Religion and Beliefs
In many respects, a New Year's Resolution is a kind of mantra. But, like mantras, resolutions must be practiced daily if you're serious about them becoming your way of living.
Efforts to suppress nature-based beliefs and practices have been tremendously successful. Those who believe that there are spiritual beings or forces in nature have been denigrated as primitive and superstitious.
Long ago, the Kabbalah knew that creativity was housed in the right brain and analytical thought in the left. The Sefer Yetzirah is a guidebook that explains the tools and techniques that are required to enter these different states.
WHAT'S HAPPENING
Anti-gay activist Peter LaBarbera billed his three-day "Truth Academy," which took place in a Chicago exurb last week, as "one of the most thorough pro-family, educational seminars on homosexuality ever held in the United States."
In the past, Afghanistan has been home to Zoroastrian, Hindu, Buddhist, as well as Muslim communities. All these traditions flourished in harmony -- until the 20th century.
Honoring the solstice can remind us just how precious each day and season is, because the truth of its passing away is also acknowledged.