As you approach the tension of the table. A thanksgiving thread.

Gentle reminder that you are part of a massive process the earth has been doing. A 4.5 billion year experiment in eternal life through an intelligent vehicle called evolution.

This process unfolds by trial and error, through crisis and innovation, by transcending and including prior forms with increasing complexity and differentiation.

Your family is no exception. Whether we are talking cultural or biological evolution, the long arc of evolution necessarily advances by the older generation conserving what came before while the next generation births the new “software” for what is yet to come.

Sometimes it helps to see that this is an unavoidable process of “roles” we play in this great universal drama. I know it can sometimes feel like an exhausting spectacle around the thanksgiving table but maybe it helps to be reminded that this is the eternal process we have been recruited into.

We all play our parts between the tension of these extremes. Developing the discernment to preserve what is beneficial; the gifts and wisdom of the ancestors, while simultaneously bringing forward the necessary new as we listen to the voices of the young. This tug-of-war is the engine of reality often moving back and forth yet forward over time.

None of us do this alone. We are all in concert as one, harmonizing as best we can. Not just around the table but around the world and throughout time. Nobody has the clear view in total and everybody matters.

Just wanted to remind us that when we expect it to be different than that, we make enemies of one another and double the suffering of what is already an essential evolutionary friction.

Deep respect to the ways you all walk the tightrope today. Love to you all. I’m thankful for this process and believe in us.

Age isn’t just a number

Sorry. Age isn't "just a number." Numbers aren't even just numbers. They're representative symbols that point to a reality.

Age represents the amount of time since you were born. Um, duh.

How you self limit based on the meaning you MAKE about your age is the issue. Aging is a gift and an opportunity to integrate all the wisdom from the experiences and lessons you have accumulated in the service of self and community. This is not a given. It is a potential that is up to you to activate.

Also age is a fucking countdown clock that reminds you that age has an upper limit and you'd better start taking risks and living the way you want to or it's going to be over before you finally get around to being here fully. Aging calls us on our delusional denial of death.

So glance at it from time to time. I know the game is afoot and you're just busy making plays and catching your breath, but don't forget to keep that clock in mind.

This CLARIFIES priorities and values relative to the urgency of the time you have.

What a dashboard benefit to the life journey.

Time is a dimension we can only move through in one direction. But most us are effectively walking backwards into an unknown future, staring obsessively at the past.

Make a practice of turning around and facing the present moment and future with honesty and curiosity.

Your future is open and full of possibility!!

What if you got quantum-leaped into your body for the first time in this moment, with no attachment to the choices obligations and beliefs of your past? How would this new you act from this moment? What would you quit? What would you change? And why aren't you doing that now?

The clock is ticking.

This is precisely why I like to work with high dose psychedelic drugs. They effectively de-load the psychic suspension for a while so you can get a glimpse of how free you really are and can be.

Without all the load and drag of the ideas, beliefs, clinging, fear, unforgiveness and resistance to change that keeps us stuck in the cul-de-sac of repetition.

The mistake too many folks make is thinking psychedelics will CHANGE YOUR LIFE.

PSYCHEDELICS OPEN YOU TO POSSIBILITIES.

CHANGING YOUR LIFE?

THATS YOUR FUCKING JOB.

The Gift of Shame

One recurring theme from my psychedelic explorations over the last few years has been judgment, shame and shadow.

More than a few times I’ve found myself ushered into a scene of judgement where my life is reviewed in detail. And not just the headlines, mind you. These experiences have dug into the details of my inner thoughts and the motives behind seemingly innocuous behaviors.

There is nothing quite like the stripped-naked-soul-scrubbing-smackdown you sometimes get in a high dose psychedelic journey. Make no mistake, this is no fun. But the opportunity to look your darkness square in the face is precisely the key to overcoming its oppression. I don’t think there is anything more dangerous than people who actually believe they’re all just “love and light”.

Sooner or later on the spiritual path, we must make friends with our own inner enemy. This allows us to own the parts of ourselves we often detest and judge in others. Until we finally grow up and identify the shit within ourselves, we continue to project it outside us. But when we shine the light of awareness on our shadow, it ceases to be a shadow at all. With the help of some self-compassion we can find the strength to love our broken parts which simultaneously allows us to extend forgiveness to others.

This is why shame is such a gift. When I feel shame for living or acting out of alignment with my own deep values, I feel ashamed. I SHOULD feel ashamed. That’s my soul saying I’m dis-integrating.

Shame reveals to us our unknown face.

It reminds us, hey, this is part of me. I did these things. And if I can’t face that truth, I run the risk of repeating similar mistakes.

I also know I can never really be free without dancing with the devil within. So bring it on. I’m saying yes to shame and it’s teaching. I welcome the truth of my own darkness that I might triumph over it with compassion, love and forgiveness.

Between Victimhood and Absurdity

Are you actually 100% responsible for everything that is or has ever happened to you?

Is it your fault that your partner cheated on you? Was your divorce settlement a shit show because, deep down, you really wanted it that way? Do you always get back exactly what you put out into the world? Was your early childhood sexual abuse something you “attracted” to you by way of unconscious manifestation?

Did you make a soul contract with your uncle before this lifetime that he would commit suicide in the garage “for your growth and evolving soul path?”

Did Indigenous American Tribes bring on their own genocide at the hands of white settler culture because of self defeating unconscious belief patterns? Was the holocaust ultimately - yknow what? Let’s just stop there. Yikkes.

There are some popular ideas out there that make me nauseous. I get why they’re popular. I’m all for jettisoning the victim mentality that looks at life as a series of unfortunate events we just have to limp around somehow. I want to believe that we all have the power to create the life we want - without limitations or setbacks.

I worry though. Some ideas have shadows of their own. Some metaphysical truth claims that feel liberating can also have a biting long tail you don’t see coming.

I’ve read a lot this past year on reincarnation and life between lives and near death experiences. I’ve poured over self help books that talk about manifestation and how you create your own reality. And to be honest, I’ve really enjoyed and gotten a ton out of most of it. I know that in general, the more responsibility I take for my life the higher my emotional health and sense of well being is likely to be.

But.

If we are just going to spiritually bypass the horrific evil that befalls a child burned alive by a sadistic murderer because “it was all part of their karma” or “it was Gods will” or “we create our own reality”, I think I’ll get off this train at the next stop.

Do we really have to decide between victimhood and absurdity? Are we really saying to grieving parents that unless they take responsibility for their role in the cancer that claimed their child’s life that they are living “powerlessly”?

I understand that notion would eliminate the victim mentality, but is it really any healthier than spiritual bypassing? And for the record, how the fuck can anyone ever discern whether that’s true or not? This can’t be proven true OR false!

I think it’s hard for us to embrace that we don’t really know the answer and that maybe it’s a little of both. Sometimes in life, shit happens. And you know what else? A lot of times we perpetuate our suffering because there’s a certain payoff to always being the sick person, or the one who got cheated on, or the one who never failed because, welll, they never actually tried.

We absolutely DO lock ourselves into repeating loops of misfortune because of unresolved trauma from the past and projected fear of the future. And in those cases, it helps to have a therapist or a close friend who can help us see how we are attracting these outcomes habitually. It is true that if you wanna have good friends, you gotta be a good friend and there’s a certain truth to the idea that your vibe attracts your tribe. But it doesn’t mean that if that good friend betrays you in a business deal, that it was your fault. Nobody needs the depression inducing idea that your shitty life is merely a result of the shifty person you are wanting more shit to befall you. But also, maybe yes too.

Can we relax the spiritual certitudes and the complicated unprovable metaphysics while also acknowledging that we are co-creators of reality along with an innumerable host of other factors and beings, living as well as dead?

Maybe we do create some - maybe even lots- of our reality. But also, sometimes your friend just has a shitty boss, who screwed her over and now she just needs a listening ear and some empathy, not our bypassing or silver linings playbook.

Also...I could be wrong. This could just be a long essay attempt to escape responsibility for my own life. So make your own call.

Yesterday’s Mask

Imposter. Fake. Phony. Hypocrite.

Last night we watched the movie Yesterday. So good! It’s about a musician who wakes up and realizes he’s the only one who remembers the Beatles. So he starts going around playing all their songs as his own and becomes a mega star, only to descend into an inward hell of isolation and inauthenticity.

As we watched I felt an uncomfortable feeling arise and as I stayed curious about it, I could see that it was brining me back to a feeling I lived inside of for years. Roughly between 2010-2013.

If you don’t know, in my previous life (aka 2004-2019) I was a pastor. Michelle and I and a few friends started a church from scratch in 2004 which grew very quickly and became what they call a mega church.

There were many wonderful things about the experience and so many incredible people. But starting in about 2010, I began what ended up being a slow exit from Christianity. I didn’t know that at the time and tried everything to rescue and shore up the crumbling faith I had been raised with and which I had built the church on. The problem was, that faith, as helpful as it had been to me, it wasn’t actually MINE. I learned it. I agreed to it. It didn’t emerge from my own heart and experience with Spirit. I learned it the way I learned arithmetic.

When I was in 5th grade, my dad bought me a guitar and I learned by playing other people’s songs. In fact, mostly Beatles stuff. I’m just realizing that now. Funny. By 7th grade it was all Nirvana and Soundgarden. By high school, I was writing songs for my band, but you could still hear the echoes of Ozzy Osborne and Silverchair.

In so many ways, that’s the story of the church we started in our 20s. I was playing the programs and structures and strategies —and even sermons of my father and my many other wonderful, generous mentors. I managed my staff like them, ran the church like them, saw the world like them and taught the Bible the way they did. But as I hit 30 years old (and my first Saturn return) my soul’s thirst to individuate -that yearning to become fully myself- couldn’t be held back.

This is where i really felt compassion for the character in the movie. I knew that feeling of being trapped. I remember feeling like there was no way out. I was losing my faith, which was painful enough, but the fear of potentially losing my wife and kids and my job and community -everything- if I dared speak my truth was too scary. So I didn’t.

For a few years I retreated deeply into myself and just played the program. I stopped writing my own stuff because I couldn’t risk being honest. I went back and reworked old sermons of my dad and other mentors that I had taught years earlier to just keep things looking stable. There were some weeks where I just copied the sermons Rick Warren had gifted me pretty much word for word. Sure, I told better jokes, but in my paralysis of fear I had become the juke-box-minister. I was like the robotic Chuck-E-Cheese band up there. Stiffly playing the same song over and over while inside I was descending into a personal hell of isolation, loneliness and hypocrisy.

Eventually the pain of my own misalignment was stronger than the fear of loss and so I began bringing my inner truth outward. I started teaching what was in my heart and soul. I was expressing from my own life experience and in relationship with the “god” of my own understanding.

I won’t say life got easier as a result. In fact, externally it got much, much worse. That’s a whole other story that I’m actually sort of bored of telling. But what’s interesting is that as my external world dropped into chaos, my internal world snapped into a healing alignment and I felt more free and heart-centered and in my own body than ever.

As much as that era of my life was painful, it was undoubtedly the necessary catalyst for me to emerge as fully myself. So I raise a glass to that disintegrated hypocrite back then. He was an important stage of my journey and I’ll always be who I am because of the suffering I did during that part of the journey.

You did good, kiddo. I see you, I love you and it gets easier to be yourself. Trust me. ❤️

Me and my body; a quirky, dark, offbeat romantic comedy.

Healing my relationship with my body wasn’t even on my radar until I was diagnosed with #cancer. In 2017, suddenly decades of neglect, bad nutrition, adrenaline addiction and misalignment with my soul path all came crashing down on me in the form of Lymphoma.

It’s a hard pill to swallow that your own body betrayed you. It’s even harder when you realize the opposite is more accurate. I had been betraying my own body and it had reached its limit.

I won’t say that chemo was easy or that my surgeries didn’t fill my wife with anxiety, but I will say that this wake up call radically transformed my life for the better.

Since getting cleared by my oncologist (and thanks to so much wisdom from my loving partner @revolve.fit) I took a hard look at my habits, my nutrition, my breathing, my sexuality, my movement patterns and exercise routines, my mental and emotional health as well as all the forms of energy expense in my life that no longer fit who I was.

Over these last few years I have gotten in better physical shape than I’ve been in since high school, I sleep better, have more energy, am overall happier and more fulfilled, am having more and better sex than I ever dreamed was possible, I enjoy life affirming, reciprocal friendships and just laugh and smile a lot more!

Life is good because I have decided to treat it as a gift and a privilege.

This year I’ve decided to try and go all year without drinking any alcohol. For me, this will be a challenge because I’ve always loved a good beer in the sunshine. But thankfully I’ve spent the last few years reducing my intake to where this finally feels doable this year. Fingers crossed.

I’ve also decided to do a second round of my wife’s liver cleanse protocol and gallbladder flush, followed up with an elimination diet and a gut cleanse. What’s funny is, I’m actually excited!!!

What a difference it makes when healthy choices come from a place of loving my body instead of trying to fix it for some other external reasons.

Overall, it’s taken me 3yrs to really live into these new habits so that they are a lifestyle. What I’m saying is taking small steps and a long view was the winning strategy for me. You can do it too!

What we have here is failure to integrate…

If there’s two learnings from my experiences trip-sitting for people on high dose psychedelics, it’s that our inner world is both infinitely mysterious, and that most of the healing is post-ceremony.

With all the recent hype around psychedelics due to the shifting public attitude, there have cropped up a litany of “experts” who have classes, certifications, and 6-week online courses full of rules and various propositions about what they absolutely know does and does not work.

In a culture that always rushes toward the next great pill, psychedelics have re-emerged to play right into the hand of this “fix me over the weekend” mentality.

Obsessions with “life-hacking” and “bio-hacking” and various other hack, slash, chop, approaches to quickly get the “optimum results” and “enhanced performance” have flooded the collective conversation.

I suppose that’s what happens when you combine a culture that has lost its soul with free-market capitalism and a healthcare system that hails chemical Messiahs for everything we don’t want to feel.

It’s no secret that I’m a big believer in psychedelics for spiritual growth, for physical healing, and for intellectual expansion. But I also don’t buy into a lot of the hype that seems to equate drug induced transcendence with psychological maturity.

These medicines are powerful and it needs to be said more often that some people will get WORSE on psychedelics, not better. Especially those who would rather go crush themselves in Peru for a week straight of ayahuasca ceremony rather than stay home and address the issues staring them in the face at their own dinner table.

There are way too many folks who dissolve into the Godhead for 6 hours on a few tabs of LSD and then wonder why all their relationships still suck. These disconnects are all screaming the same thing;

FAILURE TO INTEGRATE!!

Yes, the largest world yet unexplored is the inner universe, but there is a huge difference between flying over a country and actually moving there. To relocate requires a grounded plan of action broken into smaller steps and some accountability and support to make it happen. This work may not be sexy or fast or “optimized” but it’s the only way I’ve seen that transforms “flashes of illumination into abiding light.”

Prioritizing Inner Freedom

Everyone wants to be happy, to find meaning, and to suffer less.

It’s part of what makes us human.

We find ourselves trapped inside these bodies and within a dimension of time that only moves in one direction.

We fear intimacy as well as isolation and wonder what’s on the other side of this endless breathing in and breathing out.

At some point, in search of more happiness, a more enduring experience of meaning, and to escape our suffering, we may turn to spirituality.

At first, it’s just for these reasons, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Whatever gets us on the path, gets us in the path.

But many of us, if we are honest, get stuck there. We dabble in spirituality as a hobby of sorts. Weekend warriors and workshop junkies.

We long for the peace of mind that a given spirituality promises but shrink away once any real commitment or discipline is called for.

At some level we have to face the truth that we are more married to our comfort and security than we are to any authentic journey into truth.

So we become fashionably Buddhist, we meditate and do yoga to shape our bodies into more attractive lures for potential mates.

Would I look more attractive as a Progressive Hindu or a Secular Humanist with spiritual undertones?

Most of these motivations are hidden from our awareness of course, but we know they are there by what drives us into our practices.

Do we reach for the meditation pillow like we reach for the Tylenol? Are we merely spiritual students of moderate interest? Fair weather devotees who practice only when the sun is out?

There comes a time when we have to decide to leave the playground of casual spiritual tourism and enter deeply into the unwavering commitment that:

INNER FREEDOM IS OUR TOP PRIORITY!

Only those on the path to inner freedom will have the energetic resources to serve the world and all its inhabitants in a SUSTAINABLE way.

Because until we are done placating and massaging the wounded small self and it’s many masks, we are burning up all our fuel to keep alive what is only an illusion. This dysfunctional survivor self can never be appeased with enough self help books, spiritual jewelry, or guided meditations on the commute.

The beauty is, once we have committed to inner freedom as our top priority, we can stop bemoaning all the trials and triggers, the difficulties and struggles and embrace them for the gifts and opportunities they actually are!

There they are declaring in no uncertain terms; here’s where you are not yet free!

Look, do you see how this activated your childhood wound? Can you see how activated you get around this person? Aha! Here’s a spot to begin our liberation. Come inside and set yourself free!

Now perhaps more than ever, we can’t afford to spend our lives pursuing a spirituality of narcissistic naval gazing that you can shop for.

The immense challenges of our time require a new generation of seekers who prioritize awakening -not for the short sighted vision of personal fulfillment- but for a global healing that benefits the earth and all her inhabitants.

Why we stopped celebrating wedding anniversaries…

25 years ago, on this very day, April Fools, 1996, two teenage fools shared a magical first kiss in the rain ...and fell in love.

Michelle and I realized recently that this is our REAL anniversary.

Getting “married” was a cultural and religious event that we fell into... but now that we don’t give a shit about what churches, gods, governments, or audiences think about how, who and why we love, the less we care about “wedding” anniversaries.

Michelle and I are committed to LOVE, to mutual flourishing and to individual soul development - not to “THE MARRIAGE”. And that makes our partnership alive, dynamic, fun and exciting!! We’d rather celebrate our ACTUAL falling in love as the young fools we were on Fools Day, ‘96.

I used to be automatically impressed if people had celebrated lots of wedding anniversaries, but now I know that there are hundreds of lazy, codependent, fearful or just unimaginative reasons to “stay together”. That’s no longer impressive to me.

These days, I’m impressed by people who STAY ALIVE in their life. Sometimes that means a partnership comes to an end, sometimes it means you weather a difficult season together and come out to tell the tale. But nobody - and I mean NOBODY - gets to decide which it is for you or what the timeline looks like.

So as we celebrate the good fortune of 25 years of staying alive in our love together, we salute those who’ve stayed alive in theirs - for however long it was! Some romances last 2 years and some go 50+, but I’m sick of the shame-based illusion that unless it lasts forever, it was broken or mistaken.

OUR LONG LOVE STORY IS NOT A CRITIQUE OF SHORTER ONES... Because love is never wasted!

Which is also why LOVE is the only thing worth committing yourself to.

Share it, give it, receive it, live inside of it, bow to it, dance with it, honor it, become it.

What a journey, my dear! I’m so lucky to stare into your eyes and stumble deeper and deeper into loving entanglement with you. ❤️

Love’s other name.

“Understanding is loves other name.” -Thich Nhat Hanh

So much of our relational suffering is unnecessary.

We project our past hurts ahead of us into the future and continually scan the horizon for signs that we are about to be wounded again.

All this does is guarantee more pain. We WILL find what we actively look for!

So much of this can be avoided by being “innocent” about our lover.

Decide now that you don’t “know” them and therefore must seek new and fresh understanding, allowing them to unfold as a dynamic, living emergence.

Not a known, static, object, but a mysterious, temporary, flowing life-force, embodied.

This capacity to be in full presence with open hearted curiosity is the nutrient dense soil of healthy loving.

When your lover can sense that desire in you... the desire to behold who and what they are, in this specific moment... its in the delicate warmth of this total acceptance that their soul can progressively open like a flower, in full trust and surrender... and be understood... LOVED.

To Be Themselves

Perhaps my favorite experience in relating with others is to notice the shift in energy when someone I love fully relaxes in my presence.

When I watch them finally surrender into trusting their okay-ness within the light of my love.

When I work with clients around relationship dynamics, the block is often that we cram others into confining roles of relational extraction; we relate through various unmet needs.

When we need other people to keep us safe, bolster our egos, give us meaning, or heal our wounds, we can’t let them be human at the same time.

But once we take personal responsibility for our own healing, our safety, our own spiritual journey and meaning-making, our partners and friends are SET FREE.

From here we can actually love them. Because we have stopped excavating them for goods and services, assets or experiences.

And from there, they can relax back and be unconditionally loved.

Holding Me Back

This first pic is from 2013. I was sitting in my 67 bus looking over the ocean in Encinitas and daydreaming of moving here. For years I came up with every reason that it was IMPOSSIBLE and how I COULDN'T do it. Instead, we took every chance we could to run down here and spend a few days. They were always too short.

This second pic is the view from our new ritual of morning sunrises over the ocean. I still can't believe we are here now. Is this real life?

Do I wish we had done this earlier? Not really. The way it all worked out made us who we are. And I dig them. And what good is "shudda"? The past is only a story anyway. Buddha teaches that each day we are reborn and what we do today is what matters most.

The lesson for me, as I have reflected, is that I'm usually the one holding me back. And when I was ready to embrace my own sovereign life and take responsibility for my own happiness, that stingy COULDN'T magically became a optimistic COULD and then a confident WILL and then a joyful DID.

Maybe we can all remember that "outcome is uncertain" isn't the same as IMPOSSIBLE.

In order to come to the knowledge you have not, you must go by the way you know not.
- St John of the Cross

How do you want to die?

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  Photo by Adam Kontor on Pexels.com

Attachments to things, identifications with things, keep alive a thousand different useless I's in a man.
- GI Gurdjieff

Most of us live in total denial that the primary animating energy behind all our choices is a paralyzing fear of non-existence.

The truth is that the fear itself is in service to our highest good. It is the seed for the beneficent heart of all spiritual practice; a graceful mortification, or preparation for death. The fear is there for the purpose of bringing our conscious awareness first to the reality which cannot be escaped;

you are going to die.

Better to face this truth and do as much letting go, now. Die now and avoid the rush! :)

But the purpose is also to move beyond the acceptance of a reality, and into a new orientation to life!

It's kinda like a check engine light on your car. It's a bummer to see it come on, but it's helpful to have the warning. You COULD just choose to drive around forever with the light on, stressing you out whenever you look down. Which, ofcourse, is how most of us live; worrying and/or pretending our "car" will just go forever and needs no attention whatsoever. But we can also sit with the fear long enough to touch a deeper reality. To get in touch with soul, essence, the Still-Point, or the god-space.

So much of what causes us suffering in life is the frenetic clinging to all that is impermanent, fluid, and illusory. The knowledge and acceptance of death is a gift, in that, it can help us stop wasting time denying its reality, and start preparing for that moment, consciously. This is what 'spirituality' is in so many ways. Conscious Preparation for death. The type, or flavor, or style, or tradition of spirituality you choose, simply depends on HOW you want to die.

Consciously preparing to die, the way you want to, is mortification. Mortification may sound like a negative word, especially as an emotion. I mean, who enjoys being 'mortified'? But really, the only thing that experiences such an emotion is the constructed self, which is unreal, paranoid and immaterial anyway. Better to escape it's clutches sooner than later. But mortification as a spiritual practice is another thing all together.

When I had cancer, there were days I deeply grieved, thinking "this isn't how I want to die". Which led to the question, "how DO I want to die?"

Which led to this realization:
The answer to how one wants to DIE,
is ultimately the answer to how we ought to LIVE!

Think about this... Today on the way to somewhere, you get in a major car accident and get tossed out the front windshield. As you lie in the concrete, glass and steel, your lifeblood pours out of your neck. YOU KNOW IT'S HAPPENING. YOU ARE ABOUT TO DIE.

Now, try and imagine... what would come to your mind? What MATTERS? What MATTERED?

I'd like to suggest it will always and only be LOVE. When you gave it, when you let it in, when you became it and when you realized it is the only thing that's eternal. Perhaps this moment lying on the pavement is the first time you are making the realization.

Now, come back to your body in the present moment. You know now what matters. Breathe it in.

It's ONLY Love.

Not anger, bitterness, resentment, betrayal... none of that will come "with you". So now that you know that, why not organize the rest of this incarnation around love? Why not prepare now, so that whenever you transition to whatever is next, it can be peaceful and without fear. In that mystical moment you can release tears of gratitude that for the time you DID have, you spent it in beautiful, redemptive, and meaningful ways. You can go forward into the Mystery saying,

"Yes! Yes! I love you all. It was such a gift to be with you...
Thank you, thank you, thank you..."

#lifeisagiftloveisthepoint

Easter... after 'magic'

This Sunday, people all over the world will be celebrating Easter by dressing up, taking family photos and going to a church to hear a story they know by heart. Before they head home for some ham, they'll sing songs celebrating that after they die, they will be going to heaven to be with god forever all because a poor, homeless, brown, Jewish Rabbi from Palestine was brutally executed by an evil alliance of Religion and State 2000 years ago but came back to life in 3 days and floated up to heaven telling his followers to spread the word that everyone who 'believes in their heart' that this story actually-legit-happened-for-literal-reals, gets into heaven and those who remain unconvinced, will go to hell. This is sometimes called the GOOD NEWS. Hmmmmm.Granted, there will be less people doing it all this year, as Christianity is currently the fastest shrinking major religion on earth according to the most recent pew research. As for me, I still have a fondness for this particular story. Its not because I'm one of the, 'it happened for reals' folks, but because I see the metaphors of transformation, awakening and salvation/healing/wholeness playing out in similar and familiar ways, all the time. And about that, I DO mean 'for reals'.No matter what one believes about the Easter story, I think it can serve as a reminder that the new resurrected life we all long for only comes after we submit to the death of the old one. Death, burial and resurrection is ultimately a pattern of transformation to follow, not a supernatural story to simply believe and defend.I often wonder how long before thinking people start admitting that they don't really believe all the supernatural magical stories and start consciously choosing to live ethically anyway, without appealing to the gods or a sacred text to make ourselves feel better about death or to scare others into behaving the way we want them to. It feels insane to me that people are still trying to make this transactional religious concept work for modern people. The idea that someone was executed 'for your sins' makes absolutely no sense for people who don't live in a culture steeped in religious animal sacrifice. Its not only horrifically violent, its illogical nonsense. How do they connect? I heard a comedian reference this when he said, "I hit myself in the face with a shovel... for your mortgage". Thats about it, right there.But does that mean the story is meaningless? That's really up to you. I don't think it has to be completely discarded. The idea of 'god' being LOVE itself seems useful to me. And to take that further and suggest that the power of love is the one truly transformational energy in the universe and that you can't kill love because love is immortal... that seems like a myth to live by.The Jesus story is full of mythology that still speaks with a voice of authority. The pattern is universal! To become your true, glorified, ascended self, you have to submit to a bit of a crucifixion. It may feel like you're dying! But we have to trust that this process is fruitful and that after a season of mourning and darkness and difficulty... after your hopes have been buried deep in the earth... something new can emerge.I believe it. I've lived it. The cycle will play out many more times in my life, I'm sure.It doesn't make sense to me anymore to spend Easter singing happy-clappy songs about being in the right religion and going heaven because we believe in a magical-murder, but I DO like the idea of getting together to talk about the kind of human beings the world needs right now. And this struggle of transforming into such people will require a pathway, a practice and a supportive community that is committed to seeing their own garbage and doing the hard work of dying to a false, contracted sense of self, letting go of fear, and trusting the voice of love within. To me, this is the meaning of Jesus' saying "take up your cross and follow me".Turns out, Jesus didn't 'pay it all', he led the way.It's up to us to follow his pattern ...and save ourselves.

I do too

“We’re just here,” he shrugged. “That’s it. It’s mind-blowing, but that doesn’t mean there’s a purpose or that it’s inherently meaningful. I may be a biochemical evolutionary expression of an unfolding universe, but that doesn’t mean the universe CARES,” He said, smugly.“But do you?,” I asked“Do I care? Sure. Yes, I care.”“I do too.”We just looked at each other as the paradox washed over us and then turned, silently staring into the fire.

The Church, buried alive.

Americans are abandoning church exponentially. Especially the 18-35yr olds whose "no religion" affiliation has quadrupled in the last 30 years.America's fastest growing religion? "None".And it's not because the music needs more orgasmic crescendos led by worship leaders in ever-lengthening t-shirts...but because Christianity has becomemorally irrelevant.A church with nothing to say about climate change, income inequality, systemic racism, patriarchy, pathological liar presidents, for-profit prisons, our failing and continually defunded public schools, justice and health care systems that serve primarily the monied classes, and our baptizing of America's non-stop global war mongering and weapons dealing......such a church must BURY itself in absurd, unverifiable supernatural truth claims that fly in the face of modern science and also beneath the petty moralism of, "FUCK is a bad word" and proclaiming the innaguration of the apocalypse when two men fall in love.May we hasten the death of such impotent institutions.

Nationalism is Foolishness

There is no such thing as "our country". This is an imaginary construct. The deer don't respect it. The migrating geese have never bowed to it's claims. The wind whips back and forth across it without a single concern.The air we breathe is "made" in cooperation with the Amazon forest and the transcontinental weather system. The food we eat is part of a global ecosystem and fueled by our shared sun-star, which is also the source of every single watt of energy we have and use - and it's all progressively diminishing, by the way!There is a fundamental WE that must be honored before much more time dissapears beneath our xenophobic and sectarian squabbling. And if you're religion is sucking the tit of it's "us first" empire, then it is in the way of necessary progress. Let it die on the mountainous pile of other religions and dead "gods" we have already long since transcended.We are here. Together. And we will either thrive together or suffer the wrath of reality. No species can exhaust it's resource base and endlessly pollute it's ecology without manifesting its own extinction. The banquet of consequences is presently being set to our collective table. Yet still we are murdering each other over what seat we get on a sinking ship. Have mercy.

Love is the point of “GOD”

On my morning walk I was working some stuff out in my head and thought I would write it down. I’ve been frustrated with the perception that religious beliefs are “so important”. Perhaps this is why religions are failing all over.

They have become self serving rather than life affirming.

Religion should be the water of soul development but too often it’s just a marker of tribal identity and a way to divide us. Its funny to me how we all know we are bound by time (the eternal now) and yet we fixate on beliefs which are mostly about what WAS or HAS BEEN. Beliefs are generally just statements about the past but VALUES are present tense.My hope (and my work at EastLake) is focused on helping us find ways to hold the tension of divergent worldviews while we work together on a common objective, rooted in VALUES; namely, living as a beneficial presence on the earth and inspiring each other toward goodness… together.
Hopefully the following thoughts aid us in this work…

When we observe loving behavior in others, we are seeing what’s needed in our world. Let people call that whatever they want… God, Tao, Human Ethics, Great Spirit, Jesus, Dharma, Buddha nature, Vital Force….

If there’s any USE for religion, it is to motivate loving behavior. Some people aren’t religious, yet love anyway. So they skipped your step? Who cares?!

♥️If you have lots of religious beliefs and they motivate you to loving behavior, your religious beliefs are functionaly healthy.

♥️If you have very few religious beliefs but they motivate you to loving behavior, your beliefs are functionaly healthy and you don’t “need” more.

♥️If you don’t really have ANY religious beliefs at all but your worldview motivates you to loving behavior, you still arrived. No religious beliefs necessary.

“God” is not the point of love.

Love is the point of “God”.

True Love moves forward with or without God.

Why I'm not "Christian" anymore...

Years ago, in my little corner of the greater Seattle area, people (me and my friends at least) were overusing the word, “epic”. All. The. Stuff. Was. EPIC. It got so overused, it became meaningless. Not to mention obnoxious. Everything was epic, so nothing was epic. This is my problem with the word “Christian”.

The word Christian doesn’t mean anything anymore …because it means everything.

The assholes from Westboro Baptist and the many flavors of their ilk, who protest funerals of AIDS victims or hold up “God hates fags” signs at PRIDE parades identify as Christians. Just like… um… Mother Teresa. Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh and Donald Trump self identify as Christians. Just like the KKK does! Catholics identify as Christians. Mormons identify as Christians. Evangelicals identify as Christians. Lutherans identify as Christians… Anglicans, 7th Day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Independent Oriental Orthodox, Methodists, Anabaptists, Quakers, Pentecostals, Celtics, Calvinists, Emergents, Unitarian Universalists, the Eastern Orthodox… blah blah.

It’s like a wild card in UNO. You can put that shit on anything.

Each of those groups and more, then casts judgment on who the impostors are who “aren’t REAL Christians”. This has degrees of variance from “if they were real believers they’d stop praying to Mary” to “they don’t even believe in atonement/hell/trinity/healing/the millennial reign - and are therefore heretics!” Each group claims to speak for God on the precise theological positions a “true” Christian would maintain and are thus able to list who is IN the club and who is OUT.Let’s pause to admit that Christianity isn’t the secret sauce to a just and beautiful society. Nazi Germany was primarily a Christian nation as was apartheid South Africa… and the genocide of indigenous Americans came at the hands and rifles of mostly committed Protestants living into their “Manifest Destiny”. Honestly the list is so long I could go on and on…EPIC. Fail.

The word Christian is simply a word referring to a tribal identity that shifts its meaning based on the person who is currently identifying with it.

And frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. All that, as well as the fact that Jesus himself wasn’t a Christian, lead me to the place of caring little for a word that has come to mean, at best; nothing (aka: everything), and at worst; anti-gay, anti-science, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-women exclusivism. <slow deep fart noise>

It’s so distasteful to me that at times I sincerely wish I could just reject the entire Jesus thing wholesale. But I can’t. I can’t because like Ghandi and Paramahansa Yogananda and Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela and Thich Nhat Hahn, and the Dalai Lama …I agree that this Nazarene Rabbi named (Josh, actually) was up to some real shit.(my phrase, not theirs) 😉And you can’t be a serious student of human meaning systems and the evolution of consciousness without nodding at the absolute nuclear impact of his life and teachings.

The fact is, I can no more accept Christianity as it is, anymore than I can reject it wholesale.

So I’m not a Christian. Sure. That’s true. I guess. Well, I don’t know. Or care?

It depends on who is defining it in that moment. But I AM a Jesus guy. Which does NOT mean I take the Bible literally or think everything attributed to Jesus was actually from this peasant teacher, Yeshua. It also does NOT mean I reject Buddha or Lao Tzu or Marianne Williamson or Yogi Bhajan or Wayne Dyer or Pema Chodron or Guru Nanak, or any other mystical teacher or system who has offered a path and practice to cultivate more compassion and love in our species for the broader body of life.

Yes, Jesus has been my personal favorite. No question. But that probably has more to do with my upbringing than anything. There is a sentimental connection and a long history there for me. But whatever is the Heart and Mind at the foundational holon of this incredible universe, the Singularity that gave birth to complexity, the Source of All that Is, the Great Radiance, the Primordial Om, Ultimate Reality Itself… it can’t be so fucking petty that it cooked up some celestial torture chamber to send “unbelieving atheists” or the deceived masses from the “wrong religions” into after they die, while the “chosen ones” head off to their own personal Chuck E Cheese in the sky.

That’s just fear based garbage that every year, less and less people with a global worldview find intellectually tenable - let alone motivating enough to inspire worship for the beastly creator of such an evil system.

A new approach to faith is rising within the path and practice of Jesus Christ… that universal cycle of suffering into death into resurrection… that way of being in the world that says you belong as you are… that message that says your truest nature is connection, communion and compassion… that path of inner wholeness that honors Divinity within all of our kin, both human and non-human…That’s not only what I am trying to align myself with, or identify as… it’s what I want to BECOME.And in case you didn’t catch this part: I don’t give a shit what you label it.

Chutes & Ladders

“No matter what one believes in, there is something wonderful about blessing things.” -Kathleen Norris

One of the games I played with my sister as a kid was Chutes and Ladders. For those unfamiliar, its a simple board game where you hit the spinner to move x number of spaces up the board to win. Sometimes you land on a ladder which would allow you to take a shortcut and move up even higher than what you’d spun. Other times, you’d land on a chute (or slide really) that caused you to lose ground. As I recall, one of us would throw a fit if we hit too many chutes in one game… I don’t recall who it was. It’s not important. He was good kid, overall. ;)

This childhood game came to mind today as I sat in the chair today for my fourth chemotherapy treatment. I’ve been thinking about how much we can manipulate our environment with small things that have huge impact. Bringing people/things ‘up’ and bringing people/things ‘down’.

One of my favorite little games in the hospital (compulsions?) is to make the nursing staff laugh. Chemotherapy isn’t a carnival of lollipops and sunshine. People DO NOT LIKE being poisoned. I watch these medical professionals have to deal with a lot of scared, depressed, anxious, frustrated, and sometimes just plain angry people. No doubt there are exceptions to this, but I often notice that folks tend to at least be fairly somber. Hats off to the nurses who in spite of it all, face each day with a smile and greet patients with joy and positivity. I’m looking at you Megan Prentice! ;)

I made a decision early on that no matter what, I was going to stay positive. I knew there would be rough days. There have been many! But there is always a choice to how we perceive things, and I’ve decided to bring my best optimism to my cancer journey. The fun part is noticing that you can change the atmosphere of an entire room just by speaking positive words.

It made me remember that epic book by Don Miguel Ruiz, THE FOUR AGREEMENTS.

Agreement number 1 is “Always be impeccable with your Word”. Now, at first glance, you can assume this means the old axiom of letting your yes be yes and your no be no. Like “do what you promised” and such.

That’s good advice, and I’ll admit that’s part of what Ruiz gets at, but its so much more. In that chapter he talks about how the words we speak have power. They are literally like blessings and curses. Reminds me so much of all the verses in many sacred traditions about the power of the tongue and how we direct our language. No matter your tradition, you’ll find the sages of that tradition imploring you to watch your tongue.

The Hebrew Bible speaks of God creating all that is by speaking.

The Christian Gospel of John explains “the Word” as the Ultimate creative principle that called the Universe forth.

Hinduism takes this a layer deeper by suggesting that even beyond words, sound itself is powerful,  “by sound vibration, one becomes liberated.”

And I love this Zen precept: “Whatever a monk keeps pursuing with his thinking and pondering, that becomes the inclination of his awareness”

Which gave way to this Chinese proverb:
“Be careful of your thoughts, for your thoughts become your words.
Be careful of your words, for your words become your actions.
Be careful of your actions, for your actions become your habits.
Be careful of your habits, for your habits become your character.
Be careful of your character, for your character becomes your destiny.”

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One of my favorite phrases has been attributed to many authors as well as philosophers including Heschel and Wittgenstein. It is the phrase;

“WORDS CREATE WORLDS”

Here is how Dr. Tarragona at Wholebeing Institute describes the power of our words,

“A representational conception of language rests on the premise that there is an objective reality that we perceive, and words can capture and transmit it just as it is, like a mirror would. A constructive conception of language posits that words don’t represent the world objectively, but rather, to a large extent, create our experience, as if they were lenses or filters. Some thinkers (sometimes called “hard constructionists”) believe this is true for all reality, even the physical world. Others, “soft constructionists,” propose that what language builds or creates is the meaning that we attribute to our experiences.”

 I’d have to agree with the constructive conception. We create our reality by the way we describe it. Ask any behavioral therapist or for that matter, any 1st grade teacher… We literally cast spells of blessing or curses on the psyches of children that begin to shape them in profound ways. This is why I am so passionate about what passes for “Orthodox Christian Doctrine” being so damaging to the world. Teaching young children that they are sinners and God should send them to hell (by nature of being born human!) unless they can convince themselves to believe - beyond a doubt - in a metaphysical truth claim that cannot be objectively verified… sheesh. But that’s another topic for another blog post.

Bottom line, our words are packed with power.

They can be used to liberate or dominate.
They can be used to heal or hurt.
They can be used to amuse or abuse.
They can be used to inspire or incite.
They can be used to create or destroy.

“Those who pooh-pooh the lethal power of words are forgetting the horrific results of deadly orators such as Hitler and Mussolini. History is replete with examples of political leaders who used their words to incite hatred, start wars and lead their people to commit genocide.” - BJ Gallagher

This is why there are those people in your life who after being around them, you just feel ‘drained’. Like they suck the life right out of you. The way they ‘create worlds’ is desolate and lifeless. Like the “Nothing” from The Neverending Story. Many religious traditions and spiritual modalities use vibrational language. Positive, life-giving energies being of the higher vibrational frequencies and the lower-end vibrations being negative, soul sucking, and depressing.

Our friend Carly posted the other day about another mom at a restaurant coming over as she left to tell Carly what a wonderful mother she was because of how loved her boys are. She posted a beautiful short essay on how it burst her heart open and I loved how it inspired her to share the love and encouragement with others. THAT. LADY. WAS. A. HEALER. That is wisdom. That is truth.

On the other side of the spectrum, another friend of ours posted that while shopping at Target, her son was crying (like our kids do!) and some random lady came over and gave her a verbal lashing about her son and her parenting. As if being a mom isn’t hard enough! Good grief!  I was relieved to see our friend getting positive support from her community.

Make note: nothing is more contagious than human emotions.

But GOOD NEWS!! You don’t have to fall prey to that or those kinds of people anymore. You can stop being a safe harbor for their negative anti-matter. You can resist the gravitational pull of their black hole of negativity. And you can do this by cultivating what St Paul called “higher mind”. At its most basic, this is simply the choice to stop AGREEING with the worlds that people are creating. Their reality doesn’t have to be yours.

“He is most powerful who has power over himself”-Seneca

Again, here’s Don Miguel Ruiz, “Attention is the ability we have to discriminate and to focus only on that which we want to perceive. We can perceive millions of things simultaneously, but using our attention, we can hold whatever we want to perceive in the foreground of our mind.”

Energy Intuitive and Reiki master, Marie Manuchehri talks about curiosity as a high vibrational energy. Simply pausing to ask open-ended and positive “what if?” questions in the middle of the onslaught of low vibrational energy can open us up to creating worlds that LIFT us and keep us in healing and healthy modes of being. What if this person attacking me is really hurting right now? What if this layoff is the beginning of the best season of my career so far? What if the loss of this friendship is freeing me up make time for friends who inspire me? What if this cancer is part of waking me up to a deeper dimension of my life?

We can cultivate positivity and higher vibrational energy when we invest time and attention by making space for seeing, imagining and hoping in the good, the true and the beautiful.

Ruiz again, “You will only receive a negative idea if your mind is fertile ground for that idea.”

Many of us know this intuitively and have even taken time to “weed” the garden of our relationships as to remove from constant contact, those people who simply bring us down over and over. To stop arguing and fighting with those who want to set up camp in the land of hopelessness and fear and anxiety and let them have their own journey so we can move on into spending time with life-giving people, places and activities. This saves us from using the soil of our life for negative people to grow their world in ours.

I love my friend and mentor, Rob Bell’s advice below on using imaginative prayer to ground yourself and to create boundaries when you identify toxic relationships and environments for yourself…

“Imagine yourself rooted and established in love…If you are surrounded by small and brittle and narrow and petty voices, stop listening to them. If you are part of a group or community that sucks the life out of you, stop going. If you have someone who keeps telling you all of the ways you’re not whatever they think you should be, kindly tell them that you have heard them and it is now time for them to cease their chatter.”

The truth about our personal power is that the way we CHOOSE to perceive our life and the words we choose to speak over it, and toward others are packed with potentialities. The future is an infinite field of possibilities and our lives and psyches remain open to shaping every moment.

We can decide here and now whether we want to be a ladder in the lives of people or a chute. Will we lift up, elevate, heal, encourage, liberate and speak life into others? Lets push this aspiration even further! What if we not only took the active posture of speaking words of life, but what if we became shamans who transmute the negativity into positivity. Or to use St Paul’s phrase, let us “overcome evil with good.” Let us absorb the hateful spewing of religious fundamentalists and trade back peace. Let us hear with grounded love the anxiety of the lady at target and respond with patience. Let us be misunderstood, misrepresented and maligned and refuse to return with anything less than faith, love and hope.

This is why I adore the metaphor of the crucifixion as the final shamanic act of Jesus. Before you freak out, read the text! Jesus performs miraculous healings, resurrections and exorcisms. He alters the weather, communicates with other dimensional spirits, the Apostle’s Creed has him traveling to the realm of the dead, and the Gospels record him being continually accused of being a sorcerer!

People ignorant of shamanism struggle to get past the stereotype of a shaman ONLY being a Native American medicine man or woman or an African witch doctor, but shamanic consciousness is transcultural, community-centric, and its purpose is to bring healing and wholeness to an individual or (and certainly more often) a group. They are mediators who connect the community to Spirit. Hello!!!!!

Caring and curing is the work of the Shaman. I can hardly imagine a more beautiful way of describing the ministry of Jesus. The Jesus who preached abundant life for individuals and communities - yes even the whole world!

To read the story of the cross, what you see is horrific hatred and violence being inflicted upon Jesus and what does he do but offer mercy, grace, forgiveness and love to his torturers. With not only deed, but word(s). He prays a prayer of forgiveness over them. Knowing they are only doing their best from their level of consciousness. “…for they know not what they do.”

This is the impossible, unmistakable and undeniable power of self-transcendent love. The kind of love, my friends, that will heal the world. The kind of love that we need right now.

And you don’t necessarily have to die a brutal violent death to follow in the footsteps of this Jesus. But you will have to crucify your ego in order to become a “ladder” for others to climb out of their depression, their hatred, their fear, or their hopelessness. You may even end up a scapegoat for their own inner brokenness. If you follow the Jesus path, so be it.Ladders offer their strength to others so they may take an energetic short cut on the magic carpet of your higher vibrational mode of being.

Don’t be a chute anymore. Stop lowering your awareness and spreading the malaise and distrust and fear. Don’t be fertile ground for small-minded petty squabbles and and don’t fall for the war drums of tribal or nationalistic hatred of the ‘other’.

Be a ladder.

Spread hope and love and faith and joy and laughter. Not because life is easy,
but precisely because it ISN’T!!!

I choose to be a ladder.
I won’t always succeed.
But this is my aim.
I invite you to join me.

Let’s let Don Miguel Ruiz send us away with this Benediction:

“Just imagine what you can create with impeccability of the word. With the impeccability of the word you can transcend the dream of fear and live a different life. You can live in heaven in the middle of thousands of people living in hell because you are immune to that hell. You can attain the kingdom of heaven from this one agreement: Be impeccable with your word.”