What do you consider spiritual? When you think of the word spiritual what is it that comes to mind for you? For me it has always brought up things like meditation, magic, the idea of the Divine and the sense of something I cannot describe but I know on some level. However the whole notion of spirit and what is spiritual has dramatically shifted for me of late. I’ve come to realize that I’ve compartmentalized or limited my spirituality for most of my life creating a divergence between what is considered spiritual and everything else. The everything else was actually most of life and many aspects of my experience that are quite important to me.
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Posts Tagged ‘Spirituality’
Everything is Spirit
Wednesday, October 12th, 2011An amoral spirituality
Tuesday, June 28th, 2011
Lately I’ve been considering the question of morality and the role it has played in my life. Many people consider a sense of morality essential to living a healthy life and most human societies are based on some form of moral code. Usually these moral standards are derived from one of the major world religions or philosophical systems. Morality defines standards of behavior in a society and serves as a guideline in differentiating between right and wrong. We find it in the west in the form of the ten commandments and in the east in the form of the precepts of Buddhism as well as in many other forms. Its encoded into many of our legal systems and conditioned into us from an early age. There are many common elements between the standard moral codes in use today typically defining prohibitions like not killing, not stealing, not lying and not committing adultery. Many of these standards are hard to argue with because most would consider them common sense.
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The shadow side of the neo-shamanic movement
Thursday, June 9th, 2011
The use of psychoactive substances for healing, transformation and spiritual unfoldment is a phenomena that has been with us since the dawn of man. In a way you could say a culture is reflected in its choice of substances with the west being very much an alcohol, caffeine and nicotine culture (its all about uppers and downers). These are the approved and even promoted substances but there has always been a minority who experiment with substances that society does not endorse. There is a growing movement to have marijuana more accepted as a medicine and to legalize it for recreational use while it is already the most mainstream of the unapproved substances. Its medicinal and healing properties cannot be denied anymore than one can deny its potential for abuse.
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The Five Steps
Saturday, July 17th, 2010
As I’ve walked my spiritual path I’ve engaged in many practices, some more effective than others. I’ve found that the simplest techniques are usually the most effective because in my view the aim of the spiritual path is very simple and immediate. That aim is to realize our true nature, to return to wakefulness, to awaken from the dream of separate/dualistic life. On the path, we can get distracted by looking for the truth somewhere “out there” but I think the truth is right under our noses. Its right here, right now in this moment and it is life itself. It cannot really be spoken of but it can be lived. No special knowledge, talent or preparation is needed because it involves being what you already are at the deepest level. All that’s needed is to remember and to clear away anything that obscures what we truly are, that is, anything that distracts one from this moment. We just have to be interested in this process of awakening so that we are wiling to give it our full attention. The five steps I describe below are a tool I have used lately to help me return to my true nature when I forget.
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The Power of Awareness and Attention
Tuesday, May 4th, 2010
In the last couple of years I’ve moved around a great deal living in half a dozen living situations. In the process I’ve been looking at how I create security, stability and a feeling a safety in my life. During this time I had very few of the usual things most people associate with security and stability, things like a house, a car, a job, a long term relationship or money. I’ve had all of these things in the past but in my process of transformation had to temporarily let them go one by one. My intention in letting them go for a while was not because they are negative or problematic but rather to look at my attachment to them and my motivations in having them in my life. You see, all of these so called sources of security have also been sources of suffering for me. They have caused suffering because they are unreliable, temporary and fail to meet my expectations. One thing we can say for certain about external sources of security is that they are temporary, they do not last forever and they change, often in ways we don’t like.
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The Warrior Archetype and the Reemergence of the Goddess
Sunday, July 26th, 2009
For the past few thousand years we have lived in a patriarchal paradigm where the masculine has been over emphasized at the expense of the feminine. This has produced not only the oppression of women, constant war and violence but also inner conflict for both men and women as each struggles to be whole human beings in a world where an imbalanced ideal is cherished. The result of the over emphasis on the masculine has resulted in it taking a negative form as the feminine is devalued and even systematically repressed. This negative masculine form is cut off from its feminine side and so is out of balance and taken to an extreme in a futile attempt to compensate for the lack of grounding in the feminine. This is symbolized by two archetypal patterns in particular, that of the Negative Father and the Warrior. The Negative Father is the authoritarian head of the household who rules the family and is often the source of abuse, sexual misconduct and control. This pattern is also seen in the authoritarian governments that have become the norm where the government represents the ultimate controlling punitive father figure for its citizens. This isn’t to say all fathers fall into this pattern but it is symbolic of a key aspect of patriarchal power. As a counselor I see many clients who have a figure in their lives in the role of the Negative Father and much of their work in counseling involves working through trauma associated with that as well as reclaiming their power from that figure and this includes men and women.
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