Ivanka Trump was widely panned for suggesting that busy mothers should get regular massages, because for many of us that’s just not realistic.

I myself, have never been into meditating. And if I don’t like something, I’m not going to end up doing it.

A friend says that people always tell her to slow down, but she’s a raging extrovert. Being around lots of people is what recharges her.

Self-care requires clarity about what we…

Part One

I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again: your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars. – Franklin D. Roosevelt, 10/30/1940

In spite of the risk involved, however, in letting the Japanese fire the first shot, we realized that in order to have the full support of the American people it was desirable to make sure that the Japanese were the ones to do this so that there should remain no doubt in…

Part 1 - Who Profits Most from Human Violence and Insanity?

War refugees, and those of us who have been traumatized by human violence and insanity, go on to study these greatly destructive human traits (?) from micro to macro. Because of our commitment, we conduct in depth searches for root causes that dismiss and cross many protective: cultural, religious, and political boundaries that evolved over time, or were put in place to protect their narratives and the power structures that…

 My point, once again, is not that those ancient people told literal stories and we are now smart enough to take them symbolically, but that they told them symbolically and we are now dumb enough to take them literally. ― John Dominic Crossan

Where were you (or your parents) on October 12^th, 1944? If you were a teenage girl in the New York City area, you might have been in or, more likely, outside the Paramount Theater, …

Western culture emphasizes individualism and, therefore, being authentic and true to who we are. Who we are, of course, is influenced by others, who also may be influenced by us. Social neuroscientists have posited that humans evolved through interactions, as each person, each group, and each region shared their stories with…

Becoming Our Own Protective Container

The Great Barrier Reef, one of the seven natural wonders of the world, is the largest single structure on earth built by living organisms. A 2012 report showed that thirty percent of  it had already been killed off by ocean warming. Another 20 percent was lost in 2018. Half of the chain has disappeared into bleached, skeletal form, and this entire 2,600 kilometre chain of reefs off the northeast of Australia will all be dead within a decade. Eventually,…

 WITNESSING TREE SPIRITS  IN ORDINARY REALITY   

Our property on the Bay of Quinte is home to several species of native trees. In one area we call the glen, we’ve been witnessing an ongoing onslaught by invasive insects. Over a period of three to four years we watched helplessly as the ash trees slowly lost their battles to the Ash Borer Beetle. It bores pencil holes into the bark, then tunnels…

The thing about living is light. It surrounds us, breathes through us – not in us but through us. The force of it is subtle as the New Mexico breeze I hardly notice under the hot summer desert sun then suddenly become acutely grateful for when under the shade of a hundred-year-old cottonwood tree.

 Light informs my psychotherapeutic work with…

How are humans permanently changed by violence in their environment?

Human fossil history suggests that about 25% of us were killed with some form of human violence in the past. Those of us who study human violence longitudinally, and recognize it’s ubiquitous nature, are still trying to identify a common source.  Is “environmental violence”, the violence that occurs around us every day, in various forms including news reports and entertainment, itself the…

In April 2011 a million people gathered in London. News reporters showed that many were apparently weeping with joy. Broadcast in over 180 countries to perhaps 160 million viewers, the wedding was one of the most watched events in TV history. With an additional 70 million live internet streams, the Guinness Book gave it the record of “Most Live Streams for a Single Event”, beating out 2009’s memorial service for Michael Jackson (see below).

Hundreds of…

The root of the White man’s hatred is terror, a bottomless and nameless terror, which focuses on this dread figure, an entity which lives only in his mind. – James Baldwin

As I considered the dark anniversary that is approaching, after all the writing I’ve done about race in America, it came to me as a shock of insight. It was so obvious, yet I hadn’t noticed it before. I was talking with a friend about white privilege, when he interrupted me and…

Every American president at least since Harry Truman, and arguably for much longer, has encountered a unique political dilemma created by two conditions. The first is a political reality. Capitalism and imperial expansion have dominated American politics since the beginning of the republic – and, if we are to properly understand the events of November 22nd, 1963 as a military coup – the end of the republic. In this context, all Presidents since Lyndon Johnson have been servants…

Part Three

Who is he, who even were truth on his tongue, his way of speaking it would make truth almost as offensive as falsehood? – Melville

In America part of this heritage is channeled through our unique emphasis on individualism, and, I would add, our narcissism:  What is true for…

Part One:

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold. – Yeats

In a previous blog series I offered my perspective on how the gatekeepers of our culture deliberately exclude and demonize much progressive thought by associating it in the reader’s mind with excessively bizarre right-wing claims, thereby…

Psychologist, author (The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief) and ritual leader Francis Weller has evolved a useful psychological concept.

The Predator is a…

Most of us are drawn by simple curiosity to Edgar Cayce’s readings, to discover what the world famous sleeping psychic saw while in a trance state. And Cayce often encountered spirits, as he states in reading 3744-1: "The spirit of all that have passed from the physical realm…remain within this sphere… There are thousands about us here at present." Cayce talked about spirit possession, and informs us in reading 5753-1, "Discarnate entities… may influence the thought of an entity." In reading…

When someone asks, “How are you?”, you might say, “Great!” or “I’m good” or “Hanging in there” or some such, and leave it at that. But if you are talking with a friend, loved one, or anyone who seems truly interested, likely you might share an anecdote about why you feel the way you do. For example, you might say:

• I left my house at the…