming a durance vile: love. No matter how crazy we get, if we know that the love is there, we will be all right. No matter how hard... Sign in to see full entry.