Podcasts That I Like

Spirit Walks the Dog: stay tuned, starting soon!

Behind Greatness, Inspire North: link here

Telepathy Tapes: link here

Buddha at the Gas Pump: link here

Our Paranormal Afterlife with Simon Bown: link here

• Be a SeedMarch 11, 2026

  “Justice, most of us believe, is when we send bad guys to jail. We imagine that we can point out the few who get caught and that then we can think of ourselves as a fair society. But we don’t dare convict the whole system of massive injustice and deceit. Maybe we are refusing to carry both guilt and responsibility? Taking responsibility for the common good is the more important moral mandate. And that is exactly where the [mystics] began. When the common good is the focus, preaching is not about imposing guilt and shame on individuals, but about giving vision and encouragement to society.”

  ~ Richard Rohr

  When things break down, spaces are created behind the wrecking ball. Notice the spaces. Create something, build something, seed something based on Love in those spaces. Give vision and encouragement.

  That need not be something big or public or visible. Talk to the trees, treat your animal friend respectfully, fill yourself with light before walking into the grocery store. Energy is real. Seed the world with a seed of peace, of Love, with a seed of awareness that we are all more than our physical bodies. One small seed grows into a plant that can feed many people.

  

• A Piece for PeaceMarch 6, 2026

  When hope feels thin
  and once again
  we wake to headlines written in smoke,
  we ask the same old question
  in a newer, louder voice.

  War.

  What is it good for?

  When the sky glows red in places we have never been,
  and yet somehow it is our own horizon burning,
  how do we handle it?
  How do we keep our hearts from hardening
  like clay left too long in the sun?

  How do we love
  when fear knocks louder than kindness?
  How do we live
  without becoming the frog in the slow boil,
  adjusting to the heat
  until we forget we are burning?

  War.

  I despise it.
  Not in theory, not in textbooks,
  but in the quiet rooms where mothers sit
  staring at doors that will not open again.
  In the folded flags.
  In the boots that will not be worn.

  War means tears in thousands of eyes.
  It means a name carved into stone
  where laughter should have been.
  It means the young go first
  while the old speak of strategy.

  It’s always the old who lead us into wars.
  It’s always the young who fall.

  Look at what we have won
  with saber and gun.
  Look closely.
  Is it worth the cost of a single child’s breath?

  In the fields, the bodies burning.
  The machine keeps turning.
  Metal and money grind louder than prayer.
  Hatred spreads like smoke through open windows.
  It poisons minds until we forget
  that the face across the border
  is a mirror.

  Have we come so far
  from knowing
  that the foe we strike
  is us?

  When have the war drums sounded
  and lilies bloomed behind them?
  When has blood fed the soil
  and grown anything but grief?

  Has there ever been a time for war?
  A true time?
  A sacred hour
  when destroying the spiral of humanity
  made it whole again?

  When is it acceptable
  to lay down love
  and pick up power?

  When is it right
  to wound the soul
  for a moment’s relief from fear?

  Do we lay down arms?
  Do we bare our naked breast
  to the saber and the saw?
  Or do we learn a different courage,
  one that stands unarmed
  and still refuses to hate?

  What if I became
  such a warrior of love
  that when you came to burn down my being
  you found only a mirror
  and forgiveness?

  Not weakness.
  Not surrender.
  But a refusal
  to let your fire
  become my flame.

  Until basic human rights
  are guaranteed to all,
  without regard to race,
  without regard to border,
  without regard to who prays which way,
  this is a war.

  A war against hunger.
  A war against injustice.
  A war against the lie
  that some lives are worth more than others.

  But this war
  is fought with open hands.
  With policy and protest.
  With bread and books.
  With listening.
  With love that does not flinch.

  Suffering may be constant.
  That does not mean
  we must build monuments to it.

  When will love be the language of war?
  When will we strike
  a soft blow
  that breaks chains instead of bones?

  When will we leave the sword
  for the soul?

  Maybe peace does not begin
  in treaties signed under chandeliers.
  Maybe it begins
  when one heart refuses
  to boil.

  When one voice says,
  no more.

  When one person chooses
  to see a brother
  where they were told to see a threat.

  War.

  What is it good for?

  If history is honest,
  almost nothing.

  But love,
  stubborn and inconvenient,
  is good for everything.

  So we keep our hearts.
  We keep them open.
  We guard them not with walls
  but with courage.

  And even in the smoke,
  even in the noise,
  we choose to live
  as if peace
  is still possible.

  Because it is.

  ~ Larson Langston

  

• Spirit Walks the Dog PodcastMarch 3, 2026

  The first episode of Spirit Walks the Dog drops today, Mar 3! New episodes every other week!

  Available wherever you find your podcasts

  Join us today for a conversation about Spirit in everyday life …

  

• Intention Matters in Real WaysMarch 1, 2026

  “In the 1980s, during the peak of the Lebanon War, an incredible study was conducted.

  “It was hypothesised, based on many previous smaller experiments, that if enough people were connected in meditation, stimulating a ‘powerful field of peace’ within – that there would be a radiated influence of peace without, ie. one that affected the behaviour of people in the outer world. Directed toward an area of conflict, in the words of John Hagelin, people would wake up and think ‘Hey, I’m not going to kill anyone today.’

  “About a thousand people came together for this experiment in Jerusalem; meditating together with an aim of peace in neighbouring Lebanon. Scientists charted, at the same time, ‘progress towards peace’. This translated to reduced war deaths, reduced injuries and numbers of bombs dropped, in the location where the meditation focused.

  “The data from this experiment was astounding. The correlation of ‘progress toward peace’ was near lock step in alignment with the periods of meditation. Radiating this influence of inner peace, into outer peace in a conflict zone nearby.

  “When put through mathematical analysis, the likelihood that theses results were due to some fluke or chance were less than one part in ten thousand. To be able to assert something like this with such certainty, that group meditation prevented war, was an incredible finding.

  “When the results of this study were published in the Yale University Journal of Conflict Resolution, it ignited a firestorm in the scientific community. First of all, it took two years to publish the paper; the editors reviewed it and reviewed it, over and over, unable to believe the accuracy of these findings. Finally however, they came to the conclusion that the paper was ‘unassailable.’ The study was performed at a standard of scientific rigour far beyond that required for publication, in any journal. But, when they did publish it, they did so with a letter – the letter saying the results of this experiment were so unexpected, ie. that a thousand people could influence the behaviour of a million, that they urged other scientists to go out and repeat the study.

  “And that is exactly what happened. Over the next two and a quarter years, seven other scientific collaborations went out and repeated the study, training and assembling groups of meditators, to see its effect on war. And in every one of these experiments during this two and a quarter year period, there was a marked reduction in war and violence. ie. An eighty percent drop in war deaths and war related injuries in comparison to all the other days during this period where there were no mediating groups. In every single experiment there was a highly statistical significance toward ‘progress toward peace’ connected to focused intent toward it.

  “When put together, the results were amazing. The likelihood that this result of reduction of war was simply due to chance, was less than one part in ten million, million, million (ie. 0.0000001). There was far more evidence that group meditation can turn off war like a light-switch, than there was that aspirin reduces headache pain. It is a scientific fact.”

  ~ Dr John Hagelin

  Lebanese peace project research reference:
  Journal of Social Behavior and Personality 17(1): 285­338, 2005

  

• Do The Small WorkFebruary 26, 2026

  “If we just worry about the big picture, we are powerless. So my secret is to start right away doing whatever little work I can do. I try to give joy to one person in the morning, and remove the suffering of one person in the afternoon. If you and your friends do not despise the small work, a million people will remove a lot of suffering.”
  ~ Sister Chan Khong, Vietnamese nun and peace activist

  

• Change & ResponsibilityFebruary 1, 2026

  (Taken from a letter written to a friend …)

  I understand the cyclic movement of change  requires the dissolution of what is in order to make room for the new. Gardening, history, archaeology, and geology, among other studies, require this awareness of movement. Archaeology in particular is a good lesson in the ebb and flow of civilizations and communities. 

  I also understand that the dissolution is theoretical to most Americans if they haven’t experienced its effects through living in a precarious country or a war zone. The vast majority of Americans haven’t had those experiences, and they’re not affected by anything going on here yet. Nothing. Prices are still affordable, everything desired is still available in stores, the electrical grid is functioning, no masked men are beating your neighbor or busting down your door. Most Americans can’t really imagine, I’m betting, that they could wake one day to no working power grid, empty shelves and long lines for any sort of food in stores, armed men roaming the streets, stopping whomever they want, holding guns to heads, beating people up or taking money or raping a child or shooting a grandfather with no repercussions, courts impotent.

  Some of us have known any or all of that and understand how thin the veneer of civilized cooperation can be, and how many lies that veneer masks: war vets, deep travelers, blacks and Asians and Latinos and American Indian tribal members, they may well know our familiar veneer of ideals covers repeated atrocities, and perceive true dangers sitting beneath what looks innocuous or safe.

  I don’t have a problem with the breakdown of what was, because what’s breaking down is essentially the organization of a culture that was – at best – willing to turn a blind eye to its institutionalized racism, misogyny, injustice, arrogance, greed, etc. It has to be broken down, possibly – hopefully? – all the way to the ground in order for something better to be created.

  What’s difficult for me is what feels like the blind stupidity of much of humanity that leads us to doing it in this way that generates more fear and violence, almost entirely still aimed at the most vulnerable. That’s my conceit: that I’m smarter than that and had no part in the vicious lies we’ve lived within. And it is a conceit.

  Maybe because my conceit is visible to myself, I’m not willing to overlook the pain and fear that’s being created (or unleashed, or out pictured, or however it gets described) because the end will be good for humanity (it will). It’s my understanding that ignoring or overlooking that aspect is just one more example of the arrogant ignorance we as Americans have been basking in for 300 years. “Well, I can sit back and watch the show – I don’t have a dog in the race.” I think that through this process we’re all going to find out that we each do have a dog in this race, and that’s the point: we are all one, all related, and responsible to and for each other. “That which you do to the least of my brethren, you do unto me.” (Matt 25:40 – no, I’m not Christian but grew up in it. Quote me from your tradition in comments, pls)

  Having friends involved in what’s going on in Minnesota does make these affairs feel different to me, but it shouldn’t.

  I’m not intending to say, “if you don’t do things the way I think you should or want you to, you’re wrong and a problem” — I think we’re all going to meet what we need to meet, and we’ll each show up in the way we intend. I personally have to acknowledge the injustice, pain, and fear within the process of cyclic change or I feel that I’m lying to myself in ways that this country has lied to itself from the start, and I think I could be in danger of propagating the belief that those injustices and fears have nothing to do with me. That is never true; we are truly all one.

  We all lift, or no one does.

  If I were deeply true to my knowing, I don’t think I would live in this house. I wouldn’t have a savings account or investments, because it should be unthinkable to accumulate excess when there are people in need. I ponder this, worrying it, that the choices I make are less than true to what I know. So I can say all of the above and still know that as long as I don’t share my excess, I am part of the problem. There are many ways we won’t change without things being burnt to the ground around us, and if that’s what it takes, so be it. That conceit that I am smart enough to do it differently is exposed.

  I gather humanity at night, holding us in pure love, the people who are in the way of the bulldozer of others’ fears, but also including the people with so much hate and pain and fear in their hearts that all they can do is hurt other people with it. I include those who have had the privilege of looking the other way, believing the injustices and pain are someone else’s business. And I include those who feel the pain and injustices as if they were their own, many of them shunning humanity for its unimaginable cruelty, unable to process the level of shared pain and sorrow that they feel. 

  I’ve often found this culture to be difficult, ridiculous, and inhumane, so this is just one small rant … and a reminder to do my part as I see it, and to check my conceits.

  I believe that we will all come to realize that we are responsible to and for each other, and that which is unimaginable now will come to be. In the meantime, I think it’s critical to be kind. I think it’s critical to care for and protect each other if at all possible, because – again – we are all related and responsible to and for each other. 

  

• To Be PeaceJanuary 8, 2026

  Please send thoughts and imaginings and prayers only of love and compassion to everyone right now. Hold in love those who are grieving, frightened, heartbroken, abused in any way, protecting the vulnerable … and also love for those who are angry, aggressive, broken inside, so alienated from their own innate holiness that they wield their own pain as a weapon, hurting all of us.

  We are one, of one fabric, one note, one movement, one mystery of creation, related and in relation. Fear in us will create more fear. Hate in us creates more hate. Love is the only way to end the long, long cycle of fear that creates violence, aggression, hate, envy, greed, arrogance, etc.

  It can be hard to send love or feel compassion for those whose actions and words come from a basis of hate, aggression, and other expressions of fear. If it feels impossible, try beginning by sending a neutral energy that holds an intention that they get what they need for their own highest healing, their own return to knowing themselves as nonphysical beings of and in and with the fabric of Love, having an experience through the personality and physical body. If we can’t separate the soul of that person or group from the broken personality expressions they’re putting out into the world, we do them and ourselves an injustice. We are one. When we condemn another, we condemn ourselves. Be willing to see their souls. Be willing to see the light within them that they cannot see themselves.

  Please close your eyes for just a few minutes if you can, to imagine filling your heart, body, or energy field with the feeling of love, or the vision of light, or the sensation of many beautiful golden suns. Emanate that warmth and beauty, that security and serenity and belonging out into the world with a peaceful and generous heart. Send it to people you love and sympathize with, then send it to the people whose actions and words are not in alignment with all of our intrinsically beautiful souls. They need healing too.

  “Behold, I make all things new.” ~ The Guides through Paul Selig

  🙏🏽

  (If you think peace assumes or requires passivity, I would disagree and invite you to read the other posts here … )

  

• Hate Cannot Drive Out HateJune 23, 2025

  A few people have told me about spiritual teachers or personalities who have said that Trump is a light being, doing light being work, and what do I think about that … so here’s what I think about that. (Maybe don’t  get hung up on an idea before reading all the way through.)

  Everyone is a “light being.” This isn’t my language, but the idea is that every person is an expression of the One, the All. This is the very essence of what we are so we cannot be otherwise, no matter what we believe, say, or do. Someone can tell you all your life that you’re a pink sheep, and eventually you may come to believe and therefore act like a pink sheep, but you will never BE a pink sheep. We’re told all our lives in subtle and obvious ways that we are not intrinsically holy, and we believe it. We’ve been told all our lives that we have to earn worth, prove we mean something, improve to be saved. We’re told we’re not holy so many times, we believe it – but it’s not true and never will be. The very fabric of all being is one fabric. Oak tree, lamp, tiger, tyrant, holy woman, the essence of one is the essence of all. We are all of the same fabric, and that fabric is light, love, God, Spirit, All, One, Allah, Tunkasila, whatever name you care to use.

  Most of us don’t know how to think clearly about people who do or say bad things; we believe bad people are wholly bad, with no lovely qualities at all, and they certainly cannot be “light beings.” Hitler cannot be admitted to be either good in any way, or understood to have an essence that is infinite and holy. We want to believe in black and white good and evil. It’s easier. And our enculturation will not comfortably allow a paradox of the horrific and the tender held within one person, and our philosophies and spiritual beliefs rarely carry the maturity to comprehend the true implications of creating our own reality, being responsible to and for it, and what it means if everything – everything – that exists is of the same fabric.

  Whether we can wrap our minds around it or not, Hitler was of the same fabric of being that each of us are made of because we are all One. And Trump is too. That does not mean that what Hitler said and did was an expression of that essence of light. It very obviously was not. And Trump being recognized as a light being does not imply that all he says and does is an expression of that light. It obviously is not. Light doesn’t insult, threaten, attack, kidnap, lie, kill, condemn, or incite others to violence and hate. These are never expressions of light. A person cut off from their own light does these things. Someone who needs healing does these things.

  We have free will in this reality’s experience of cause and effect. If we want to explore the idea that we’re separate from the One, the All, we can – and have been – having that experience. The belief creates the experience. And the primary and foundational way of functioning created by a belief that we’re separate is fear. Anger, competition, jealousy, envy, greed, obsessions, aggression all come from a basis of fear – fear that there’s not enough for all, that others mean you harm, that you can be harmed, that you have to earn a place or prove yourself to be included. 

  If we’re honest, we can all recognize these expressions in ourselves and our everyday lives, these symptoms of a base fear, microcosmically. The symptoms are also present in cultures, in countries, macrocosmically. No matter what we state as ideals, we in the United States, for instance, are not a country whose basis of value is fully that of kindness, generosity, and caring for those who are unable to care for themselves. Our base value is monetary, upheld by might makes right. (Everything is stated valuable in terms of monetary worth, from forests to insults and compensation for deaths.) We espouse ideals in our self-image, and in our State of the Union and Constitution, then cherry pick what we want from that and ignore the ways we trespass on our own ideals, whether through innocent ignorance, willful denial, or aggressive rationalization.

  Trump can be understood to be the embodiment of all the worst aspects of our culture: the adolescent arrogance, the unchecked and admired greed, the systemic and deeply historical racism, the aggressive misogyny, the lying to ourselves and others, the willingness to use might to strong arm those who don’t give us what we want, the belief that bad things don’t happen to good people, the need to be special and subsequent belief in manifest destiny, the claiming of victimhood and use of that in competition to claim validation (I’m the biggest victim, so I’m more valid than you are). All of these things deserve a careful ponder, because they’re certainly all present in our culture, and probably present in some form in our individual personalities (and once seen, can be dismantled). 

  This is important: what can be seen can be healed. It’s been easy for many people to be ignorant of the ongoing experiences of Amerindians, blacks, Hispanics, LGBTQ, and other marginalized communities … it’s easy to say this is just how the world is and always has been: there are always some people who get a bad deal, a rough time of it, and it’s not my problem. But it is and always has been the way it is only because we have believed it and allowed it. Many people in these groups are not shocked by what’s going on now in this country – it’s been going on in their lives for a long time. It is simply now blatantly visible, to the world, if not yet to all of us. We have to see it. We have to see it to be able to stop choosing it.

  The ugly things that Trump acts out on a  world stage are those ugly aspects of our culture that have always been present. He is a light being, yes – and he is not acting in accord with his own light. He is an out-picturing of our own ugliest aspects. The racism, hate, misogyny, aggression, greed, and arrogance have always been present, but many of us were able to ignore it, or deny it as our problem. But we live in a country that perpetrates and perpetuates these beliefs, which creates misery for our fellow light beings. We are complicit in this way. We are responsible to and with what we participate in whether we consciously create it or condone it or not. If we see it, we are able to respond and the lies that we live with are now being exposed in ways that won’t be ignored. They have to be seen and acknowledged, because that’s the way they can be ended. They can’t be ended if they can’t be seen. 

  It’s my understanding that this shift of healing could have been done in a gentler way, but we get what we create, the effects of our communal beliefs and choices and momentum and community, and this is what we have. So how do we best handle it, is the functional question.

  I believe Trump’s actions and words are those of a person cut off from their light. He – like this country – needs healing. Standing up to his and anyone’s destructive actions and words has true power when the essence of the individual is first recognized as intrinsically of the divine, beyond or deep behind the person’s actions and words. Hate of the individual as a soul individual is hate feeding hate. No one is more special than another, no matter the valuations we make up within the physical world. And no one exists outside of the All, because the very fabric of being makes all things beingness. And no one gets left behind: either we all lift, or none of does. When we are able to say hello to the intrinsic divine within someone, before we stand up to their actions or words, we have energetically shown them their own divinity, and invited them to live up to it. If you think this has no power, you are mistaken. Everything is energy before it is anything else – energy and intention are creation.

  It’s my belief that we must stand up and speak up against harmful words and actions in every way that we know is right for us. We must do what we can to interrupt words and actions that hurt or diminish others. And it’s necessary to recognize that our own fear in the form of rage, arrogance, hate, or violence feeds what we fear, microcosmically and macrocosmically. When we know ourselves and every other being, first and truthfully, as infinite essence, as a constant and unassailable aspect of the fabric of being, our own words and actions will originate in love, and as Martin Luther King truthfully said, hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

  

• Energy Flows Where Attention GoesFebruary 11, 2025

  Interrupt worry, gently and persistently. Interrupt your imagination’s pictures of futures that don’t exist yet and may never. Introduce a memory of beauty, a possibility of laughter, rest, or fellowship. Imagine every soul lifting into itself in relief, realigning our collective potential toward a so far unimaginable collective peace.

  We are creators. Energy flows where attention goes. This is as real as the wind’s movement. If our fears themselves are creating or maintaining an experience of destructive potential, of divisiveness, discrimination, injustice, hate, and/or lies, we have the power to redirect our energies, realign our desires and expectations. 

  We can, in every moment, engage hope, and imagine a deeply peaceful and gorgeous outcome without needing to know how that could possibly come about. We can engage this creativity in the presence of what is before us – there is no need to bypass what’s present. See what is present, of course respond to it if that’s what’s required … just don’t assume that what is present in this moment dictates only a feared future’s outcome. Use your creative powers to meet the present, and shape the future toward the coherent peace and belonging that we can all embody. 

  

• Mystics & ProphetsFebruary 9, 2025

  “The key to living as a prophet-mystic is showing up for what is, no matter how heartbreaking or laborious, how fraught with seemingly intractable conflict and how tempting it might be to meditate or pray our way out of the pain. Contemplative practices train us to befriend reality, to become intimate with all things by offering them our complete attention. In this way, the prophet and the mystic occupy the same broken-open space. The nexus is grief. The mystic has tasted the grace of direct experience of the sacred and then seemingly lost the connection. She feels the pain of separation from the divine and longs for union. The prophet has perceived the brokenness of the world and is incapable of unseeing it. He feels the pain of injustice and cannot help but protest. But the mystic cannot jump to union without spending time in the emptiness of longing. The prophet must sit in helplessness before stepping up and speaking out. “
  ~ Mirabai Starr

  

• Responsibility: complicity to truthFebruary 7, 2025

  The ideals that our country has professed since the ratification of the Constitution have never really been owned up to and met. Any Hispanic, Asian, black, or American Indian will attest to this. Most women could attest. Yet the myth persists that we’re the good guys.

  Our government has invaded, undermined, destroyed, strong-armed, blackmailed, and manipulated many, many individuals and countries purely to forward our own interests, most often to the detriment of the individual or other country. Our lawmakers are too often bent by big money corporate and political lobbies that represent narrow interests, often – consciously and indifferently – to the detriment of the whole of society. The aid our representatives send to assist is too often hijacked by the people who need it least, and used to increase their power and bank over those who are weak or starving. 

  Our judicial system has never been fair and impartial. As blatant as its corruption has become through the ultra-conservatives having stacked the courts, it has always bent the spirit of the law against the marginal, underprivileged, and under served.

  Power corrupts, and we become immune to our own complicity in the corruption. We continue to agree to the way things are, never actually having to admit to picking up the stone that was thrown at the Nicaraguan farmer, the Eritrean mother, the orphaned child in Indonesia. But make no mistake, the stones that were and continue to be thrown are as much our responsibility as they are the responsibility of our leaders. We keep agreeing to the way things are. We were not rioting in the streets to stop lobbyists buying our congresspeople, and we were not losing our minds over injustices done daily in the courts. We were not standing in front of tanks or jets in the Middle East or blocking construction of oil facilities in the Congo or building shelter for our own homeless and mentally ill. Well, it’s just how the world works. I’m busy with my own life – I can’t monitor all those politicians. 

  Most of us are not directly complicit, and so we abdicate responsibility. But I believe that abdicating that responsibility will keep us from creating something better. I don’t advocate beating ourselves up over this passive agreement to what is or was. I do entertain the possibility of seeing it clearly and with brutal honesty, forgiving ourselves and each other, then from that point being able to create something that actually lives up to the ideals that we as a country have professed to be possible.

  Now everything that has been present in the background is presented in exaggerated form, exposed for anyone with the presence and mind to admit it. Lies, racism, misogyny, manipulation, kidnapping, bullying, et cetera, et cetera. These have always been present. Now they are exaggerated and growing, to everyone’s shame. And we are quick to point a finger at the ultra-conservatives who are dismantling what we know and are accustomed to. We fear the chaos, and are confused watching the fast-moving destruction of the over-arching organizations that we assumed to be stable.

  There are other, more peaceful and sane ways that we could have met the consequences of our own blindnesses, mistakes, and overlooked choices, but this is the one we’ve ended up within. We can point fingers and hate the more obvious architects of chaos, but I think we also have an opportunity here to face our own complicity in and agreement to a governmental history that has trampled on many, many lives. 

  I do think every stand to stop the current chaos is valid action. Protest in the streets, call congresspeople daily, donate to organizations taking legal action. Sheild vulnerable immigrants, join forces with others who know how to help. People are being hurt, kidnapped, lied to, and people will die due to the choices being made by people who base their power in lies, deception, exclusion, racism, misogyny, and greed. Stand up – speak and act strongly and in whatever way you know to be yours. I will only encourage two additions to meeting these people. Firstly, before, during, or after that protest, phone call, or donation made to counter injustice, fear, greed, or illegality, close your eyes for a moment and shower those people with love. Imagine you can see the tiny light of divinity within these broken people and brighten that light. And secondly, take a moment to ask forgiveness from our human and earth families for any and all detrimental consequences that have resulted from our own passive agreement and acceptance of the way things were and may be again. 

  We are all in this together. Everyone is connected. “What you damn, damns you back,” as Paul Selig’s guides say over and over. A problem can’t be solved from within the problem – when you damn, you place yourself within the problem, perpetuating it. When you damn yourself, you do the same. Healing anyone who is cut off from their essence is an act that will heal everyone. See their light. See your own light.

  See your own responsibility – your “ability to respond.” Own the past with brutal honesty so we don’t – individually and collectively, consciously or unconsciously – build that same thing again in what may be the ashes of what we have known. Of course do what is yours to stop injustice, hate, greed, fear, and chaos – please do. And while we’re at it, let’s own what has been our passive agreement to its presence so that we will not claim it again in the future.

  We are one. Realize the divine in all that exists. 

  

• Ability to Respond: ResponsibilityFebruary 6, 2025

  Any fool can wreck things. It takes insight, care, patience, and wise attention to create things. It’s much harder to do, which may be why foolish people end up avoiding it. Creation is always interesting, so much richer than the brief thrill of destruction. 

  In times of destruction, note the spaces between, the overlooked blank areas that are left after the wrecking ball passes. These spaces are opportunities. These are the spaces to use in beginning to build something new, something even better than what was destroyed.

  If the institutions that we used to count on to support others on our behalf disappear, we’ll just have to do the work individually, as we’re able. If the leaders we counted on to guide the manifestation of our ideals and hopes are broken people who foment separation in all its forms, we’ll have to look amongst ourselves for the leaders. We’ll just have to take on the responsibility for manifesting actions that express our ideals and fulfill our hopes for humanity as One.

  

• Strategy & StrengthFebruary 3, 2025

  Attributed to Hopi Tribal leader White Eagle (confirm if you know):

  
  “This moment that mankind is experiencing now can be seen as either a door or a hole. The decision to fall into the hole or go through the door is yours. If you absorb information 24 hours a day, with negative energy, constantly nervous, and pessimistic, you will fall into this hole.

  
  But if you take the opportunity to look at yourself, use the time to rethink life and death, to care for yourself and others, you are walking through the portal.

  
  Keep your home, keep your body safe. Connect with your spiritual home. When you take care of yourself, you take care of everyone else.
  Don’t underestimate the spiritual dimension of this crisis. Take the perspective of an eagle that sees everything from above with a broader perspective. There is a social issue in this crisis but also a spiritual issue. They both go hand in hand.

  
  Without the social dimension we fall into bigotry. Without the spiritual dimension, we perish in pessimism and meaninglessness.
  you ready to pass this crisis. Pack your toolbox and use all the tools at your disposal.

  
  Learn the resistance from the example of the Indian and African people: We are and still are being threatened, extinct. But we never stopped singing, dancing, building bonfires and having joy.

  
  Don’t feel guilty for feeling happy in these difficult times. It doesn’t help at all to be sad or angry. Resistance is resistance through joy!
  You have every right to be strong and positive. And there’s no other way to do this than by adopting a beautiful, cheerful and empathetic attitude.

  
  This has nothing to do with alienation (ignorance of the world). It’s a resistance strategy.

  
  When we enter the door, we are given a new worldview because we have faced our fears and overcome adversity. That’s all you can do now:

  • Seek solace in the storm
  • Keep calm, pray daily
  • Make it a habit to meet the Holy everywhere, everyday.
    Show resistance through art, joy, trust and love.

  

• Creation in ChaosJanuary 23, 2025

  Resistance has intended effect when it applies pressure that acts rather than reacts.

  Reactive resistance gives the thing being resisted something to push against, keeping it present. Notice what happens when you go under, around or through. 

  Notice what happens when action is taken, rather than reaction being in charge.

  As things fall apart, spaces are created for new things to be shaped. Find the spaces and use them.

  The work doesn’t change: be truthful, be just, be kind. Be responsible to and for each other. Create for all beings. All my relatives: we are one.

  

• 19 January 2025January 19, 2025

  Close your eyes and imagine sending big love to people that you love.

  Then close your eyes and imagine send big love to the people that you disagree with, despise, and fear.

   It is not necessary to be angry in order to stand up to what is wrong. It is not necessary to hate or vilify an individual in order to stand up to the words or actions of that person. It is not necessary to feel self righteous when confronting what is not true or right. 

  Imagine that the ones you hate and fear need healing to remember who and what they really are. 

  “Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” ~ Martin Luther King

  None of this implies passivity. Stand. Speak. Act. But when action moves from an inner basis of Love rather than hate or anger (fear), that action has infinitely more power, because its power is the very basis of all existence. 

  If you want to change the world, start by changing your inner world. If you want peace, be peaceful. If you want right action based in Love, base yourself in Love.

  In essence, our work remains the same. Be Love in creative motion.

  

• Moving ForwardNovember 7, 2024

  A fair number of clients and Facebook followers are expressing grief, confusion, shock at the results of the election, as well as anxiety about other things going on in the world. If you are not one of them, I invite you to gracefully pass on this post. It is intended for those who are feeling the need for perspective, hope, and community.

  Here’s what my people have given me:

  “There’s a place beyond right and wrong where everyone is recognized as of One, and that’s the place of peace. As long as you hold your mind in duality, you will participate in it, perpetuating competition.

  “What happens will happen, still each individual has agency. What will come is still shaped by action and response, even action and response to that which feels larger than each individual – and the power of action and response most cleanly arises from a base of Love. You are all responsible to that which you agree to, and the world as it is is the world you have agreed to. What will come will hold difficulty, but also holds the potential for new ways of being, new agreements that move humanity beyond what is known – beyond the basis of fear.”

  I’d personally prefer this happen in a gentler way, and a saner way, but I guess we don’t get that option. We’re here now – and from my experience I know that we’ve each chosen to be here, to participate in great change.

  And I believe the change will require us, in one way or another, to answer for our actions and beliefs – communally and individually – in real ways.

  Every person who voted for the lawmakers down south who have made all sorts of abortion to miscarriage illegal, each of those individual voters (not to mention the doctors) are complicit in the deaths of the women who have died in the last months because of doctors who refused them care. This is our new stoning of women. Each person who voted threw a stone, but they can deny that to themselves because they don’t have to feel that stone in their hand or watch a woman die. We ask, how do they live with themselves? How will they forgive themselves?

  Everyone who cast a vote for Trump’s aggression, hate, anger, and irrationality has picked up a stone. Many will suffer, and so we look at all those people who stand with stones in their hands and say, “how can they do this? I could never do it …”

  And yet, where do I thrown stones that I’m not owning – maybe not even aware of. What am I not being responsible to, maybe beginning with peace and love. Because many times today I hated the people who think Trump is okay – hated them as sick and violent. I held my stone, feeding the hate, feeding the fear. That is not peace. That is not effective response — effective response can only come from a base of love. Anything less is fueling the divisive aggression, hate, anger, and irrationality – all forms of fear. Fear can only create more fear. Hate can only create hate. Hate doesn’t heal hate: only love does that.

  Moving from love doesn’t negate action — moving from love empowers action. So the work becomes this: how do I move from my very soul, trust my very soul, and in so doing, recognize the soul even in those whose actions and words I refuse? Because from that place, any action I take to stop their actions and words will somehow feed love, rather than perpetuating the hate and fear.

  We’re really in it now – this is what we came for, this time of change. What makes us think change is supposed to be tidy and well behaved?

  We’ve all held the stones. We are all complicit. Everything we’re encountering has been here with us all along — all the hate, insecurity, meanness, danger, aggression, fear — none of it is new. It’s just wholly visible now. It has been brought into view. Good: what is hidden can’t be cleaned up. If a mess is going to be cleaned up, it has to be seen. Now we can see it clearly for what it is.

  Think of it this way: we’ve been stuffing things in a closet for a few hundred years while we tell ourselves that we’re good, kind, clean Americans. Meanwhile, racism is rampant and misogyny is intrinsic and fellow citizens starve and children live in sewers and boxes and our government wars and assassinates and strong arms and threatens to extend and maintain power. We are all complicit in these truths. We have all agreed to that closet, passively or actively.

  Well, what happens when it’s time to open the closet — the first thing that happens when cleaning out a closet is that you make a huge f’ing mess by pulling everything out of that closet. That’s the only way you’re going to be able to sort through it all – make it visible. In order to get rid of what is rotten or broken or useless, you have to get it out of the closet. Then you can get rid of the rotten and clean up what is useful and good, clean out the closet itself. Now you have things you can use in a closet that is clean.

  I think we’re playing the long game now. Many things in life don’t get solved in four years or six or a decade. The whole shape of this reality is shifting and changing — I’m shown that humanity as a whole has agreed to end the exploration of separation (belief that we are separate from source, each other, the stones and trees and wind …) which is a belief that seats us in fear. As we remember who and what we really are — infinite, aspects of the One, souls — the potentials for experience in form must shift, the shape of this reality must shift, everything has to change to come back into alignment, coherence, our natural harmonic with each other.

  I suspect this takes decades, maybe generations. I don’t know what it looks like on the ground beyond the present. But I suspect that the most useful question to ask ourselves from within this journey is not why why why, but rather, how do I best handle this? How do I embody love, even here and now? How do I find compassion for those who know not what they do, even now? How do I maintain truth? How do I embody the peace and essence of being, even here and now? That’s the work — to embody the highest self within, no matter what is encountered.

  There’s an applicable story: Palden Gyatsu was imprisoned and tortured in China for 33 years. After he was released, he said, ‘It is not that I was without hatred. Especially when I was being tortured by my guards, I had immense hatred against them because I was being hurt. But, as a religious person, after the event I could reflect on what had happened, and I could see that those who inflicted torture did so out of their own ignorance.’ Compassion, a movement from the acknowledgment of each being’s humanity and in fact holy essence, is necessary and an expression of truth.

  Be kind. Be peaceful. Be the presence of love, even now, even as you stand strongly for justice, truth, inclusion, and tolerance in whatever way and place you’re given. If you don’t know what that looks like, ask the soul – ask All That Is, God, Goddess, the One, Wakan Tanka, Allah, YWH, the Force, your own essence – ask and then be willing to wait for an answer.

  I wonder what will happen, is a useful phrase that can help put some space between expectations and reality – often a highly charged space, as we become very attached to expectations. Ask for what you want, set goals, acknowledge expectations, then say, I wonder what will happen? Allow this opening for something even better than you have imagined.

  None of this precludes grieving what is lost, and allowing fear to be felt … acknowledge these emotions, let them circulate then fall away, rise and fall. They can be very strong, but they don’t need to make the decisions — they shouldn’t be driving the car. Put them in the back seat after they’ve had their cry. 

  How do I best handle this?

  I wonder what will happen? 

  May we each be the light we crave.

  I’m holding everyone in peace — including myself — as we adjust to something that feels unimaginable.

  *For those who would like to act and are not sure how, this group provides a weekly email with action items that are easy to accomplish, and good news to remind us that all is not madness: https://americansofconscience.com/checklist/

  

• Enneagram with Janet: essayJune 5, 2024

  REFLECTIONS ON THE ENNEAGRAM 

  Janet Johnston

  

  Enneagram:  A graph of nine.  

  The enneagram:  A map of the human condition intended to help us wake up to our true nature.  

  My introduction to the enneagram began fourteen years ago.  My husband and I were divorcing, my daughter had gone off to university and I had a serious illness that forced early retirement from a job that I loved.  This trifecta of losses left me stunned and wondering who I was. 

  My therapist recommended that I read, The Wisdom of the Enneagram by Don Riso and Russ Hudson. She explained that the enneagram is based on nine personality types but is also a tool for personal growth.  

  During my career as a psychiatric nurse, psychology interns honing their craft had given me every psychological assessment from the Myers-Briggs to the Rorschach. The results were dry and left me feeling pigeon-holed and directionless. So, I wasn’t interested in another personality assessment tool, and besides, the word enneagram was off-putting.  It sounded like a combination of enema and telegram. What I wanted was useful information about myself and how best to build reliable self-worth and wisdom. 

  But I respected this therapist, so I bought the book and settled onto my sofa with a mug of coffee, and began reading. 

  “We have come into this exquisite world to experience ever and ever more deeply our divine courage, freedom and light.”—Hafiz (1315-1390) Persian Poet

  The first thing I noticed was a shift away from the clinical, pathology-based tone I was used to. The book melded modern psychological language with the age-old quest to understand our human nature and its relationship with Source.  I appreciated the grand historical context; the reminder that humans have been seeking a way to be reunited with their whole selves for millennia.  This is the heart of all wisdom traditions, and I promised myself that I would return to the history and spirituality of the enneagram at some point. But at that moment, I was lost and hurting and needed practical help.  

  My therapist thought I might be a Type Four on the enneagram, so I read the chapter on Fours and found some affinity but no real fit.  Then I took the enneagram assessment and scored high on Point Nine.  

  I read a description of what Nines are like when they’re at their best. The description rang uncannily true. I’d known glimmers of that but they always ran ahead to a shimmer in the distance.  

  Then I read about Type Nine in the average to unhealthy ranges.  There I was, in depth—what I cared about, what I was trying to avoid and how I was maneuvering through life. My strategies laid bare, I suddenly felt seen which was both comforting and uncomfortably personal. I returned to the description of the very healthy Nine. And even though I only had glimpses of that state, it felt true to who I was.  My heart opened to longing for a sustained experience of this truer self.  And I wondered why I’d lost it to begin with.   

                                                              ***

  Do you have a personality, or does it have you?—Russ Hudson, The Enneagram Institute

  The enneagram teaches that all nine types have a particular twist on the granddaddy fear of them all—that we’re not inherently lovable. We humans have a way to go in the evolution of our consciousness, and life is painful at times.  Even children from the healthy families encounter traumas that affect them.  The greatest of which is the integration of the belief in separation from the ground of Being. Each generation is born into this experience of perceived separation which a child cannot help but integrate.  Like the Borg from Star Trek, resistance is futile.  One problem with this is the personality self can’t actually know itself as loved. 

  The ego, an important part of being human, becomes our dominant experience but it can only create a kind of faux version of the true self. By the time we have acquired language, we already think that we are the personality self.  In the meantime, Source abides in our heart, waiting for longing to bring us home to the experience of Oneness and love that is our birthright.  The longing we feel calls us to remember our whole selves as expressions of the Divine. We go through life sensing that something is missing because, of course, it is. 

  Each of the nine personality types, copes with the perceived loss of union in a particular way. The enneagram teaches how to recognize our particular pattern of self-forgetting as well as ways of becoming present to our true nature so that we can tell the difference and begin to reclaim awareness of the whole self that is our birthright.     

  When I read about the pattern of point Nine, my mouth literally fell open.  I finally understood why I stayed in unhealthy relationships longer than necessary, why I discounted my own needs and opinions and why I had so much fear of my own anger.  My mind was spinning with the question, Why after all the therapists I’ve seen, am I learning this from a book? But I felt so grateful that I wept.  This was the practical psycho-spiritual information I had been seeking.  

  The enneagram helps us on our quest for our essential self in two fundamental ways. The first is by providing psychological information particular to our personality type.  The second is by teaching the art of becoming present to our true nature.  If we only learn the typing information without incorporating the practices, we don’t benefit and, in fact, end up reinforcing our egoic notion of ourselves in greater detail.  “That’s just me being a Three!”  

  Knowing our type gives us a detailed view of ourselves, making it much easier to recognize when our defensive, ego patterns are running the show.  The enneagram view is not that the personality self is bad or should be eliminated but that it is a construct, an auxiliary aspect of the whole self.  Personality is needed and can be enjoyable and instructive but letting it be in charge is like handing the car keys to a three-year-old. 

  The enneagram is a living map of the human condition.  The embodied mindfulness practices help us return to the present moment where we can experience our Creative Self or True Self—in other words, the whole self in coherence with the Divine.  Each moment, with presence, is always the perfect starting place.  As we return to the breath and sensations, our true nature unfolds within us.  The enneagram also teaches that we are all connected energetically. As we learn to return to our whole selves we support the interconnected evolution of human beings. 

  ***

  It’s interesting to note a major, mainstream study of child temperament done at New York University in the 1980’s by the research psychologists, Thomas and Chess. After several years of studying babies they found that there are nine basic temperaments.  Dr. David Daniels, a professor and enneagram teacher, who taught at Stanford University was able to demonstrate that these nine temperaments correspond perfectly with the nine enneagram types.  This research is being expanded by Dr. Dan Siegel, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and executive director or the Mindsight Institute.  

  Underlying all the enneagram practices are compassion and respect for each person’s pace.  In fact, master teachers encourage us to take our time.  The enneagram is fascinating, but intellectual mastery is less beneficial than practice that leads to a new experience of ourselves as present to our body, heart and mind. 

  “When we are Present, “something” happens that feels compassionate and strong, patient and wise, indominable and of great value.  This something is who we actually are.  It is the “I” beyond name, without personality—our True Nature.” 

  —The Wisdom of the Enneagram, Russ Hudson and Don Riso

  Fundamental to the enneagram teachings is the idea of experiencing the three basic centers of intelligence: the body/instinctual center, the heart center and the head center.  These centers are parallel with the chakra system but consolidated into three main centers. When we’re only in contact with one or two, we’re not balanced. Besides, if we have three centers why not use them all?  

  As months of study and practice reacquainting myself with these centers progressed, I began to have a richer experience of myself.  At first, this felt counterintuitive because I was pretty disconnected, but I kept at it and it has paid off as my ability to be present and to feel more alive has gradually increased.

  For me, the enneagram was like the magic wardrobe in C.S. Louis’s, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.  I discovered a doorway to another more meaningful landscape and recognized myself as the protagonist in my own hero’s journey.  Later, I learned that Homer’s Odyssey parallels the enneagram. Many feel they are truly on their own hero’s journey when they use the enneagram for self-growth.

  As we practice being present to whatever is arising in us, we gradually experience more grace, resilience and creativity.  Source intelligence becomes palpable within us and we have more opportunities to shift the personality into its proper perspective.  From presence, our choices are fresh and alive rather than scripted by inherited “shoulds”. 

  Growth is not a linear process and using the enneagram doesn’t preclude having challenges in life but the depth of understanding supports our psychological growth and the presence practices support our spiritual growth.   

  As for learning to choose relationships wisely, I’ve developed the most important relationship I could have—the one with myself.  I continue to heal from the dissociation of my Type Nine pattern and to deepen my relationship with the Beloved.  I have no doubt that my enneagram work was preparation for my work with with Paul Selig and Natalie Sudman.  Because of all of these teachers, I have developed loving relationships I couldn’t have imagined when I began this journey. 

• ‘Answers About The Afterlife’ by Bob OlsonApril 24, 2014
  Bob Olson is a former skeptic and private investigator who began investigating evidence of life after death after the passing of his father in 1997. This event ignited questions in Bob that he never before considered, so he decided to use his skills as a private eye to investigate the afterlife. Bob is the host of “Afterlife TV with Bob Olson.” Whether you’re grieving the loss of a loved one, curious about what happens when we die, or pondering your own mortality, this book offers perspectives that are well thought out and simply stated.  …………………………………………………………………………… Video announcement click here. “Answers About The Afterlife” is available in Paperback or Kindle eBook: click here. …………………………………………………………………………… EDITORIAL REVIEWS Bob Olson’s new book, “Answers About The Afterlife,” is an excellent read. Like his interviews on Afterlifetv.com, Bob’s book is genuine and engaging. He presents his ideas and conclusions with an organic logic, making potentially challenging concepts simple to digest. Answers About The Afterlife stretches beyond belief systems respectfully, eliminating competition and resistance, setting the reader’s own curiosity free. Bob’s work is a true inspiration to keep asking the questions that matter. NATALIE SUDMAN, author of “Application of Impossible Things: A Near Death Experience in Iraq” My friend, Bob Olson, has written a wonderful and well-researched guide to the Afterlife. He carefully answers many of the questions and concerns we all have about the other side. The chapter on past lives resonates very much with my own studies of reincarnation and the benefits of past life regressions. I highly recommend “Answers About the Afterlife.” ~ BRIAN L. WEISS, MD, author of “Many Lives, Many Masters” What happens when we die? This is one of humankind’s most important and enduring questions. “Answers about the Afterlife” brings a fresh and exciting perspective to this ancient question. Bob Olson presents an impressive compilation of many lines of evidence that converge on the conclusion that the afterlife is, in a word, real. Innumerable common questions about the afterlife are addressed. This book is well written and enthusiastically recommended. ~ JEFFREY LONG, MD, author of the New York Times bestselling “Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences” Congratulations Bob Olson. Your book: ANSWERS ABOUT THE AFTERLIFE is perhaps one of the most in-depth and comprehensive guides I have ever read on the subject of life after death. I would call it the encyclopedia of the afterlife. This should be required reading for every soul who has ever pondered their heavenly heritage. ~ JAMES VAN PRAAGH, Spiritual Medium & author of “Growing Up In Heaven” Bob Olson has taken his education, experience and passion for being an investigator and applied them to the study of the afterlife, death and dying, and the world of spirit, sharing what these topics can teach us about life. This book is a wonderful map for those seeking their own discoveries as they explore the infinite possibilities. ~ ANITA MOORJANI, New York Times Best Selling Author of “Dying To Be Me” What a useful book. This is a clearly laid out resource, carefully researched and well thought out. Each topic is considered and approached in a logical and balanced way, and explained in sufficient detail to answer the questions fully. If you want one book to help you understand everything that has been found out about the afterlife, this could be it. ~ JENNY COCKELL, author of “Across Time and Death: A Mother’s Search for Her Past Life Children” This is a wonderful book that will change the lives of enquirers in this area, who may well be bereaved and lost and lonely, they can rely upon Bob’s vast exploration and understanding to guide them on their journey. Bob is a colossus in his field and is respected worldwide and this book demonstrates why. I recommend it wholeheartedly to you, as Bob will heal both worlds with this genuine and detailed investigation. ~ MAVIS PITTILLA, Spiritual Medium …………………………………………………………………..  
• Letters to my Immortal Beloved by Petra Gerda PaulNovember 13, 2013
  Letters to My Immortal Beloved is a short, touching collection of letters that Petra Gerda Paul wrote to her husband after his death. Petra’s husband had Alzheimer’s, a heartbreaking disease for everyone involved. Petra writes very simply and honestly about some lessons she learned as a caretaker, and about the power of love to heal the deep grief of the loss of a loved one. Her insights are touching and humbly profound. Well done, Petra … I hope this lovely book will be helpful for others who have had similar experiences, and inspiring for all who read it.
• Coming on Bio & A&E this summer …March 29, 2012
  Quite a few years ago I participated in a program at The Monroe Institute (TMI) that was filmed for a show called “the unXplained” on Bio and A&E channels this summer … as far as I know, this series is no longer available to the public. I’ve left the Monroe Institute publicity for it posted below. There were a number of episodes with different psychics, mediums, etc. Too bad it’s no longer available – the production was interesting and well done. The History Channel spends a week at The Monroe Institute! On March 9th, a group of young cameramen arrived at Robert’s Mountain Retreat to spend the week capturing the experiences of thirteen participants during the Lifeline program. UnXplained is a new series that is featured on the Biography Channel, as well as A&E. After Executive Producer Russ Stratton, attended a Gateway Voyage Program several years ago, he immediately knew that it was important to share this experience with the world. After years of planning, he brought his film crew of five cameramen to capture this process in action during a Lifeline program. For the entire week, thirteen participants from all over the world, were filmed as their journey through the Lifeline program unfolded. Belief systems were reframed, parts of Self were reclaimed, and many experienced assisting souls to the light. By the end of the week, the crew had become part of the group and even listened to a few of the exercises with the participants. The participants got great enjoyment in the excitement on the their faces as they explained what they had experienced. Over 100 hours of footage were taped during the week. Now editing and confirming data is in process, the finished film to air possibly this summer. The bond created between participants and the film crew was nothing short of amazing and some crew members are very eager to return as participants themselves! The episode is scheduled to air late-July or Early August. Stay tuned for the official date so you don’t miss out on the premiere of a very exciting week caught on film! _____________________________________________