As I edited last Sunday's talk video for the website I noticed that I repeatedly used the term "reconcile" when I spoke of assimilating the characteristics of the Divine Feminine and the Divine Masculine into our consciousness. After delivering the talk, I was somewhat puzzled as to why I had chosen that particular word -- I felt it might have been better to use the word "integrate". But as I look forward to this coming Sunday talk, I realized that "reconcile" is exactly correct in the context I was using it.
The characteristics of the Divine Masculine and the Divine Feminine are complementary -- nurturing and transforming, for examples. One is to take what is and help it develop to the fullness of what it can be; the other is to take what is and change it, or to use a currently popular word in the business environment -- to "re-purpose" it (is that hyphenated or not?). Empathy and inspiring, compassionate and passionate, forgiving and asserting, etc. Fulfilling the feminine imperative will often take us along a different path than fulfilling the masculine imperative.
If we are expressing our Divine Wholeness, with the facilities of the feminine and masculine readily accessible to us in each moment, how do we decide which imperative to follow in a given situation?
Hmmmmm. Perhaps we'll find out on Sunday.....
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
The Key to Happiness
A wise old man was explaining to his grandson that there lives within each person two dogs, one dog that brings you joy and one dog that brings you pain -- and that they are in a constant battle for your attention. Give the dog attention and you will experience what he brings you -- joy or pain. The young man asked, "Which dog will win the battle?" The old man said, "The dog you feed." Have you found that to be true for you?
It seems to me that happiness is that way. In last week's blog I noted a definition of happiness as that state of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. We choose in each moment, whether we care to admit it or not, what our experience of that moment will be.
We have both of those dogs, barking pain and barking joy, vying for our attention. We choose to feed one of those dogs at any given time. And we feed only one or the other in any instant of time. But each minute we feed one dog, we cannot feed the other.
The dog of pain thrives on anger, resentment, guilt, blame. You got anger in your heart right now? You're feeding the pain dog. The dog that brings joy eats only love. Your love nourishes only the joy dog.
Today you've got exactly the same amount of time as every other person on the planet -- 24 hours. Which dog are you going to feed this minute? If you feed one, you won't have as much time to feed the other. Which dog do you want to survive? Your choice.
It seems to me that happiness is that way. In last week's blog I noted a definition of happiness as that state of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. We choose in each moment, whether we care to admit it or not, what our experience of that moment will be.
We have both of those dogs, barking pain and barking joy, vying for our attention. We choose to feed one of those dogs at any given time. And we feed only one or the other in any instant of time. But each minute we feed one dog, we cannot feed the other.
The dog of pain thrives on anger, resentment, guilt, blame. You got anger in your heart right now? You're feeding the pain dog. The dog that brings joy eats only love. Your love nourishes only the joy dog.
Today you've got exactly the same amount of time as every other person on the planet -- 24 hours. Which dog are you going to feed this minute? If you feed one, you won't have as much time to feed the other. Which dog do you want to survive? Your choice.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
The Pale Blue Dot
Were you a fan of Cosmos, the PBS series hosted by Carl Sagan? You might guess that I was a fan. But the most impressive thing that I have come across from the mind of Carl Sagan is played at this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M.
The image is a photo taken by the space probe Voyager, at the suggestion of Sagan, as it moved along its trajectory past Saturn and into the void of the far reaches of the Solar System and looking back at its planet of origin. The narrative is written and read by Sagan.
In joy!
The image is a photo taken by the space probe Voyager, at the suggestion of Sagan, as it moved along its trajectory past Saturn and into the void of the far reaches of the Solar System and looking back at its planet of origin. The narrative is written and read by Sagan.
Every time I hear this, I am expanded and lifted.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Niburu in 2012?
Alas, my expressed interest in astronomy is attracting some interesting questions. I was recently asked if I have seen "the approaching Niburu". The back-story: An archeologist, Zecharia Sitchin, wrote a book in 1976 called "The Twelfth Planet". Some have called it "Planet X", others have named it "Niburu" or "Nibiru". When the dwarf planet Sedna was discovered in 2003, some were sure it was the "fabled" Niburu. Observations have shown that Sedna is located well beyond the orbit of Pluto in a highly elliptical orbit -- about 75 times the distance from the earth to the Sun (that distance is known to astronomers as 1 Astronomical Unit or AU) at its closest approach and 975 AU at its farthest (it's about 90 AU from the Sun presently). Sedna has what is estimated to be a 10,500-12,000 earth-year orbit around the Sun.
Another group of people are convinced that the imaginary Niburu is not the real Sedna, but is instead another planetoid or larger planet now on its way into the inner solar system, presently located at about the orbit of Saturn. The "planetary cataclysmists" would like to have us believe that Niburu's arrival in the inner solar system will make its closest approach to Earth on Dec 21, 2012.
(Are we going to have to arrive at January, 2013, before people start to realize that the Mayans didn't continue their calendar past the end of their calculated epoch because they didn't yet have anything to say about the time that followed? Personally, I don't need a calendar showing a particular date unless I have something I want to plan for during that period. I'm just sayin'......)
(For more "information" on Niburu, see http://www.logical2012.info/nibiru_p3.htm.)
Having just read the above website, my reaction is "Whew!" Remember the cartoon illustration of the bearded, scruffy-looking fellow carrying a sandwich board that said, "The end is near", with a piano shown in mid-air over his head? That was the image that came to mind as I read the above website.
How much mental effort do we waste entertaining doomsday scenarios such as the impending doom of 2012? This Niburu story, of course, is an example some of us look at in curious amazement. But why should we be surprised that this 2012 doomsday scenario is a popular idea? A poll of Americans taken by CBS in 2004 showed that fully 55% believed that God created people in their present form as it is written in the Bible. (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/11/22/opinion/polls/main657083.shtml)
But here's a question that hits closer to home: How much mental effort do YOU waste entertaining doomsday scenarios in YOUR life? A related question: How much mental energy do you drain away in the "coulda', woulda', shoulda's"?
I recently ran across the definition of happiness as the state of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. When we are occupied with the doomsday scenarios and the less obviously distracting "coulda', woulda', shoulda's", we waste our mental energy that could alternatively be focused on the emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. Those distractions, which most of us experience to one degree or another, rob us of that potential increment of happiness that could have been experienced in that otherwise wasted moment. (this paragraph deserves elaboration -- a topic for a future blog??).
Know you're blessed, all the time.
Another group of people are convinced that the imaginary Niburu is not the real Sedna, but is instead another planetoid or larger planet now on its way into the inner solar system, presently located at about the orbit of Saturn. The "planetary cataclysmists" would like to have us believe that Niburu's arrival in the inner solar system will make its closest approach to Earth on Dec 21, 2012.
(Are we going to have to arrive at January, 2013, before people start to realize that the Mayans didn't continue their calendar past the end of their calculated epoch because they didn't yet have anything to say about the time that followed? Personally, I don't need a calendar showing a particular date unless I have something I want to plan for during that period. I'm just sayin'......)
(For more "information" on Niburu, see http://www.logical2012.info/nibiru_p3.htm.)
Having just read the above website, my reaction is "Whew!" Remember the cartoon illustration of the bearded, scruffy-looking fellow carrying a sandwich board that said, "The end is near", with a piano shown in mid-air over his head? That was the image that came to mind as I read the above website.
How much mental effort do we waste entertaining doomsday scenarios such as the impending doom of 2012? This Niburu story, of course, is an example some of us look at in curious amazement. But why should we be surprised that this 2012 doomsday scenario is a popular idea? A poll of Americans taken by CBS in 2004 showed that fully 55% believed that God created people in their present form as it is written in the Bible. (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/11/22/opinion/polls/main657083.shtml)
But here's a question that hits closer to home: How much mental effort do YOU waste entertaining doomsday scenarios in YOUR life? A related question: How much mental energy do you drain away in the "coulda', woulda', shoulda's"?
I recently ran across the definition of happiness as the state of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. When we are occupied with the doomsday scenarios and the less obviously distracting "coulda', woulda', shoulda's", we waste our mental energy that could alternatively be focused on the emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. Those distractions, which most of us experience to one degree or another, rob us of that potential increment of happiness that could have been experienced in that otherwise wasted moment. (this paragraph deserves elaboration -- a topic for a future blog??).
Know you're blessed, all the time.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Is there Life anywhere else?
Since writing the talk given last Sunday dealing with the immensity of the Universe, and anticipating the talk to be given this week on the miracle of life, I have revisited the arguments make by Frank Drake and Carl Sagan back in the 70's for the inevitability of some form of life showing up in many other places in the Universe.
In my early encounter with this question, the argument was used that the location of the Earth is so special, so unique, that the chances of other planets being found with the same set of environmental characteristics to be next to nothing. I remember very clearly riding the bus home from school (we lived on a farm about 12 miles out of our very small town of Brashear, MO) and pondering what my fifth grade teacher had said that day. That may have been my first experience of realizing that "grown-ups don't know everything."
But think about it -- astronomers estimate that in the visible Universe there are perhaps a trillion galaxies with an average of at least 50 billion stars in each.
Let's put that in perspective before we get lost in the trail of all those zeros. A billion pennies would fill our sanctuary of 32'x50'x11'. A trillion pennies would fill an area of about 1 mile long by 300' wide piled 11' high. Multiply that by 50 billion -- if a penny represented each star, you'd have the volume of a cube measuring over 90,000 miles on each side, filled with pennies. OK, so that's a lot of pennies -- and stars.
Astronomers are also finding that about ten percent of the sun-like stars have planetary systems. Of all the stars out there, about 2% are like our sun -- long lived, relatively steady energy output, relatively "hospitable" to evolving life forms. Just a mere .2% of those pennies stacked in that cube that measures 90,000 miles on a side (i.e. 9,000 miles long by 9,000 miles wide by 18,000 miles high -- in pennies) -- that's how many "life hospitable" stars would have planetary systems that could contain an earth-like planet. But that's still a LOT of planetary systems around "hospitable" stars in the universe within which Earth-like planets could exist.
Of course, "Earth-like" is not a prerequisite for life. Just last week I read that it is entirely possible that life may presently exist on Titan, the largest of Saturn's moons. The Cassini probe is finding less hydrogen and less acetylene (yes, the torch fuel that welder's use) at low elevations of Titan than is expected based upon what we do know about Titan's atmospheric chemistry. One explanation of that deficit of hydrogen and acetylene is that there is a Titanian microbe digesting it. Hmmmm. Would we qualify that as life? Of course! http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100606103125.htm
Even if such a microbe is constantly feasting on torch fuel right in our "backyard", we wouldn't expect to communicate with it for another few hundred million years. Are we the only higher life form in the universe (i.e. technologically advanced and able to communicate)? I am certain the answer is "no". Will we ever encounter those other higher life forms? Based upon what we presently know of physics and the energy it would take to move a vehicle of any size across the vast distances of space, it's unlikely. However, to assume that we fully understand the laws and limitations of physics hearkens back to the statement made in the early 1800's by one of the leading scientists of the time that "we know all we need to know about the universe. Further research is unnecessary". According to him, all we had to do was apply that knowledge!
Will we ever encounter those alien life forms? Who knows. Maybe we already have. There seems to be mounting evidence that many of what we have called unidentified flying objects are something other than "swamp gas" or weather balloons.
Isn't this process of discovery interesting?
Know you're blessed -- all the time.
In my early encounter with this question, the argument was used that the location of the Earth is so special, so unique, that the chances of other planets being found with the same set of environmental characteristics to be next to nothing. I remember very clearly riding the bus home from school (we lived on a farm about 12 miles out of our very small town of Brashear, MO) and pondering what my fifth grade teacher had said that day. That may have been my first experience of realizing that "grown-ups don't know everything."
But think about it -- astronomers estimate that in the visible Universe there are perhaps a trillion galaxies with an average of at least 50 billion stars in each.
Let's put that in perspective before we get lost in the trail of all those zeros. A billion pennies would fill our sanctuary of 32'x50'x11'. A trillion pennies would fill an area of about 1 mile long by 300' wide piled 11' high. Multiply that by 50 billion -- if a penny represented each star, you'd have the volume of a cube measuring over 90,000 miles on each side, filled with pennies. OK, so that's a lot of pennies -- and stars.
Astronomers are also finding that about ten percent of the sun-like stars have planetary systems. Of all the stars out there, about 2% are like our sun -- long lived, relatively steady energy output, relatively "hospitable" to evolving life forms. Just a mere .2% of those pennies stacked in that cube that measures 90,000 miles on a side (i.e. 9,000 miles long by 9,000 miles wide by 18,000 miles high -- in pennies) -- that's how many "life hospitable" stars would have planetary systems that could contain an earth-like planet. But that's still a LOT of planetary systems around "hospitable" stars in the universe within which Earth-like planets could exist.
Of course, "Earth-like" is not a prerequisite for life. Just last week I read that it is entirely possible that life may presently exist on Titan, the largest of Saturn's moons. The Cassini probe is finding less hydrogen and less acetylene (yes, the torch fuel that welder's use) at low elevations of Titan than is expected based upon what we do know about Titan's atmospheric chemistry. One explanation of that deficit of hydrogen and acetylene is that there is a Titanian microbe digesting it. Hmmmm. Would we qualify that as life? Of course! http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100606103125.htm
Even if such a microbe is constantly feasting on torch fuel right in our "backyard", we wouldn't expect to communicate with it for another few hundred million years. Are we the only higher life form in the universe (i.e. technologically advanced and able to communicate)? I am certain the answer is "no". Will we ever encounter those other higher life forms? Based upon what we presently know of physics and the energy it would take to move a vehicle of any size across the vast distances of space, it's unlikely. However, to assume that we fully understand the laws and limitations of physics hearkens back to the statement made in the early 1800's by one of the leading scientists of the time that "we know all we need to know about the universe. Further research is unnecessary". According to him, all we had to do was apply that knowledge!
Will we ever encounter those alien life forms? Who knows. Maybe we already have. There seems to be mounting evidence that many of what we have called unidentified flying objects are something other than "swamp gas" or weather balloons.
Isn't this process of discovery interesting?
Know you're blessed -- all the time.
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