Kinship With All Of Life

Yesterday I received the nicest gift from Mary who my wife and I meditate with on Weds. evenings. After our meditation we somehow ended talking about this wonderful book we both had read a number of years ago. She said I’ll order two copies from the local bookstore. When I saw her Saturday she gave me a copy as a gift. This great little book is Kinship With All Life, by J. Allen Boone. I recommend this book to everyone. It is about our connection to all other living things on the planet. I started reading it right away and it filled me with such joy because it spoke to my soul.

Here is why my soul did a little dance inside of when I started reading about a famous dog called Strongheart:

• I immediately moved into the realization that all of us on this planet are connected. This realization reminder is so uplifting. I do my best to live it as fully as I can each day. I often lose my way however and stories likes this bring me back.
• In this unity realization my heart expands and I feel so loving and positive about everyone and everything. This moment of being in love is our natural state. I forget sometimes that I can love everyone on the planet all the time and still have more love in my heart for giving.
• I also feel a vast sense of appreciation for all beings. My soul is already connected to all of life but I wander away lost in my thoughts too often. Thank you to everyone who spreads love and light in the world, you are such a wonderful gift to all of us and the planet.
• When I read uplifting ideas they create wonderful imagery inside of me. I love to see in my mind’s eye the amazing possibilities in me and in others. I am so blessed with a rich flow of endless inspiration in the form of pictures, sounds, feelings and sensations. I live in a sensorium of what can be.
• The light of a good story keeps shining because it connects with the light in you and I.  I forget too often that I am pure light in human form, that my nature is divine. I am so happy to be reminded.

Please take a moment to sign up for my email list and you will receive twice-weekly post like this one and on occasion special offers and moments of inspiration. You also will become the instant owner of my e-book Spirited Living. I know you will appreciate this book for all its many life-enhancing ideas.

I offer coaching and consulting services providing inspired guidance to you if you are interested in reconnecting to your essential nature.  This reconnect will present you with the opportunity to live life more fully.



Entering The Stream

I am blessed to live in a beautiful place where nature touches me deeply each day. There is a stream I often walk into that crosses our beach as it enters the ocean. I love stepping into the flow of this clear aliveness. It is as if I am renewed and realigned in some essential way.  Nature has that capacity. I am sure you have noticed that.

Since moving here I have come to feel my connection with nature like never before. I realize that all that surrounds me is also within me.

I join with the flow of the stream.

I breathe in the negative ions of the ocean that naturally uplift.

The forests that surround us nurture me.

I drink from the stream of life with gratitude for the gift of living each day.

I am water; my body is much more like a stream with cells flowing than something fixed and inflexible. 

I feel great appreciation for the beauty of the world around me I am enriched by it. My heart and my mind both wonder how can I begin to give back all I am given.

Note: I am changing my blog posts. They will be shorter because I know your time is very valuable. I will share my ideas briefly and to the point. Please let me know what you think of my changes. Also I would love for you to sign my for my email list. I will treat you and your email with great respect.

Check This Out: A few days ago I listen to a TED Talk by Paul Gilding titled: The Earth Is Full.  It shook me up like a rude wake up call. I knew things were not going well as far as our human impact on the planet but this was too much reality to be ignored.  I would encourage you to listen to Paul Gildings talk.

I hope you will consider joining me and together we can enter the stream of life and look out for each other.



Notes of Interest #3

It’s Friday and I have some quotes to share with you that seem to have real meaning for me and I wanted to share them with you. During the week I put these quotes on my screen for use later and today is later.  I hope these words inspire you.

As you know as a reader of my blog, I emphasize the importance of questions. I love these five questions as a guide for all of our thoughts.  Remember our thoughts are not real, they are just words we give meaning to.

 

I hope this is true and I believe it to be. We live in an information world where so much of it is with an agenda in mind. Inside is the only place you can find your truth. No one else can tell you what your truth is.

I like this one because it says all can be overcome with the power of compassion. There is no hell except when we separate ourselves from our heart by our thoughts.

As is usually the case, Eckhart Tolle brings light to what looks like the negative.  Even in our darkest times there is something of greatness ready to rise up out of our despair.

Thank you again for Facebook and the creators of these images that come to me from the posts there. 

Enjoy the weekend and dance to your own music.



Notes Of Interest #2

Gandhi had a way of stating things that was "no nonsense." We must live by our truths and speak boldly when needed. Too often dogma and doctrine try to claim the power of the world but our truth is a more powerful force for good.

The importance of questioning everything that matters to you is that it clears the way to direct contact with your soul. Remember you are a spiritual being having a human experience.  My question book called Awaken:100 questions To Expand Your Mind and Open Your Heart is a wonderful aid for the questioning process. (see post below about my new book)

Please take a moment and sit with the words of this picture. Find the place inside where the truth of it is felt. Stay with the connection to the infinite and eternal within you. Now find your way to be a little more self-realized every day.

To appreciate beauty is to transform yourself into something greater. This picture is from the town I live near last night after sunset. I love blue, I love nature, I love the ocean and I love beauty and it is all captured right here.

These photos and quotes all came to me from Facebook and I am very grateful for this inspiration. Peace and joy to you this day.

10 Ideas To Contribute To A Better World Today

The idea of people working together for a better world came to me as guidance from my higher nature. You may have had a similar inspiration. My higher nature is basically the same as yours. This more expanded knowing functions beyond our ordinary thought. If you and I realizing and expressing the potential in us we can encourage the full expression of those around us.  Together we can create a better world.

I found myself wanting to encourage everyone who is interested in co-creating a better world together, so I put together 10 ways you can begin today to make a positive difference:

1.         Be mindful of your thoughts and feelings and encourage those close to you to do the same.  Mindfulness is being tuned inward and self-aware which allows you to be true to who you are and genuine in your interactions with others. Mindfulness is a powerful practice because it helps you be fully present where everything that is possible and everyone who matters awaits you.  A good book to read and share with someone you care about and to encourage mindfulness is Peace Is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hahn a Zen monk who writes with great heart.

2.         Explore and express your purpose because expressing your purpose will fill your life with meaning and inspire others. You have a purpose that will make the world a better place if you express this purpose. If you can’t figure out what your purpose is today then try spreading love because that is most likely a purpose we all share. One of the great teachers of our time – Dr. Jean Houston is offering a powerful seminar on purpose. 

3.         As I said in the previous paragraph love is a purpose we all share. If you want to have a big impact on the world all you have to do is explore ways to open your heart, be caring and have compassion for self and others. An open heart is such a positive and powerful force in the world.  There is a wonderful meditation practice called, “loving-kindness” and you can learn more about this practice by studying with great teachers like Sharon Salzberg.

4.         Make kindness a daily practice and your life will be more joyous. Imagine if your job was to be kind to everyone you interact with throughout your day. How would your kindness enhance other people’s lives? How would this practice enhance yours? Make a list of people who could use a dose of kindness, reach out to them and spread a little love with your acts of kindness.  Check out this site about random acts of kindness. 

5.         Happiness is a choice, you can choose to be happy or not. If you choose happiness, you can bring your light out into the world and people will welcome it. Happiness comes easily when you focus on what you appreciate, when you are fully present, when you give to others, and when you connect with your higher nature.   Check out the Happiness Project for inspiration.

6.         Expand your consciousness, because with higher consciousness you bring greater light to everything you do.  The more aware and awake you are the more expand is your capacity to make a positive difference in the world.  If you take the time to tune inward you can access the highest collective consciousness of all intelligent life on the planet. Two excellent awakening books worth reading are: Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle and The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer

7.         Find your own truth because it will set you free and energize your life. Most of the beliefs and ideas you have came from others. Many of these beliefs and ideas need to be questioned because they are not true. The more you explore your own truth the more you live an authentic life. If you live in truth you can be at peace. No one can tell your what is true for you.  It always helps to tune inward, listen and question.  My own book – Awaken: 100 Questions To Expand Your Mind and Open Your Heart is an excellent resource for exploring your own truth.

8.         Live in the now where everything is happening. Much of the time your mind can be worrying about the future or unable to let go of the past. Today in this moment is all there ever is. In the now is the only place where you make things happen. By living in the now you can connect deeply with yourself and those around you. Joy, love, peace, hope and freedom exist only in the now.  The Power Of Now by Eckhart Tolle is a great resource for being in the now.

9.         Express your creativity, creativity opens you up to your genius. Creativity is very powerful and it comes in many forms including: writing, painting, poetry, movement, healing, parenting, business, humor, organization, loving, design, architecture, peace making, social activism and many other forms of personal expression. When you express your creativity it enriches those around you.  The Artist Way by Julia Cameron has inspired lots of creativity.

10.         Join together with others and have meaningful conversations. Meaningful conversations make you feel alive because you are a social being. Meaningful conversations come about when your heart is open and your feel compassionate for others. An open mind is also helpful for meaningful conversations because then you have the ability to listen and not judge.  After looking for good reference materials, I decided maybe it is time for a group of people to get together and create a meaningful conversations handbook.

There are many more ways to create a better world together than there are ways to create a better world by yourself. If you can find one other person to join you, your power to be effective multiplies. The world is waiting for you and I to step up and get involved. Are you ready to make a difference?  



A Movement Begins – Better World Together

Two days ago I was doing my morning meditation and a flash of insight came to me. This insight tied together so much of what I have been thinking about lately. A few months before making our move to the Oregon Coast a friend of my wife (Thanks Elizabeth) paid for her to have a reading from an astrologer she really believed had something special to offer. The reading seemed very timely and supportive of the major shift my wife Bobbi and I were making with our move and our stepping into the unknown metaphysically, career wise, and financially.  Along with the valuable information she received for herself, the reading also had a message for me.

Since I am open to guidance from the Universe, I paid close attention to the information my wife shared with me after her reading. That person said I was going to start a movement and it was important that I do so.  My initial reaction was that sounded interesting and hoped there was more information and insight coming. For the past 6 months or so I have been tuning inward in search of greater clarity trusting at some level that this message came to me for some specific purpose. 

Wow, that was a long-winded lead into this movement idea wasn’t it? I felt I wanted to lay some groundwork. In the process of creating a movement it seems that laying some groundwork is essential.

The Better World Together movement is about us coming together for the greater good. This movement is what happens when the power of compassionate hearts and expansive minds work together for a better world.

As I have begun to explore the idea of creating a movement it became very clear I couldn’t do this on my own. The only way any movement can happen is if people come together to make it happen. Coming together for the good of all on the planet is the idea.  When people come together with a shared vision or purpose there is a collective energy that gathers which has much more power than the numbers of people involved.

This Better World Together movement is timely because 2012 is a year of change, a year that seems destined to be part of a shift of significance. By destined, I mean it is the expectation of many that the times we live in are ripe for change and some would argue not a minute too soon.

With this movement in mind, I am going to shift my writing and energetic focus to building this movement. There is much to be done and I will need lots of help. More as this all unfolds.

Here are number of the pressing issues of our time that a Better World Together might address: 

Peace together – it is time to end wars on the planet and learn to peacefully co-exist

Prosperity together – we live in an abundant world and everyone should benefit from this

Compassion together – open hearts making a difference to those hungry, homeless, and in need of support and encouragement

Green together – the planet’s soil, air and water are being compromised and we need to change that

Learn together – our education needs to grow, be more creative and expansive. Life long learning and growth is essential also

Lead together – there is a need for the great compassion and expansive and inspired thinking to lead and govern for the good of all

Live together – it is time we figure out how to live with and enjoy each other and explore what we have in common

Hope together – with us sharing hope the future is bright with possibilities

Stand together – there are number of things that need to change and we can be the ones to make that happen

Love together – the time is now for the power of love to guide us all.

This is a movement we all create. I am just planting the seed and have a good size water bucket to help the process. I very much need your ideas. This movement is free of dogma and doctrine, and lives by the collective truth of all who are involved. 

A website needs to be created. I have a new book (Awaken: 100 Questions To Expand Your Mind And Open Your Heart) ready with questions to help everyone who wants to join me in building a better world together. Soon there will be another short book on a basic idea essential to moving to a higher mindset in creating this movement. Most important -  there will be all of your ideas, your insights, your awareness, you inspiration, you intuitive knowing, your creativity, your energy and your dreams. Then together we can do anything and that anything we do will make a positive difference.

Lastly some inspirational words from one of the greatest of change agents Gandhi:

First they ignore you

Then they laugh at you

Then they fight you

Then you win

Winning is about understanding the deeper truths and living fully with an open heart and an expanded mind. This winning makes everyone a winner.

***Much more to come and please let me know your thoughts, ideas, hopes, interests and passionate purposes.



A Call To Your Light

Be aware: the following words flowed from me and if you are not careful they might infect you with bigger possibilities and turn your inner light on. They are for you from the me that is not separate.

I am an ocean of consciousness.

As the rain pours down my separation joins with the stream.

I flow to the source.

I Am but I am not what I thought I was.

The wind carries me upward and away.

Sometimes the cosmic dust gets in my eyes

Into it all but a drop

Joining dissolving but still infinite and eternal

Awakening, then forgetting

Stepping bravely and then returning to the familiar

Outside, inside, everywhere

Stepping back for a look

Reaching with my heart, opening

Standing strong with what is right

Entering the mystery

Like a flock of birds in coordination

Inward, outward, nowhere

Stars of which I come

Big bang flashes the beginning

Now I run to leap out on the edge

I was, I am, I will be

Pure freedom is a wonderful song

Shall we dance and sing together       

Words are such fun to explore, like painting a picture with orderly shapely marks too contained for an abstract painter but just right for the prose artist.

Where are you in this moment?

How are you being informed by your inner knowing?

Have you appreciated the beauty around you?

In the journey of awakening, the light comes on for glimpses of possibilities and if you lean into that light you can stretch the Ah-Ha for a lifetime. If instead the mind wanders out of the now, that light quickly fades into a buzz of the familiar.

Insight arises, opportunities present themselves and you can bath in them and allow them to soak into your spiritual membranes or be too busy to pay attention.

If you are willing to give this moment your full attention, you will open to the presents of the present.

Now feel the foot as it touches the floor, let that awareness sink deeply into the Earth Mother. Feel the now flowing with aliveness. Keep the foot awareness and the now stays in your lap.

Breathe, follow, breathe, follow, breathe follow.

The grace of the moment helps you find hope, heart, and the humility to realize you are but a drop in the ocean of consciousness, a grain of sand in the infinite universe but also contained within you is all consciousness and the entire ever-expanding universe.

I invite you to honor who you are and take the time to be mindful, to stretch yourself out into what is possible. The world needs you so much right now to be bold and rambunctious about life.

You are infinite in your nature yet you, as the rest of us do, argue for your limits.  “Argue for your limits and they are yours,” from Illusions by Richard Bach. 

You have been programmed since you were so small to believe in your limits. Now these beliefs run your life and they are not true. That is what is, but it doesn’t have to remain so. There is no blame but the loving acceptance of you as you are, reading this knowing there are greater possibilities in you waiting to be realized.

Now make a commitment to yourself, with all the courage of your heart and the determination of your higher mind, to be more fully your potential every day.  In a year you will be a star that shines brightly on the stage of life and we will all be so grateful to you for being you.

In case you were wondering what The Inner Conditions for Happiness are: Be Present, find appreciation in the now, be at one with beauty, be creative, hold in your heart a sense of flourishing and fulfillment, be in positive mind, and serve others. 



2012 - Let’s Replace Power And Control With Peace and Hope

I have spent a few days working on this post because I am deeply concerned about the world and the dominance of the ego-mind.  The following is not as well written as I would like it to be but it shares what concerns me and I hope you will find it thought provoking enough so you join me is working for peace and a better world in 2012:

In additions to my work in mental health for 35 years I have been a passionate advocate for peace. I consider war to be insane and always caused by the human ego in search of more power and control. From my viewpoint there are no legitimate reasons for starting or being in a war, no matter how much war is rationalized by our leaders. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are about gaining power and control not for the reason we were told. Our next war will be with Iran because we want more power and control. This ego-driven need for power and control is willing to kill people, ruin people’s lives, destroy countries, crush our economy, and do many other terrible things just in hunger for more power.

Sadly there are also great financial benefits to corporations who profit from wars. Leaders who seek more power and control drive these companies. Our defense budget is 100% about having more power and control. All the military leadership is about gaining more power and control. Many corporations are run by the ego’s need for power and control rationalized as seeking profits.

We have a world run by those who care most about power and control. This world is a reflection of our fears. We elect people who we think will protect us from our fears. This makes for: more money for bombs than education; a government run by people who only care about power and control; people having their homes taken away; a large percentage of our population in prison; a great inequality in resources; elections dominating by the funds to keep corporations in power and control; a health care system based on power and control not on healthcare for all; laws that take away our legal rights and allow us to be detain indefinitely; and ultimately the decline of a once great nation caught in the ego battles for more power and control.

The Occupy Movement, which is being suppressed by those who want power and control, is the first hopeful movement in many years because it stands up to the ego domination in this country. Peace rallies and marches do very little to stop wars and to bring about significant change these days because the dominate mindset is about fear and the need for more power and control.

It is time we come up with some more effective strategies. There are no clear answers to breaking the cycle of ego’s need for domination except by removing the ego from the drivers seat in our government and in our corporations. Change in governmental leadership can only come by eliminating the influence moneys of those who are seeking power and control over our government.  Election reform is essential because the buying and selling of influence is very destructive to a democracy. Corporate rights need to be shifted away from personhood to serving the needs of the people.

Fear is the other aspect of the ego’s power over the world. When the ego wants more power it simply does what it does best - it spreads fear. People will give all their power away if they are afraid. Therefore governments seeking power, corporations seeking power all use the same tactic. They spread fear. This all adds up to the ego running the world and no one stands up and says we have had enough. It is time we move past the old manipulation of fear and see the more accurate truth of power seeking running the world.

The deeper truth is that if we all stand together there is nothing to fear. We human beings have much more in common than differences. We all hope for a better world, we want the best for those we love, and we all want to have love, joy and peace in our lives. Together we can bring an end to the dominance of the ego-mind and instead live with compassion and caring for our fellow human beings.

Let’s all begin 2012 by being mindful when our egos want to run our lives. We know when the ego is in charge because we are afraid. We know when the ego is not in charge because we feel love, hope, and peace of mind. Our emotional state will reflect our mental state. A healthy mind run by our higher nature is about peace and joy. 

We can bring peace to the world by finding the peace within.



Nine Ideas To Make 2012 A Year Of Positive Changes

The beach walk this sunny morning was nice. I found a really beautiful agate as I walked and enjoyed the cool fresh air. 

I wanted to continue on my theme yesterday about finding hope. How do we build hope into this next year? 2012 is supposed to be an important year in human history. My belief is that are minds are very powerful and that if we decide to make 2012 a powerful year, we will. I propose that we put together some positive ideas for 2012 and bring our collective minds and hearts together to make this year the most powerful in human history. 

Nine Ideas For 2012:

1. Redirect the dominance of greed in the economic sector towards how can we make a positive difference for all humanity.
2. Redirect the money influence in elections to funds for healthcare for all, to end hunger and homelessness, and others acts of compassion and kindness.
3. Commit to taking better care of the planet through developing others sources of energy and going greener.
4. Make education a priority by expanding creative expression, values exploration, and successful communications and reducing the importance of test scores.
5. Put people to work by creating a meaningful work initiative, there is much that needs to be done for the good of communities.
6. End corporate personhood and instead make all corporations accountable to the people and the planet.
7. Change the idea of endless growth as the savior of humanity to careful growth with future generations in mind.
8. Change politics towards honesty, finding solutions, and truly serving the needs of the people.
9. Make peace a priority and stop ruining our nation’s financial well being by spending trillions of dollars on killing machines.

What would you change or add?

We all can make a difference.

Finding Hope Where You Can

It is time for us to find hope. Hope comes from inside of us but can be triggered by the words and ideas of others. There are many people who are thinking in ways that make me feel encouraged about the future of humanity.  If you watch the nightly news and think that is the only truth about what is going on, you miss out on people who are thinking in expanded ways. The expanded thinkers don't make it on the news but their ideas should be the nightly headlines.

Recently, I have felt hope inside thanks to having an open mind to expansive ideas. Here are a few I wanted to share with you today: 

On Huffington Post there is a series of 18 TED Talks that are being presented because of the influential ideas that will help shape 2012.  Check this series out: the talk today is exceptional by Brene’ Brown

There is a young man named Chris Guillebeau who writes about the art of non-comformity has a new manifesto worth reading if by chance you want an extraordinary life. The manifesto is called The Tower. The Tower will help you think big about what matters to you.

Many of the TED Talks, which you can find on YouTube, are exceptional. There will help you expand your mind and open your heart.  One of my favorites lately has been Sir Ken Robinson on the importance of creativity. If you are concerned about education, this talk will be enlightening.

I am sure you will enjoy the ideas above. Hope really begins inside from being full present and from being open in mind and heart.  When we are present and open, we are available to hope and that makes us feel better. What gives you hope? Are you hopeful for 2012?



Fascinated By The Flow

Late in the afternoon yesterday I ran along the mouth of the Alsea River, which pours into the Pacific Ocean through a sleepy Oregon town called Walport. The tide was going out and I was running along the powerful current that was rambunctiously interacting with the ocean in the form of waves in every direction and whirlpools. The energy of the flow was amazing.  I can still feel it as I write this almost four hours later.

Flow is a word I love because it feels so alive and in the moment. I was thinking about the kind of flows that happen in our life.

There is the timeline flow from birth until the big chill.

There is the flow that is us before this lifetime and will continue on for infinity.

There is the flow of our breath that when watched is called meditation.

There is the flow of the love in a variety of relationships we enter into and sometimes exit in a bumpy way.

There is the flow of blood in its dance with our heart.

There is the flow of energy on meridian pathways called chi.

There is the flow of inspiration that comes to us when we create.

There is the flow of prosperity when we tap into a greater source.

There is the flow of night to day and the cycles of the moon.

There is the flow of insights when we are open to growth.

And all the other wonderous flows we are blessed to partake in.

 It is a wonderful feeling to tap into the flow of the gifts of life with appreciation and gratitude?

Still feeling the high current of the ocean/river merging I feel myself wandering how we create a flow in our own life? The flows above are part of our lives but what if we want to make something happen? Can our intention create a flow? Can living our purpose be a powerful flow?

What flows do I want to create as something I leave with the planet when I come to the end of my time as a physical body. Several flow projects come to mind immediately:

One is an ever-expanding flow of compassion and loving-kindness. This flow is innate within us if we keep our hearts open. If we close down along the way and many of us do sometime or another, then how can we find the way to take down the walls and let the flow go? More loving-kindness and compassion would be a really good thing at this point in human history.

Another flow is toward higher consciousness, which is part of the plan of our soul. Abraham Maslow, who studied what was healthy about people, believed we have to continue to grow to feel okay about ourselves. That makes sense and awareness and insight into who we are expands our consciousness. The more conscious we become the more the collective consciousness expands. That would also be a good thing.

I seem to have arrived at the similar two important topics as I did in yesterday’s blog post. Maybe this is about how do I enter into a greater flow living vibrantly and purposefully with these two directions of compassion and loving-kindness, and expanding consciousness? I know they are both needed. I also know I have a passion for them and the skills to deliver.