Articles

Earlier in the year I posted a series of articles about the need to regain a symbolic consciousness, the need to see the symbolic meaning of events that happen in our inner and outer lives. Recently we have been witnessing the worst ecological disaster in North America with the oil gushing from the depths of the Gulf. We have heard the anger of politicians, the fear of fishermen and others for their livelihood, and the futility of BP to stem this ecological disaster, to stop the oil from polluting the shoreline and the sea. But have we been able to look beyond this tragic play of events to recognize the symbolic story that is being told: can we learn what life is telling us before it is too late? What is the deeper meaning of this disaster as the flow of oil meets the flow of the water, as our ecology is destroyed by our need or greed for oil?...(Full Article)

What I want to talk about this evening is the anima mundi -- the soul of the world. And actually I don’t want to just talk about the anima mundi, I want to see if we can invoke Her presence -- this living spirit of creation...(Full Article)

A Frozen Surface

While in deep meditation I am drawn into awareness. Rather than dissolving deeper into the emptiness of inner silence I am asked to listen for a sound, the specific sound of ice cracking. But I can hear nothing, no sound of ice cracking. Then I am shown the image of a river which has been frozen so deeply that it is like solid ground, and it has been frozen for so long that it has been forgotten that it is a river of water. On the banks of the river there is a village or town and I am left with the thought of what would happen to this town if the ice melted. Would the river rise and flood the houses?...(Full Article)

At the core of creation something is changing, coming alive in a new way. A light at the center of the world that has for millennia been dormant has been rekindled. This is the light of life itself waking up, remembering its own real nature and divine purpose. And with this awakening, the living being that is our world is undergoing a transformation in its very essence. The awakening of the light at the center of the world carries the potential for a whole new revelation, the possibility of a new way of living and being and relating to one another and to life. At this moment, we stand on the edge of a new stage in the evolution of life and consciousness, a new paradigm for the world... (Full Article)

We are coming to the end of one era, and stand at the dawn of a new age. When one era ends and another begins, power is generated to bring the new era into being. This power is needed to help dissolve the images and structures of the past, to destroy what is old and help the new to be born. (Full Article)

What is our responsibility at this time of global crisis? Many of us are only too aware of the precarious state of the world. We see and feel the tensions of terrorism, the plight of global poverty and hunger, and the ecological crisis that threatens our survival as a species. Any life form that knowingly destroys its own ecosystem is dangerously imbalanced. Our western focus on materialism and the power of greed is spreading over the planet, destroying its resources, polluting both the inner and outer worlds, desecrating the sacred that gives meaning to our lives. (Full Article)

We live in a culture of religious diversity that is at present experiencing a reawakening of interest in spirituality. If we are to more fully understand what this reawakening might mean, it seems to me that we need to clarify the traditional difference between religion and spirituality, between the exoteric and the esoteric. (Full Article)

Recently I wrote about the coming dawn and our need to be fully present to welcome the sunrise. But I also wrote about the darkness before the dawn, and it is this darkness that I am now drawn to articulate more fully, to explore its meaning and the story it is telling us. (Full Article...)

Are we facing a global catastrophe or a golden age, or both? As 2012 comes closer with its Mayan prophecies of the end of time, we are being forced to face the realities of an ecological disaster on a global level. There are also signs of a shift in consciousness away from a culture steeped in materialism towards values that reflect a more holistic understanding of life. The year 2012 has been given to us as a watershed, the moment in which our civilization could either collapse or transform. What does this mean, and what does this mean to us now, in this present moment of time?. (Full Article)

When we talk about ecological crisis, be it climate change or depletion of species or sustainability, we know as mystics that the outer world is a reflection of the inner. This is something people don’t like to face or own. We generally prefer to think of the inner or spiritual world as separate and unpolluted—an untouched place we can go to in meditation. But this is naïve: what happens in the inner is a prelude to what will happen in the outer. (Full Article)

In March this year (2011) the science journal Nature announced what many people already knew, that there are clear indications that the world’s Sixth Mass Extinction is already underway. The last mass extinction came some 65 million years ago when a comet or asteroid slammed into the Yucatan peninsula, in modern-day Mexico, causing firestorms whose dust cooled the planet, and an estimated 76 percent of species were killed, including the dinosaurs. The four previous mass extinction of species were due to gradual global warming and cooling, and happened on a scale of hundreds of thousands to millions of years. What is particular about our present mass extinction is that it has happened so quickly over a few centuries, and most significantly, it is man made. “The modern global mass extinction is a largely unaddressed hazard of climate change and human activities.” [1] (Full Article)

A World of Light

In deep meditation I come to a wall. I know this wall. I have seen it many times before in meditation and waking visions. It is a high brick wall. I know what is on the other side of the wall: a world of light. But there is no way through; there is no doorway, no ladder, no break in the wall. When I come to the wall I walk along it, and then I have to turn away, back to the narrow streets of this world. And yet I know what is on the other side. Sometimes I have made every effort and, clambering to the top, looked over the wall. Or I have just felt what is there—endless expanses of light, and the beings of light who live there. And yet always I have to come back, back into this world, so constricted and full of shadows: the half-light of our existence. (Full Article)

Prayer is the simplest and most natural way to communicate with the Divine. Prayer is the heart speaking. There are the prescribed prayers, the rituals of inner communion. But there are also our personal prayers, our way of being with the Divine, with the sacred that is our deepest nature and that of the world around us. In whatever way we are drawn to pray, there is a pressing need at this time to include the earth in our prayers. (Full Article)

La oración es una manera de estar con Dios, desde la oración nacida de la necesidad, donde le contamos a Dios nuestras necesidades, hasta la oración más profunda que nos lleva más allá de las palabras a la unidad y el silencio en el corazón. (Full Article)

What is the meaning of this approaching moment in time, winter solstice 2012? It is a day in cosmic time when it is said our solar system will be aligned with the center of our galaxy.[i] There are many different interpretations about what this might mean. According to the Mayan calendar it is the end of the Great Cycle of 26,000 years. Does this “end of time” mean a global cataclysm or the beginning of a Golden Age? The truth is that nobody knows. And yet our attention is drawn towards this moment in time, like moths to a lamp. Is it because in our soulless, materialistic culture we are looking for some event that can awaken us to a deeper purpose within our day-to-day existence? Or does this day in December hold a real secret for all of us? (Full article)