Do not resist, be a player in the game. Surrender to the change in motion. Let yourself be broken, seized, and blown to the next home. – Hermann Hesse Maybe you’ve lived a life that’s measurable by its consistencies? . . . maybe you live in the same place where you were born; or you work for the same company …
It almost seems that occasionally giving up self-consciousness is necessary for building a strong self-concept. – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Disclaimer: This is a more personal and vulnerable essay than I’m accustomed to sharing. I do so with the hope that getting this real will inspire and guide others to do the same, and perhaps alleviate some perceived taboos. What contributes to …
There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in. – Leonard Cohen Are you uncomfortable? Does the discomfort drive you to seek distractions? We’re built on distraction: it’s innate to our culture. And then a global pandemic strikes, forcing a new way of being for many of us. Culturally there are endless opportunities for distraction, even when …
The unawakened mind tends to make war against the way things are. – Jack Kornfield It’s all so dizzying: too many news stories to follow adequately and seismic cultural shifts to integrate. As I write this, the United States is casting votes in what will undoubtedly be the most pivotal election in my lifetime . . . and the collective …
(A Letter from Lockdown) In the end what you don’t surrender – well the world just strips away. – Bruce Springsteen Dear humanity, at long last, our collective wake-up call has arrived! Consciousness has been the consistent love of my life. I spent years immersed in books studying the long trajectory of human consciousness from the prewritten history of the …
I finally know the difference between pleasing and loving, obeying and respecting. It has taken me so many years to be okay with being different, and with being this alive, this intense. – Eve Ensler My beloved Lis, I barely know where to begin, as the next three decades of your life are going to hold infinite joy, wonder, laughter, …
If our ego can see itself as another might, then action can be monitored and vital cooperation can result. – Edward E. Sampson We understand what it means to pollute our air or our water, but what most of us don’t realize is that our ego creates a form of spiritual pollution. We’re projecting our egoic attachments into the world, in …
It’s a most distressing affliction to have a sentimental heart and a skeptical mind. – Naguib Mahfouz Our ego, the central processing center of consciousness, endlessly pressures our logic into abandoning the truth in our hearts because it likes to exert and maintain control. This is reinforced culturally: first, through the Newtonian-Cartesian split between mind and body, and second, because …
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. – Frederick Douglass Collectively, we’re waking up to the reality that we’ve been living largely unconsciously for generations . . . With the cultural movement to live more consciously, comes heightened self-reflection and subsequent awareness around the wounding related to our unconscious choices, as well as the unconscious …
The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival. – Aristotle Indigenous cultures worldwide understand that for anyone to thrive, everyone must thrive. It’s a consequence of patriarchy that we have forgotten how we’re all interconnected and interdependent. Patriarchy is a system that maximizes hierarchy and minimizes empathy. This reality has …