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I work as a psychotherapist with an emphasis on transformational learning - a blend of psychoanalytic and transpersonal approaches, and am the author of Self Actualization and Unselfish Love and co-author of Families Helping Families: Living with Schizophrenia, as well as Mental Illness as an Opportunity for Transformation. My interests and life have taken parallel courses, which together have woven a complex tapestry: spirituality and meditation on the one hand, and political psychology on the other. I have studied and practiced with Ram Dass, Jack Kornfield, Mata Amritanandamayi and Gurumayi Chidvilasanda, and continue a daily practice of meditation. My early political education began with the writings of the founding fathers. Over time this led to involvement in the anti-Vietnam war and anti-nuclear movements. I was interested in the powerful molding of prevailing political and economic dynamics by what C. Wright Mills called the military-industrial complex. In time I have come to the conclusion that, despite various interest groups' attempts to minimize or trivialize the concept, the deep state is a reality - decisively and covertly shaping events on both the domestic and international fronts. I am interested in an exceptionally promising alternative source of energy that has yet to see the light of day. I see the current period as a precarious form of initiation rite into the beginning of adulthood for our species, and hope to do whatever I can to help us reach this goal. Meanwhile, I seek daily to recall the reality that the same awareness (the Ever-Present-Origin) looks out through all of our eyes, and actualize this in my relationship with other beings.
(34 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 13, 2024 Imagining our Future" FORWARD INTO THE PAST - A New Birth: Interbeing
As we engage in the "struggle" to create a world that works for all living beings--those of us who feel called to contribute to the healing of the Earth can expect to be sorely challenged. My sense is that we can all benefit from an awareness of our family's historical roots. We will also need to draw sustenance by consciously recalling the wisdom of elders and allies. That way we will realize that we are not "in it alone". Series: Positive Visions of the Future (5 Articles, 17691 views)
(8 comments) SHARE Monday, January 15, 2024 Imagining our Future - Perils and Promise: Story 4. We Are in a Process of Planetary Birth - Pt. 1
"There's a revolution that needs to happen and it starts from inside each one of us. We need to wake up and fall in love with the Earth. Our personal and collective happiness and survival depends on it. This kind of enlightenment is crucial to a collective awakening. In Buddhism we talk of meditation as an act of awakening, to be awake to the fact that the earth"and living species are in danger." - Thich Nhat Hanh Series: Positive Visions of the Future (5 Articles, 17691 views)
(7 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 20, 2023 IMAGINING OUR FUTURE: PERILS AND PROMISE: Story 3. Humanity Is Growing Up
If we are to move into our early adulthood as a species and grow beyond our adolescent consciousness, we will need to develop greater capacities to consciously work to restore the resilience and integrity of our Earth's eco-system, consider the impact of our actions on the rest of life (including future generations), and bring fresh awareness and sacred regard for the living universe that is our home. Series: Positive Visions of the Future (5 Articles, 17691 views)
(12 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 22, 2023 IMAGINING OUR FUTURE: PERILS AND PROMISE: Story 2. Humanity Is on an Heroic Journey
What if the most difficult challenges facing humanity are not devising solutions to the energy or climate crisis or our other self-generated predicaments?
What if, instead, we are challenged to bring positive images of the human journey into our collective awareness?
We need to be able to step back: to disidentify from stories about destruction and raise our vision to see the other side of the coin. Series: Positive Visions of the Future (5 Articles, 17691 views)
(12 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 31, 2023 IMAGINING OUR FUTURE: PERILS AND PROMISE Story 1: The Global Brain Is Waking Up
Given challenges of climate disruption, energy shortages, resource wars, deep poverty and our own tendencies to feel indifference and even despair, is it worth asking questions about our own place on earth?
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One answer is that we need to be able to step back and get our bearings - to disidentify from stories about destruction and raise our vision to see the other side of the coin - the promises inherent in this era. Series: Positive Visions of the Future (5 Articles, 17691 views)
(8 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 12, 2023 Toward a Mature Global Civilization
"Although human societies have confronted major hurdles throughout history, the challenges of our times are unique in one crucial respect: they are planetary in scope." Series: Species Forerunners (4 Articles, 13843 views)
(48 comments) SHARE Monday, September 4, 2023 Joanna Macy - Climate Crisis as a Spiritual Path
Joanna has lived a profoundly eventful external and inner life. She has grown tremendously and helped others to grow within and turn toward the world in service. She has lived in many countries, learning about service to society - and helped people to not deny their grief and caring for Life on Earth, but to work through these natural and use their long-repressed energy to help create a life-sustaining society. Series: Species Forerunners (4 Articles, 13843 views)
(65 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 15, 2023 Seeds of the New: Species Forerunners -Tom Yeomans and an Application of Spiritual Psychology
"Everyone on earth shares the fate of the earth, and everyone has a contribution to make.
"To do this we need to learn to work deliberately on the process of inner transformation and the development of spiritual strength and vision in each person, young and old. We need to learn to support the spiritual maturation of individual, group, and species, so that we can... deal with the great challenges that face us today."--T.Y. Series: Species Forerunners (4 Articles, 13843 views)
(8 comments) SHARE Sunday, August 6, 2023 Species Forerunners: Can Humanity Grow Up in Time?
"The ability to perceive or think differently is more important than the knowledge gained.
"Individual thought is mostly the result of collective thought and of interaction with other people.
"The language is entirely collective, and most of the thoughts in it are. Everybody does his own thing to those thoughts - he makes a contribution.
"But very few change them very much."
David Bohm, Physicist, On Dialogue Series: Species Forerunners (4 Articles, 13843 views)
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, July 17, 2023 The Only Game in Town: The Relevance of Higher Levels of Consciousness to our World Crisis - 1
Despite the multitude of perils we face Edgar Morin sees many reasons for urging one another to continue to exert the effort necessary for making this promise a reality. There is cause for hope, and for work stresses Morin, on a number of grounds.
There is first the resilience of life itself. All living beings, he reminds us, regenerate themselves through being naturally and non-coercively directed toward their own future. Series: The evolution of human consciousness and culture (4 Articles, 8072 views)
(52 comments) SHARE Sunday, June 4, 2023 Flatland
Non-Ordinary States of Consciousness
Sri Aurobindo, who used his own consciousness as a laboratory, discovered and described the following levels of awareness, which he expected to flower as we evolve:
Ordinary egoic mind, Higher mind, Illumined mind, Intuitive Mind, Overmind, Supermind. Series: The evolution of human consciousness and culture (4 Articles, 8072 views)