The Gentleness that Tames the Ego
As soon as we start to force and push, our human nature closes down. When we practice with precision and gentleness, our mind, heart and body remain open. In the clarity and tenderness of this openness our deep inner wisdom can reveal itself. Many people I know, including myself, took up a practice or some kind of therapy many years ago. We didn’t know it at the time, but what most of us really wanted was escape. We wanted to get away from life-to transcend it, fix it, improve it, make it...
Read MoreThe Weight of the World is Love
Last year my partner Jonathan participated in a powerful ceremony called ‘The Blanket Exercise.’ The Blanket Exercise is not a lecture, not a podcast, not an article, not a video. It’s a ceremony, something you participate in. You cannot watch it from the outside, as a casual observer. You have to step into the experience, take on a role, and interact with the other people in the room. By the time you are done, the intensity of what you have seen and heard lives in your body,...
Read MoreThere’s That Thing
Louis C.K. was on the late night show, talking to Conan O’Brien about smart phones. He is a remarkably intelligent comedian, shining light into the dark places in our culture and conditioning. He was pointing to what we are trying to avoid in our obsession with our phones, emails, music, texting, Facebook, Youtube, etc. “We need to learn to just sit and do nothing, “ he said. “That’s called ‘being a person.’ We don’t do that. Because underneath everything in...
Read MoreThe Bear’s Claw
I received a powerful and mysterious gift, a few years ago, when I was working with a friend who had cancer. I spoke one day with an indigenous friend of mine about the healing work I was doing with this woman, and how challenging it was. He decided to loan me a sacred tool that his people used for healing. His people called this tool ‘the thing with no name’ because they believed that putting any kind of label on this implement would diminish its power to bless and to heal. I was...
Read MoreLiving in a VUCA world
VUCA is a military term, describing the conditions that are often faced on a dangerous and highly demanding combat mission. It stands for Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. As I was pondering the nature of VUCA, I asked myself, “which part of human life contains more VUCA than any other?” What came to me in that moment was this: the field of human communication.
Read MoreSafety & Our Freedom To Create
As the violence around us escalates, and the fear and aggression along with it, creating a space of safety and radical creativity feels like a bright current in the river of our life, gently pulling us forward. When I was growing up in our family, we had all kinds of people coming to our house: people working for the government, people in business and the trades, and artists. From the very beginning, I felt a strong attraction to the artists. They felt warm, alive and open. I liked being around...
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