Sometimes it’s easier to understand ourselves by using something else as our lens. Let’s take that tree outside your window. As an analogy, this particular example is especially helpful given that a tree is rooted in the ground, growing up and out to participate in its local and regional ecosystem. Lots of fascinating connotations attachContinue reading “Meditation on a Tree”
Tag Archives: individuation
Being Human
Our health, happiness, and fulfillment as human beings are based in, and therefore dependent on, how deeply we understand ourselves. By that I mean something more than what we think of ourselves, or what general theory of human nature we happen to hold. Understanding is by definition a deep (“under”) position (“standing”) that accommodates aContinue reading “Being Human”
Breakpoint for Humanity
The concept of community is widely misunderstood and frequently gets misapplied to types of human groupings such as assemblies, crowds, neighborhoods, or regional populations. These others are based on a quantitative function of individuals gathered or grouped together, and might be distinguished by their specific conditions of location, setting, or occasion. Community, on the otherContinue reading “Breakpoint for Humanity”
Coming Together
Everybody is asking for my grand unified theory of everything. Well, actually no one is asking. Hell, hardly anyone reads this blog, to be honest. But I keep polishing my lens and clarifying a theory that brings everything inside a single frame. That’s the supreme triadic principle of wisdom after all: (1) All is one,Continue reading “Coming Together”
Ecospirituality and a New Humanity
For anything to emerge into existence and evolve over time, it needs to differentiate from the preconditions of its “womb” environment as well as from others around it. The magnificent proliferation and diversity of life on Earth has advanced not only by forming new connections and relationships, but also by this process of “differencing” orContinue reading “Ecospirituality and a New Humanity”
Empathy and Human Salvation
It’s easy to blame Donald Trump for the fracture of American society along the faultlines of race, wealth, politics, and religion. But we all know that those faultlines were already there before he brazenly sucked the soul out of the Republican party and exploited social media to seduce millions more into his “Make America GreatContinue reading “Empathy and Human Salvation”
Human Progress
In The Power of Myth Joseph Campbell says that “Heaven and hell are within us, and all the gods are within us.” He read the world’s mythologies as “magnified dreams” (ibid) projecting through metaphor and fiction the inner potentialities and evolutionary adventure of the human spirit. Even if the Hero of this journey typically returnsContinue reading “Human Progress”
Homecoming
The process of becoming somebody – someone with a separate center of personal identity – is a long and complicated affair involving many others who are also undergoing their own individuation. We are busy trying to figure out the game as the game is shaping who we are. Actually, the process of becoming somebody hasContinue reading “Homecoming”
Virtues of the Centered Life
Western and Eastern approaches to spirituality differ in their accents on what to do with the ego – that separate center of personal identity that each of us cherishes as “I, myself.” The challenge in both cases is presented in the condition of duality, which is a consequence of separating into our own identity, knownContinue reading “Virtues of the Centered Life”
A Conspiracy of Meaning
As far as we know, humans are the only species that constructs a habitat of culture ranging far beyond the natural imperatives of survival, reproduction, raising our young, and maintaining social order. All other species seem right at home in their natural environments, whereas ours is obsessed with understanding our place, how we got here,Continue reading “A Conspiracy of Meaning”
Tracts of Revolution 