Spirituality for Living

Finding peace is a universal search and would seem simple right? Just don’t make drama, and don’t get involved in drama? This is how many people seem to think, and to my experience those notions are very far from the truth. We seek peace, and many think they can find it by “unplugging”, shutting down, [...]

Finding peace. We all try to do it. It is a long standing objective in philosophy and religion both, if not the oldest. Yet we seem to have a haphazard grasp of it at best. A big part of this is we seek it elsewhere. It’s forever elsewhere. Peace on earth, peace with other nations, [...]

Sometimes it is just good to be angry, or cry without having to stop because you are suppose not to? Yes. We burn the bridge before we even cross it. We want peace, but won’t allow ourselves to be at peace with what disturbs us.
When you seek to deny anything about you, you make yourself [...]

When you loose your intention, just act and be? Yes, yet true intention is poorly understood. In fact, you can’t loose true intention. What are you paying attention to? That’s your intention. You probably worry about what you should be paying attention to, and likely don’t pay full attention to anything.  Is that fair to [...]

Nature can be a good parent, but nature can’t help us discover human nature very well. That’s supposed to be our human parents’ job. Nature also teaches us to respect life in general if we are receptive, and in general we were when we were happy. When we were happy there wasn’t any elsewhere or [...]

Happiness isn’t uniform, nor is it supposed to be. I give my son spaghetti, and in the moment of eating it he will be quite happy. Give me spaghetti, and I likely will be unmoved though eating it. Give me good conversation over dinner though, and I am happy then. I’m largely unmoved by food, [...]

Happiness is so simple it’s confusing, but generally it confuses children very little. We were all at one time happy. It’s sort of a natural state, and we experience it when we aren’t worried about all the “adult” things which we are taught as children. I have met some very adult children, and I find it [...]

Pride is not a vice. I always laugh at the ascetics who speak of pride as if it were some great evil, but if you undertake any action with the conviction that it is right, there is an element of pride to it. The idea that your action is right, the idea that you can [...]

My liver is so proud, he thinks he is better than my heart. Actually, the body can know hubris.  It’s called cancer. When a new cell is too deviated, when it’s not acknowledging that it’s in the liver, and won’t in any way do the liver thing, then it’s hubris. Cancer cells are still of [...]

What does it mean to be a guardian of an innocent? A guide to a newly born mind? In this day and age it seems many people just follow the “expected” life.  Get a job, get married, have kids, and their role as parent seems to be more the acting out of an idea. Just [...]

To quote Kahlil Gibran about raising children: “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For [...]

The first skill a parent needs, and it’s instinctive but we shun it as the infant matures, is simple listening. Is the baby crying? Are they hungry, scared, lonely? Why is this wrong for us to use with ourselves or out intimates? If we kept that listening, would there be neglected seniors? Would we be [...]

I intend to discuss the spiritual facets of parenting. How many of you are parents? But no, it’s not necessary to be a parent to gain from this. We are all involved in parenting. We were parented in one form or another, and some of us are parenting. It’s perhaps one of the most primal [...]

Are you the real authority on you? Is anyone here the real authority on themselves, or is that discouraged? Are you busy “playing house” or rather “playing life”? Are you happy? Most parents say they want their children to grow up happy and busily deny happiness, because it isn’t responsible. I acknowledge being response able. [...]

I have zillions of questions about parenting. You are the seeking child. You are the loving little boy or girl. You just need to help the child out of the whole. You were good and learned what you were taught. Now be good to yourself.  Be the guide you didn’t have to yourself and anyone [...]

One thing about some religions is they require submission to the male, the husband. This was one reason I couldn’t stay in that culture. There are cultures, though more rare, that were matriarchies.  Yes, it seems like these codifications happen. To address the issue of codification there is cognition and there is recognition. Cognition can [...]

In the yin and yang symbol though it acknowledged duality and there is clearly a dark half and a light half, is it not a circle? And the circles in the two sides.  At the heart of yin, yang.  The heart of yang, yin. In Native American cultures they had young men who wanted to [...]

Those who would listen, and I don’t mean with their ears, but with the receptive mind, those who’s hearts are open to the world and other species, are growing and changing. There are those who perhaps don’t even know why. At least they don’t know yet, but their empathy is coupled with a compassionate heart, [...]

Fey dwell in the wild. They live in a sense as the spirits of the wild, but they aren’t exactly what humans see them as. They parallel physical nature, but they are not confined to it.
You may have actually noticed this. Ever been in a far removed meadow? One little trafficked by humans? Fey sing, and [...]

Envy creeps into our daily thinking, but no situation more so than intimacy. Close friendships, family, romantic relationships. Envy denies intimacy, and if you need any gauge of how much envy affects our mind, look at the divorce rate.
I think it’s worse with romantic relationships, from my personal experience. Oh, I agree. It comes from possessiveness, but [...]