The Truth of the Matter IS

What is truth? How do we find truth? If we find it, can we communicate it?

According to Plato: When the mind's eye rests on objects illuminated by truth and reality, it understands and comprehends them, and functions intelligently; but when it turns to the twilight world of change and decay, it can only form opinions, its vision is confused and its beliefs shifting, and it seems to lack intelligence. (Plato, Republic)

To Spinoza, ultimate truth is the ultimate reality of a rationally ordered system that is God. To Hegel, truth is a rationally integrated system in which everything is contained. To Einstein, the truth of the Universe is human truth.

Modern day philosopher, Ken Wilber, believes that there is a nondual, absolute truth, that can only be accessed by Satori, and a relative or conventional truth, that is formed by our place in the nested hierarchy of being (each higher of which includes the ones beneath it, creating a series of nested holons.) Each holon has its own validity claim, its own relative partial, but still totally authentic truth. Because as a group, we are in different levels of awareness, or different holons in the great nest, we have different relative truths.

According to Wilber, the absolute is known only by a direct realization involving a transformation in consciousness (satori, sahaj, metanoia), and "what" is seen in satori cannot be stated in ordinary dualistic words, other than metaphors, poetry, and hints (if you want to know God, you must awaken, not merely theorize).

What do YOU think?

Trust Lost, Earned and Achieved

What is trust, and why is it important to us? We all know people who can't trust, who often expect things to go bad, ignore what they know, leap quickly into action without accessing the risk, and push others away. What can we do to develop trust?

"Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement."
- Golda Meir

Trusting yourself can be a matter of listening to your own inner voice as a source of wisdom and strength. We can do this as long as doubt and fear do not get in the way, with questions like: what if I am making a mistake? What was I thinking? Why would anyone listen to me? Developing self trust can take a great deal of patience and self-forgiveness. We first must learn to minimize our regrets and see our mistakes as opportunities. We need to rely on confidence instead of approval.

"Wise men put their trust in ideas and not in circumstances" Ralph Waldo Emerson

By advising us to trust the ideas of men, not the events in their lives, Emerson expresses his belief that history was biography. This is a form of trusting others outside of convention, namely, trusting in the ideas of men and how they shape our lives.

"No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence." TS Eliot

Trust between people is the most widely studied form of trust. Stanford's Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines trust as: an attitude that we have towards people whom we hope will be trustworthy, where trustworthiness is a property, not an attitude. For trust to be warranted (i.e. plausible) in a relationship, the parties to that relationship must have attitudes toward one another that are conducive to trusting one another. Moreover, for trust to be warranted (i.e. well-grounded), both parties ought to be trustworthy.

"I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish He didn't trust me so much." Mother Teresa

We see from this statement by Mother Teresa, that trust in something greater than ourselves, in a divine organization to life, or in God can work both ways. Having faith that everything will be alright, that tomorrow will come or that the Lord provides, are all examples of trust in creation.

What do YOU think?

Drive Your Intuition Like a Muscle Car

Have you ever known who was calling before you picked up the phone, or known what you needed to do even though it defied logical explanation? Have you ever had a dream about an event before it occurred? Or dreamt the answer to a problem you could not solve while awake? What is intuition? Why is it important to us?

According to Diana Whitmore, in her book, Psychosynthesis in Education a working hypothesis is that the Self is at the core of the superconscious, just as the 'I' or personal self is at the core of the personality and its various functions (physical, emotional and mental). Interaction between the Self and the 'I' can occur or flow in either direction. When the contents of the superconscious descend into our conscious experience, we receive inspiration, intuition, insight and or peak experiences. These moments happen to us, particularly when we least expect them or have not been actively seeking them. However, the flow may also occur in the other direction, through elevating our personality, through consciously aspiring, in a realistic, grounded and purposeful way, towards the heights or depths of our being.

Frances E. Vaughan, in her book, Awakening Intuition, believes that if you are willing to confront the fears that arise when you are faced with letting go of some cherished illusion, then intuition allows you to know things as they are. At this point, when you have made commitment to your own inner truth, you may be increasingly willing to follow the guidance of intuition rather than try to use it to fulfill egotistical desires. The steady pursuit of self-knowledge leads eventually to a self-transcendence in which personal needs and desires are seen in a larger perspective. The intuitive realization that one is part of a larger whole, inseparable from the environment in which one lives, and that being is essentially the same in everyone, albeit in an infinite variety of patterns and forms, allows one to see oneself and the universe as an interdependent unit.

What do YOU think?

Developing Generosity of Spirit

Have you ever been a victim of circumstance? Or do you get what's coming to you every single time?

"Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," Galatians VI. It is said that this means that your thoughts and deeds, good or bad, will repay you in kind. What you give, you get back. The thoughts and feelings that occupy your mind, will attract circumstances to your life of the same quality.

Another example: You may love some people and dislike others. You are, therefore, sowing mixed seeds. Therefore, what you reap will be equally mixed, blessings and suffering. Can you see this law of cause and effect in your life? If you can find a way to see everyone in their highest potential, to see the good in all, would you reach the abundance in life that for many, represents heaven on earth? By seeing the good in all, would all good come your way?

Without question, the world can be an unfriendly and cold place to live. Encouraging others around us so that they can shine is a gift that we all can offer each other. In fact, is there really a better gift to extend? When we remember that it is more important to extend love than to be number one or front and center, we express our belief in the importance of being generous of spirit.

What do YOU think?

Artwork by Nancy Standlee. Many thanks.

The Torch of Our Passions

Much has been said about passion by many of the world's finest thinkers:

"The will to overcome a passion is in the end merely the will of another or several other passions." - Friedrich Nietzsche

"Our passions are the true phoenixes; when the old one is burnt out, a new one rises from its ashes." - Goethe

"Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafairing soul, if either your sails or your redder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in the mid-seas. For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction." - Kahlil Gibran

Passion is the fire that burns inside you. It is the driving force that keeps you going. It is a high! It is contagious! We are multi-faceted beings. Most people have many passions. What are YOU passionate about? Take a moment, daydream, tell us what sparks your passion.

Success is Always Best When Shared

The future is bright. Because the future is created by positive people.

Those who are negative make a lot of noise about how bad things are. Those who are positive quietly and steadily make a lot of real improvements and contributions to life.

There are always problems and there are always challenges. And there are always people willing to transform those challenges into great opportunities.

Those who have the courage, commitment and discipline to follow their own best dreams, bring the rest of the world along with them. Those who choose to do the best they can with what they have, create a better life for everyone.

For every high-profile guru of doom who wails about how hopeless and unfair life is, there are millions of others working tirelessly to make life better than ever. For every frightening crisis that is breathlessly reported, there are millions of real, meaningful success stories that don't get noticed, but that do have enormous positive influence.

Negative people obsess over the past while positive people work their way eagerly toward the future. Life gets better and better when you choose to make it so, and the future is bright indeed. - Ralph Marston

What is YOUR latest success story?

Artwork by Cindy Hesse - Many thanks.

Understanding Acceptance and Resistance

In a world filled with war, crime, violence and anger, how do we act when confronted with it? It is easy enough to aspire to peace, but how can we actually live peacefully when the world presents otherwise? Is a peaceful action always the best response? If not, are war and violence in perfect order?

In words of the Hindu sage Vivekananda, two ways are left open to us--the way of the ignorant, who think that there is only one way to truth and that all the rest are wrong, and the way of the wise, who admit that, according to our mental constitution or the different planes of existence in which we are, duty and morality may vary. The important thing is to know that there are gradations of duty and of morality--that the duty of one state of life, in one set of circumstances, will not and cannot be that of another.

In the Bhagavad-Gita, Sri Krishna calls Arjuna a hypocrite and a coward because of his refusal to fight. This is a great lesson for us all to learn, that in all matters the two extremes are alike. The extreme positive and the extreme negative are always similar.

The story tells us that one man does not resist because he is weak, lazy, and cannot, not because he will not; the other man knows that he can strike a fatal blow if he likes; yet he not only does not strike, but blesses his enemies. The one who from weakness resists not commits a sin, and as such cannot receive any benefit from the non-resistance; while the other would commit a sin by offering resistance.

When the vibrations of light are too slow, we do not see them, nor do we see them when they are too rapid. So with sound; when very low in pitch, we do not hear it; when very high, we do not hear it either. The difference between resistance and non-resistance is of like nature.

What do YOU think?

Finding Peace in the Midst of Change

Both for individuals and for organizations, the skills that we most need to learn in order to survive and thrive are the skills of dealing with change. When we look at the trends underlying the rate of change - trends within society, demographic forces, technological shifts - nothing suggests that this is going to get easier. In fact, as we look forward into the new century, every indication is that the ride will get much wilder. Do you feel that you have the capacity for more change? Can you find peace in the midst of it?

The more variables there are that are changing and interacting, the more turbulent our future, and the less we can predict it. So we have to prepare for it in a different way. Surviving and thriving in a turbulent environment calls for a particular skill set. These skills are more than a certain philosophical bent, or a quirk of personality. They are actual methods, tools, ways of seeing that work in turbulent environments. Some of the less obvious skills needed to facilitate change in our lives are:

Capacity For Paradox: The skill of entertaining two opposing ideas at the same time, as the raftsman maintains his balance in the midst of the rushing river - not because of the river or in spite of the river, but with it. Here as elsewhere, the answer is not in the answer, but in the question. The question here is: "What would happen if I did not try to resolve this, but just let it be a paradox?"

Zanshin: the skill of sustaining relationships. Sustaining relationships strengthens your network before you need it, gives you an "early warning system," and generates ideas you could never have thought up yourself. The question here is, "Who am I talking to these days? Who could I call?"

Anamnesis: The skill of keeping touch with what is deep and constant in the midst of change. This allows you to maintain your balance and keep contact with your true goals. The question, for individuals, families and organizations, is: What are your deepest values? How do those deep values inform the way you react to change?

What do YOU think?

The Artist, The Art and YOU

What is the role of the artist in 2008? Is there one beyond personal expression? Is there a social role for an artist to play, and if he does, does it even matter to anyone other than to those to whom the artwork speaks? Or is art holographic in nature, bringing us to a different state of being each time we enter, and the artist's only role: creator?

The writer (Lolita) Vladimir Nabokov said, "A work of art has no importance whatever to society. It is only important to the individual."

Fredrich Nietzsche felt that art had a broader value: "Art is essentially the affirmation, the blessing, and the deification of existence."

Andy Warhol disrupted the common views of the role each artist should play in their art. With Warhol's Brillo there is absolutely no sign of the artist's hand or that this piece was even made by an artist. Since he uses different techniques than traditional artists, at times he may never touch the piece at all and it still will be credited to him. This is a complete turn around from what was once expected from the artist. Skill is no longer involved, it is much more about content, appearance, and processes. Now many artists, such as Chihuly and Oldenburg follow in the footsteps of Warhol, by acting as designer, and letting the actual making of their art work be the job of their hired contractors, laborers and apprentices.

Artist such as Van Gogh and Rembrandt are thought to have especially personal art because the "artist's hand" or brushstrokes are visible throughout their pieces, showing their inner emotions. This personal quality of is often said to be why their paintings sell at such high prices. The same can be said of Jackson Pollock's work.

There are those that believe the artist has a higher calling. Carl Jung believed, "Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. To perform this difficult office it is sometimes necessary for him to sacrifice happiness and everything that makes life worth living for the ordinary human being."

Joseph Campbell said, "The role of the artist I now understood as that of revealing through the world-surfaces the implicit forms of the soul."

What do YOU think?

Artwork by Nancy Standlee Many thanks.

Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

Do you find yourself speechless because the communication around you is edgy or hostile? Do you often think of things that could have been said afterward? How do you talk to others whose only concern is their own agenda?

Dr. Marshall B. Rosenberg is founder and director of educational services for The Center for Nonviolent Communication, an international, non-profit organization, and has been developing his practices for compassionate communication since the 1960s. Nonviolent Communication (NVC) helps connect us with what is alive in ourselves and in others moment-to-moment, with what we or others could do to make life more wonderful, and with an awareness of what gets in the way of natural giving and receiving.

Whenever we become disconnected from our compassionate nature, whenever our hearts are not devoid of hatred in all of its forms, we have a tendency to act in ways that can cause pain for everyone in our lives, including ourselves.

Nonviolence, Dr. Rosenberg tells us, does not refer to the mere absence of physical harm. It is a way of life that takes its lead from a compassionate and connected heart, and can guide us toward a more complete and happy way of being. It is a practice rooted in understanding, in living honestly, and in acting empathically with all beings. It requires nonjudgmental observation, separating feeling from thought, assessing and meeting need, and making clear and concrete requests for action.

As Mahatma Gandhi said, "Nonviolence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our very being."

What do YOU think?

Sharing a Laugh and a Smile

Some say laughter is the quickest way to change our mood or thinking. How often do you laugh? Can you laugh at yourself? Do you intentionally seek laughter to change your mood? Is laughter of value in your life, or just a natural reaction to stimuli?

Marshall Brain has studied laughter and tells us that the average adult laughs 17 times a day. When we laugh heartily, changes occur in many parts of the body, even the arm, leg and trunk muscles. Laughter seems to be produced via a circuit that runs through many regions of the brain. (This means that damage to any of these regions can impair one's sense of humor and response to humor, experts say.)

• The left side of the cortex (the layer of cells that covers the entire surface of the forebrain) analyzed the words and structure of the joke.
• The brain's large frontal lobe, which is involved in social emotional responses, became very active.
• The right hemisphere of the cortex carried out the intellectual analysis required to "get" the joke.
• Brainwave activity then spread to the sensory processing area of the occipital lobe (the area on the back of the head that contains the cells that process visual signals).
• Stimulation of the motor sections evoked physical responses to the joke.

Behavioral neurobiologist and pioneering laughter researcher Robert Provine believes that laughter is a decidedly social signal, not an egocentric expression of emotion. In the absence of stimulating media (television, radio or books), people are about 30 times more likely to laugh when they are in a social situation than when they are alone. Humor that creates laughter in these situations may be:

The incongruity theory suggests that humor arises when logic and familiarity are replaced by things that don't normally go together.

The relief theory - an actual story or situation creates tension within us. As we try to cope with two sets of emotions and thoughts, we need a release and laughter is the way of cleansing our system of the built-up tension and incongruity.

In some respects laughter may be a signal of dominance/submission or acceptance/rejection. Consider the distinction between laughing with and laughing at someone.

The superiority theory comes into play when we laugh at jokes that focus on someone else's mistakes, stupidity or misfortune.

A speaker, in other cases, may buffer an aggressive comment with laughter or deliver a remark using "laugh-speak," a consciously controlled hybrid of laughter and speech. In this sense laughter may modify the behavior of others by shaping the emotional tone of a conversation.

Laughter, in its highest form, can also be intentionally used to uplift the spirits of others, as in the case of clowns and comedians who visit hospitals and hospices to bring smiles to those in most need of them. In the Presence of Humor: A Guide to the Humorous Life by Cy Eberhart is a systematic and comprehensive guide, written to increase your ability to find and achieve the humorous life by activating your comic viewpoint. It's designed to help you realize the spiritual strengths that come from experiencing the humor present in your living.

What do YOU think?

The Marriage of Shiva and Neville's Imagination

When our world seems to fall apart and things start going wrong, what do we do? Do we blame ourselves or someone else? Do we start searching for causes and solutions? Do we hold on to our faith in Divine Will and believe that it will all work out?

The notion of the old dying and giving way for something new is as old as the ancient Hindu traditions, where Shiva is the destroyer of the world, following Brahma the creator and Vishnu the preserver, after which Brahma again creates the world and so on. Shiva is responsible for change both in the form of death and destruction and in the positive sense of the shedding of old habits.

Modern theories of deconstruction include Phenomenology, the philosophy founded by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, who say that the method of defining phenomenon includes three steps -- reduction, construction, and deconstruction -- and they explain that these three are mutually pertinent to one another. In the deconstruction, every object shows itself as a set of possibilities, not merely as a determinate thing. To see a particular object is to see it in terms of possibilities.

So while it seems that our experience is falling apart, possibility is also arising. If we can focus on the new possibility coming into our experience, instead of focusing on the old that no longer serves us and will fall away with change if we allow, we can see that all experience is experience of more, of possibility.

Neville Goddard believes that once we recognize the possibility, imagination is the key to creating our best possible lives. In his book, Awakened Imagination, he says: "The world presents different appearances according as our states of consciousness differ. What we see when we are identified with a state cannot be seen when we are no longer fused with it. By state is meant all that man believes and consents to as true. The world is a revelation of the states with which imagination is fused. It is the state from which we think that determines the objective world in which we live. If we detach ourselves from a state, and we may at any moment, the conditions and circumstances to which that union gave being vanish. The imaginative man does not deny the reality of the sensuous outer world of Becoming, but he knows that it is the inner world of continuous Imagination that is the force by which the sensuous outer world of Becoming is brought to pass."

What do YOU think?

Artwork by Robert Parker Many thanks.

Follow Your Bliss Like Joseph Campbell

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, or behavior, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us. 'Tis good to give a stranger a meal, or a night's lodging. 'Tis better to be hospitable to his good meaning and thought, and give courage to a companion." But just what is it that he suggests we scatter around? What role does joy play in our lives and what does it mean to you?

Hasidism emphasizes joy as a precondition to elevated spiritual awareness, and teaches the avoidance of melancholy at all costs. The consciousness of a loving, ever-present Creator should lead to a feeling of profound joy. Therefore the appropriate mood for worship is one of good cheer; whereas suffering impedes a proper relationship with God.

Joseph Campbell, contemporary theologian and best known for his study of mythology, tells his students, "Follow your bliss. Find where it is, and don't be afraid to follow it. Now, I came to this idea of bliss because in Sanskrit, which is the great spiritual language of the world, there are three terms that represent the brink, the jumping-off place to the ocean of transcendence: sat-chit-ananda. The word "Sat" means being. "Chi" means consciousness. "Ananda" means bliss or rapture. I thought, 'I don't know whether my consciousness is proper consciousness or not; I don't know whether what I know of my being is my proper being or not; but I do know where my rapture is. So let me hang on to rapture, and that will bring me both my consciousness and my being.' I think it worked.

Bliss, joy and rapture seem to be interchangeable when they are associated with higher consciousness. The change in state of consciousness in Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam is reported to be quite similar. The pursuit of yoga and the Buddhist Jhanas involve feelings of oneness with the world that give rise to a state of rapture. Christians also look at creation another way from the standpoint of Christ consciousness, rather than considering creation and life from a material perspective. Experiencing God through Christ enables the unit mind to arrive gracefully at the source of thought, the pure consciousness of God where everything is united and one.

What do YOU think?

Artwork by Aerten Caislean Many thanks.

Making the World a Better Place

Social responsibility is on the minds of many of us. How can we make the world a better place? Is this our duty, as Jean Paul Sarte and the existentialists believed? How can we fit our contribution to the greater community into our busy lives as we struggle with survival and self expression, daily?

Clare W. Graves, Ph.D, was a visionary thinker who began laying the groundwork for the theory behind the Spiral Dynamics application in the 1950s. His theory suggests that every individual or collective consciousness falls somewhere in, between, or among these various levels of being which are not types of people but ways of thinking about a thing.

Graves breaks it into one of nine groups called MEMEs, and assigns a color to each. Beige is the first, this group is involved solely in survival and would have no time to consider social responsibility. The green MEME has the greatest involvement in social issues, as their survival needs are met and their main concerns are harmony/love; joining together for mutual growth; awareness; belonging. The last MEMEs up the spiral, turquoise and coral, go beyond the physical social involvement and contribute to society in ways that involve consciousness more than doing. According to Graves, all groups contribute to life as we know it in valuable and significant ways. It is the dynamic between that creates the life spiral known as evolutionary consciousness.

Future By Design, an organization dedicated to reformulating the operation definition of a better world by introducing coherent planning strategies that are applicable to global and small groups alike, is a good example of green MEME work. Their credo: To constantly maximize existing and future technologies with the sole purpose of enhancing all human life and protecting the environment.

A good example of the work of the turquoise MEME is Dr. Bruce Lipton, the biophysicist who identified the two way communication of unique signals from our cell membranes into our experiential awareness.

An example of the coral MEME would be Neville Goddard, twentieth century mystic, who taught self realization through recognition: "The ideal you seek and hope to attain will not manifest itself, will not be realized by you, until you have imagined that you are already that ideal." We hold the space, imagine the world of our desire, and live from our awakened imagination. What do YOU think?

Illness and Healing, What Do We Know?

Hippocrates , the father of modern medicine, tells us that, "healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity." We all know that when we are not feeling well, we want to heal, and there are myriad resources available to us for help. But what is healing? How do we choose the best resource from the overwhelming amount of information available?

Harvard Medical School online dictionary defines healing as:

1 : to make sound or whole especially in bodily condition
2 : to cure of disease or disorder <heal injured tissues>
intransitive verb
1 : to return to a sound state heals>
2 : to effect a cure

The National Cancer Institute online dictionary defines cure as: To heal or restore health; a treatment to restore health.

It may be that to understand healing, we need to understand illness. Dr. Bernie Siegal, MD and author of several books on health and healing says, "There is no incurable disease from which someone has not recovered, even at the threshold of death." If one person has the innate capability to overcome a particular disease, the all of us must have that same ability.

In his book, Healing Crisis, Dr. Bruce Fife tells us that the symptoms of the healing crisis are the same as those of an illness. For this reason, the healing crisis is greatly misunderstood and often believed to be an illness that must be treated to restore health. The healing crisis is a positive event, a sign of improving health. According to Fife, "when the body experiences dramatic symptoms of cleansing as a result of improved organ function and immune efficiency, it is referred to as a healing crisis - healing, because it expels toxins and brings about improvement in health, crisis because the symptoms associated with the toxic removal can be dramatic." What do YOU think?

Energy Healing and Western Medicine

The "life force," often called "energy" in Western culture, is the substance that permeates and bonds all. It is sometimes referred to as the "vital force." In China, it is called Qi; in India it is called prana. It is believed the "life force" extends throughout the universe and that the individual is part of an indivisible whole. The belief is that because the "life force" permeates everything, an individual is unavoidably affected by external events and energies. Thus, treatment of the individual should consider the mind/body/spirit interaction as well as an overall connection to the universe.

Energy healing is based on the belief that our "life force" creates energy fields that are unbalanced during emotional or physical disease. Because our energy fields are part of an interconnected whole, the use of focused intention by one individual can aid in the health and well being of another. Many individuals use their own individual means of directing their intention to heal.

An interesting feature of energy healing is that it may be performed over distances of thousands of miles. The "life force" claimed to be transmitted by energy healers does not have the properties of any known form of energy., comparable practice to energy healing that is used frequently in the West is prayer. A 1996 survey showed that 82 percent of Americans believed in the healing power of prayer. A survey of patients in American Cancer Society support groups for breast cancer found that 88 percent experienced beneficial effects of spiritual and religious practice.

In an effort to incorporate Western sciences' need for physical proof, studies have been performed on the impact of energy healing on living, isolated cells as opposed to human subjects. According to the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in the U.S., many of the studies on isolated cells are inadequately controlled, are published as incomplete reports, or are published in non-reviewed journals. Of 23 clinical trials involving energy healing that did meet a rigorous criteria requiring adequate design, control and review procedures, 57 percent have shown a beneficial effect. This caused authors reviewing the studies to conclude that the "evidence thus far merits further study."

Indeed there is growing interest and evidence for alternative health exploration based on a "life force," wholeness, and interconnections. The National Institutes of Health has established a Center that is devoted to research in the area of Complementary and Alternative Medicine. The budget is growing rapidly and research into areas such as energy healing and prayer is being encouraged. Several large clinical trials, especially on the effects of prayer, are now underway in major academic institutions across the U.S. Through science, researchers eventually hope to better understand how energy healing practices may be incorporated into Western medical practices. What do YOU think?

Time and the Transformation of Consciousness

Some people believe time is speeding up. For instance, time seems to be flying by faster than ever, or what used to take several years to accomplish now seems to be taking place in just a couple. You may have changed more in the past two years than you did in the five years before that. When more personal growth is crammed into a shorter amount of time, it appears that things have picked up pace and more ground is being covered more quickly.

In the 2012 paradigm, this idea serves to correlate the prophesied dissolution of time, or a change in our perception of time. Yes, there's more to it and the bottom line is the Mayan calendar is tracking the evolution of consciousness through nine sequentially ordered cycles of creation. The nine steps aren't linear which means you wouldn't lay them out end-to-end in a linear fashion. They are instead holographic in nature. All nine levels are nested into each other like a set of mixing bowls. That's how this calendar actually works. Each step up the nine leveled pyramid expands and develops the previous level with a 20 times faster frequency that continually drives evolution forward.

In his book The Mayan Calendar and the Transformation of Consciousness, Carl Johan Calleman offers this idea: "The liberation of human beings from the negative effects of the frequency increase, such as stress, is a matter of entering the natural, nonphysical, divine flow of creation leading toward enlightenment. Today more than ever before, people are becoming aware of the stressful effects of subordinating their lives to physical time." What do YOU think?

Loving Our Pets and Other Creatures

Knowing who we are and our place in the world can involve more than understanding our relationships with other people. Animals, birds, fish and other creatures have always been known to bring peace and love into our lives. How do pets and other creatures give us an insight into our spiritual dynamic as we develop our relationships with them? What value do they bring into our lives?

According to Linda Kohanov, author of the Tao of Equus, and founder of Epona Equestrian Services, where people explore the potential of horse/human relationships: "Through a holistic approach to the equestrian arts, people explore assertiveness, stress reduction and emotional fitness skills, strengthening self-esteem and personal empowerment in the process. Consensus-building relationship models teach people how to take the reins of any situation without lapsing into the pitfalls of dominance, alienation, intimidation or victimization."

Anne Rudloe, Ph.D. is the Managing Director of Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratory where she has led its transformation into an award winning non-profit environmental center and public aquarium. Rudloe has made a career of exploring the sacred nature of the relationships between people and the creatures of the sea. According to Rudloe, in her book Butterflies and Sea Wind: "Our place in this life, our only place, is wherever we find ourselves in each instant. An effort is made and results arise. The energy will go where the energy needs to go. The only thing to do is live life without any resentment toward life and to pay attention to whatever teachers arise."

What do YOU think?

Artwork by Shirley Rappaport Many thanks.