Spirituality for Living

Normally Tantric rites are observed in a very sacramental way. Selective diet before the coming together, contemplative meditation, prayer to ready the participants mentally and emotionally because during the embrace there is surrender. Totally for the female, and surrender in the context of the forms for the male.
The actually embrace is not hastened through. It [...]

Tantra is seen as dark, especially among the Ophites. A Tantric practicing Gnostic Christian sect for who the serpent was both eros and wisdom. Thus sex became separate from religion in Christianity. Most of the sexual beliefs in Christianity came well after the time of Christ. He did not teach them himself, and he even [...]

We were warned off of Tantra from someone, and about practising and discovering it for ourselves. That it was dangerous. Well actually any religion is, but fear is a cult dogma and there are those who take the sacred and profane it with ideas of ownership. Saying you must adhere to their guru, and know their [...]

Choice seems so readily obvious. People claim to make choices, and then complain about the consequences of those choices. We make choices every day if only minor ones, but do people really choose? Do they take the action that choice supposedly is? In my experience people tend to choose by habit not by thought, so [...]

Every place has a “spirit”, a perceivable essence be that chi or a genius loci.  Places themselves have seemed very alive throughout human history. In fact, the “gods” referred to in feng shui were originally perceived spirits native to a place. A tree, a large stone, etc., basically very similar to Shinto kami.
The Earth is [...]

Does the theory of sacred places pertain to virtual spaces? Yes, and any energy that moves you closer to zero point resonance, which rather than being a void or empty headed state is more like highly amplified alpha wave brain function, can serve as a sacred place.
The value of adding things to a sacred place [...]

Documentation on how sacred places were located is scattered. They used pendulums or dowsing rods and many of the legendary water spirits were believed to dwell at places that were basically sacred sites, and not every sacred site welcomed everyone.  Some only the village Shaman entered because of what they did with their energy. For [...]

Native American religion isn’t actually a unified religion. In a sense, there both were and were not multiple faiths in the United States before the arrival of European culture. Many facets of it have been observed to parallel the now defunct Chinese religion of Bon, similar to Japanese Shintoism. It is basically Asian Shamanism. This [...]

It’s often said of past cultures and their practices that we are more enlightened than they were, but I offer that we aren’t any more enlightened. We‘re just further down the road.
Many of our modern creeds, value systems, and even world views are actually of very old origin. One such practice, and its actual form [...]

Those into what can perhaps most broadly be called “necromantic” practices, are not at odds with Druid thinking. Mediumship, or communing with the dead, and giving the dead place and respect were quite acceptable. Mediumship would have been undertaken by the Ovates. In our modern technological age, not only do we not adequately respect life, [...]

Sin was originally a Greek term measuring the deviation of an arrow from a target, and it didn’t originally have other meaning. Sin was simply error, but error arises from the realm of the mortal. From the realm of the external and transitory now. In the event that was your advent there was no error, [...]

Darkness is a part of spirituality, yet there is a trend to censor it in some spiritual groups. No one really likes to talk about the bad side of things, and part of the reason they don’t is either an idea that it somehow makes their efforts impure, or just simply the tendency to label [...]

Zionism is both political and spiritual. It has been going on for a long time, and it even translated into other cultures.  In America it became manifest destiny.
Zionism is ultimately the idea that God has promised land, and that it’s ones sacred duty to either take it or preserve it. The belief in an otherworldly heaven [...]

You have the realization that you are not your view of yourself, and that you are not restricted to your conditioning. That you can live life regardless of the pulls of attachment. You can then of course pursue a moral creed, some religious doctrine, but is that yet another attachment? So you are left with “now [...]

By definition is anything you can observe you? Or is it something you have? Are your body and mind somehow in charge?
Did you see something beautiful today? You only saw yourself. Did you see something ugly? You also only saw yourself, but these are not the true self.
Self is self and all others are [...]

What would life be like if everyone had a job they loved from their spirit? It‘s really crazy that we live the majority of our life “putting in hours” to get money. And doing things that seen in the big picture we would not approve of another doing.
Maybe in Second Life we find people more [...]

Greater good. That’s an interesting notion. What greater good, that we all have in common, is truly and fully encapsulated by the teachings of any one path? Is that even possible?
I would say the good we all have in common is the very thing that is so often derided the “lesser” good. We all get [...]

Some people proudly declare that they have no heroes, and that they worship nothing. This isn’t necessarily a negative statement, but it tends to be short-sighted.
They lie? Also true. Some people feel they are down to earth. I would offer that the most down to earth people are those we bury. Bury, inter, put under [...]

Reverence has a complimentary attitude, irreverence. Our drive to reverence is not necessarily a drive to religiosity, and many people gloat at the idea that they are irreverent thinkers, that they hold nothing sacred. To paraphrase Jesus, “They know not what they do.”.
Irreverence has its place when it stems from innate human reverence. When you [...]

Too much like or dislike can be very narrowing and corrupting. It seems to lead to obsession, which certainly is unhealthy? A computer metaphor is in order. Dichotomous thinking causes fragmentation, which causes loss of moral integrity. Obsession blocks adaptability, and nature and life are a flow. Flow and you live. Stagnate and you die.
Can there [...]