In my last post, "The Story of the New Humanity," I offered some thoughts about the challenges and opportunities we, as a species, face in this time of great transition, here at the beginning of a new millennium.

"Say not, 'I have found the truth,' but rather,...

The Story of the New Humanity: Part One

OK, humanity. Time to circle up and have our selves a little pep talk. This might take awhile, so pull up a chair, take out your notebooks and pens and turn to a clean sheet of paper. We'll be discussing this topic...

Greetings of the new year!

So, the Mayan "apocalypse" has come and gone, and we're still here. By the time you read this, America may have gone over the "fiscal cliff" or narrowly averted doing so, and we'll all be standing around scratching our heads wondering what's going to...

And so this time is upon us: This time of the great ending. This time of the great beginning. This time of the great awakening. This time of the Mayan prophecy. This time when time is between times.

Today, Dec. 12, 2012, is the day when the portal to...

It's that time of year again when for many people, after a year of pinching pennies, all that carefully cultivated restraint goes out the window and something primal is triggered: the holiday shopping gene!

First, two confessions:

Confession #1: I am completing my fifth year as a recovering...

That we all live inside our own self-created reality, or "bubble," was never more powerfully demonstrated than in the presidential election last week.

There are many lessons to be taken from the outcome, and no doubt political operatives on both sides will be sifting through the data...

As a resident of California, I'm told that my vote doesn't really matter. The state is as blue as it gets, it'll go for President Obama whether I vote or not, so why bother to vote? It's not like the election is going to hang on my vote, or yours...

From our earliest experiences, we learn from our environment that certain emotions and behaviors are best kept under wraps. In the process of learning how to smooth out the edges of our uncivilized, untamed selves, much to our parents' and teachers' relief, over time we gradually become "domesticated."

We learn...

"One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious." -- Carl Jung

Recently, on Facebook, I shared a link to an article that appeared on my news feed: "Why I Don't Say Namaste," published in the Elephant Journal, an...

Lately, I've been thinking about the role that hope plays in the human experience. I've been of mixed minds. Is hope useful, or is it a waste of time? Does hope give people anything substantial to cling to, or is it like cotton candy, sweet and satisfying in the moment,...

Every human being who ever walked the earth has his or her own collection of beliefs, attitudes, opinions, behaviors and stories that speak to their struggle for self-realization and to their disbelief in themselves. We all harbor beliefs that affirm our smallness and deny our greatness and thus come up...

Africa, the birthplace of the first human, may just hold the key to the survival of humanity. How fitting and appropriate that the country where homo erectus was first identified is also the birthplace of the philosophy that points the way toward a sustainable future for us, its offspring.

No,...

"My mother used to tell us in the mornings, 'Carl, put on your shoes; Oscar, you put on your prosthetic legs' ... So I grew up not really thinking I had a disability. I grew up thinking I had different shoes." -- South African runner Oscar Pistorius,...

And now the darkness of these times brings a recognition. It is a time for reckoning, or as my friend would say, a "come to Jesus."

Boys and girls, you and me, all of us, each of us, we have reached a critical moment in our story. We've come...

Having recently entered my eighth decade of life, I am increasingly aware of how precious it is each and every day. And I am acutely aware that, as far as my time spent on this earthly plane, there are far fewer days ahead of me than those already behind.

May I live this day compassionate of heart, clear in word, gracious in awareness, courageous in thought, generous in love. -- John O'Donohue, author of To Bless the Space Between Us

It was 1 a.m. as I left the training center and walked the two blocks back to my apartment....

"I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen...

"When the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold. They believe that when something's suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful." -- Billie Mobayed

Can a soul lose its way or be broken? And if so, what can one...

Want to know how to discover and mine the lessons of your soul's journey? Sit down with a journal (or use a tape recorder) and begin to write or tell the story of your life, starting with the first major event you recall that left an impact. It might help...

I've been thinking a lot about paradise lately, especially since I've just returned from a place that spoke so loudly of it, I have to call it Paradise, as in, capital P Paradise.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to be able to find paradise when you're smack dab...