Polls of the Gen Zs is that they considered themselves Spiritual not Religions , 50%
The Spiritual, Magical , Co Creation is lost in Religion , and we love Christ , but are turned off by acts of ” Christian’s ”
The defining problem driving people out is … just how American life works in the 21st century.
— Read on www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/07/christian-church-communitiy-participation-drop/674843/
When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own – not of the same blood and birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are unnatural. ~Marcus Aurelius
(Book: Meditations https://amzn.to/3Zk2htn)
(Art: Painting by Maximilien Luce)
“I have been increasingly conscious, for the last 10 years or so, of deaths among my contemporaries. My generation is on the way out, and each death I have felt as an abruption, a tearing away of part of myself. There will be no one like us when we are gone, but then there is no one like anyone else, ever. When people die, they cannot be replaced. They leave holes that cannot be filled, for it is the fate — the genetic and neural fate — of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death.
“I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers.
Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.”—Oliver Sacks. (Photograph by Bill Hayes)
As we all face the losses and the gifts.
Via @the.marginalian
Admit it. You aren’t like them. You’re not even close. You may occasionally dress yourself up as one of them, watch the same mindless television shows as they do, maybe even eat the same fast food sometimes. But it seems that the more you try to fit in, the more you feel like an outsider, watching the “normal people” as they go about their automatic existences. For every time you say club passwords like “Have a nice day” and “Weather’s awful today, eh?”, you yearn inside to say forbidden things like “Tell me something that makes you cry” or “What do you think deja vu is for?”
Face it, you even want to talk to that girl in the elevator. But what if that girl in the elevator (and the balding man who walks past your cubicle at work) are thinking the same thing? Who knows what you might learn from taking a chance on conversation with a stranger? Everyone carries a piece of the puzzle. Nobody comes into your life by mere coincidence. Trust your instincts. Do the unexpected. Find the others. ~Timothy Leary
(Source: book reference unclear/Consider one of Leary’s most famous books: Turn on, Tune in, Drop out https://amzn.to/45Icv96)
(Art: Photograph by Baron Wolman)
I’m guilty of this in the past, but remain a deep thinker .
Once I knew myself deeply , I knew all my thoughts were not my own,
so clearing was necessary ..
I began this process in 2004 , and stopped my inner talk abuse , and was kinder and gentler , ” mothering ” myself as I deserved to be instead of self abuse and neglect .
Forgiveness of self , and forgiving as much as possible ..reclaiming my highest good , my highest self , forgiving errors …
It makes a difference 😘
Detachment was a horrible failure , attachment can get very distorted . It’s time to address exactly what the individual child needs and not fail the needs of foundation.
Do you see me ?
Do you hear me ?
Do I matter ?
Discomfort with intimacy seems to be on the rise—and no one’s quite sure why.
— Read on www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2023/04/insecure-attachment-style-intimacy-decline-isolation/673867/
I’ve come to know that those who have tried to stop my path, use me for my ability to create abundance will be held accountable and all that’s been taken from me , or unnaturally altered will be returned if it’s supposed to be and is in my highest good .
Sacrificed , more than once …it feels so much better knowing who does not have my best intentions at heart , and I’ve surrendered to Divine .
Thankful for each and every step that got me here and will always lift me higher away from the lowered energies that prefer me dead , rather that accept truths
This post is written by the marvelous Toko-pa Turner: Embodiment is the New Enlightenment
Much has been written about the art of mindfulness, especially focusing on how to create wiggle-room between an event and our reaction to it. We are asked to consider: Who is the “I” that experiences the event? And can we find the inner witness who sees oneself experiencing?
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All of this valid, important work takes us deeper into the seat of this “silent witness” so that we’ll be less governed by the unpredictable ebbs and swells of the emotional life. It can be a tremendous tool for moving through difficult passages with equanimity.
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But more often than not, I see this practice creating a kind of dissociation or detachment from the feeling life. Especially in folks who haven’t done the hard and dirty work of integrating their shadow, meditation can be used like any other form of escapism, to circumvent the true encounter with our less-than-desirable inner (and outer) guests.
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The result of this brand of presence often creates the opposite of what it intends. Rather than fostering the oneness it exalts, it feeds the very separation we are trying to heal by creating an image of spirituality that is unattainable. The focus on enlightenment rather than embodiment distances us from the messy business of being human.
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If you’re doing it right, presence, rather than detaching you, sensitises you to your environment. It puts you smack-dab in the discomfort, the disagreeability, the pain, the awkwardness, and the contradiction — this is where you can grow more skilled at meeting life where it’s at, rather than how you’d prefer it to be. In other words, allowing the full spectrum of events to be included in your experience, rather than mounting resistance to them.
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By extension, presence also makes us more porous to life’s mystery, or what Timothy “Speed” Levitch calls the “ongoing wow of now.” When we think of presence in these terms, as an aperture or opening to what is, we immediately feel a spaciousness stretching around the word. And it is this capacity for presence that awakens a natural sense of accountability towards, and authentic engagement with our relationships, communities, and the natural world.
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Image is by Red Thunderbird Woman — Leah Dorion —
and is from the book Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society
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A powerful, heartbreaking wake-up call about how the severely damaging effects of medications that claim to relieve suffering can threaten generations in a family. A heartbreaking wake-up call about how the severely damaging effects of medications can threaten generations in a family.
— Read on www.madinamerica.com/2023/08/book-review-crash-memoir-overmedication-recovery-ann-bracken/
GreatCosmicMothersUnite 