Naked Truths-A Book Review
Alex Gruenberg recently published a book in the Romance Genre called Naked Truths. The book is unlike other books in the genre because respect for women- and men-is emphasized throughout.
I saw a bumper sticker on my walk yesterday. It said, “Feminism is the radical notion that women are people, too.” And so are men, for that matter.
I recently saw a disturbing film called “Hot Girls Wanted” about a growing number of girls who enter the Porn Industry right out of high school, knowingly or unknowingly, mostly naively. They come to know what it’s like to compete for the dollar in a world where girls are treated as objects, at best, and toys to destroy, at worst.
The porn industry is considered commonplace in America which means objectifying and minimalizing people is on the rise, too. I dearly wish children were exempt in this equation but stealing children to spawn the sex slave industry is creating an unprecedented rise in this form of exploitation.
Alex Gruenberg’s book, Naked Truths, is a romance novel people yearn to read but can’t because no one writes romance books about real love and simple respect. Domination and submission still rule this genre.
The book is about people we can relate to who struggle to grow and love each other in spite of their wounds and baggage from the past.
You will want to know what happens next because you care about the characters. They seek to treat the other with kindness and honesty. This does not rule out erotic passion. In fact, it makes it more believable when the characters act like real human beings.
My Mother’s Kitchen- Podcast 243
When I think of “Kitchen Table Wisdom,” I think of my mother’s kitchen as I was growing up– political discussions, social justice, civil rights, the end of all war, spiritual reality all with coffee brewing 24/7, back kitchen door open to reveal bird song and neighborhood bustle.
My mother had a morning schedule she followed religiously: up to do yoga, a short meditation, coffee, reading, house cleaning once a week with our Amish cleaning person who came from rural Lancaster county to do the work. My dad dutifully picked her up and took her home, again.
In the summer, my parents belonged to a swimming pool that allowed people of color to belong. My parents participated in a “swimming pool suit” to put an end to discrimination at local swim clubs. We won but it took time to see the results.
I remember a movement of discourse, community and camaraderie happening in my mother’s kitchen. All opinions were allowed, although those who showed up generally agreed on all matters of importance.
The religious right weren’t banned, nor unwelcomed. Inside that kitchen, magic happened where free thought flowed, laughter erupted, a hint of grand potential was birthed in all who participated. A memory now, a movement then.
My mother’s kitchen.
Raised With Spiritual Parents- Podcast 242
I had a few beers last night with my friend Ellen. We were both raised by spiritual parents. In fact, her parents and mine were best friends. Ellen’s dad was our family Homeopathic Doctor, well loved by many because of his great spiritual stature, wisdom and compassion. He was detached by it all, at the same time.
I was telling Ellen how I just asked Serena Dyer, Wayne Dyer’s daughter, to be on my radio show to discuss what it’s like to be raised by spiritual parents. I noticed earlier in the day Serena started to follow me on Twitter after I followed her. This is unusual, as she carefully chooses who she follows on Twitter.
Serena wrote the book: Don’t Die With Your Music Still In You: My Experience Growing Up With Spiritual Parents. I love the book and highly recommend it.
My plan was to call into her dad’s radio show and ask him to ask Serena to be on my show. That door closed by Wayne’s passing into the next room.
At some point in my conversation with Ellen, I checked my Twitter account, and Serena agreed to be on my radio show! Everyone at the bar celebrated with me, and I did an inner dance for the rest of the evening.
From my perspective, what is it like to be raised by spiritual parents? This is what I am contemplating, not only for the show, but as an exercise in recapitulation. My mom passed in 1987 and my dad in 2000. I never felt orphaned, like people often say, but saw it as an opportunity to re-parent with the Divine Intelligence who created us all.
My mother was curious about everything. She was into Paramahansa Yogananda and bought Autobiography Of A Yogi as soon as it was published, and gave a copy to all her friends, including Ellen’s mother.
She had thousands of spiritual books lining our living room wall. My dad knocked out a wall and also built the book shelf, with his hands and creative sweat.
My mother used to give me lectures about the third eye every day as I woke up from my nap, as early as three years of age. I could not imagine a spiritual third eye, but a literal eye in the middle of my forehead opening up for all to see. I always remembered those lectures.
The third eye is pivotal to our development in this physical realm.
I am thankful for those early teachings.
To be continued…..
Walk, Breath, Meditate- Podcast 241
Today, I am adapting the meditate, write, walk practice as put forth by Natalie Goldberg in one of her memoirs. I just did a few Kriyas, now am writing and soon will be walking my dog, Pearl. One day, that’s all I’ll do for three days, when the timing is right: my own three day retreat experience, spent in solitude with my dog.
The Fairy Ring by Mike Rowland is great music to meditate by. I just purchased it for our next meditation retreat at the Unitarian Church, as well as for my own quiet meditations in the morning and throughout the day. Leonard Laskow always used that music and it reminds me of him. Hello Leonard! We love you!
I think it’s the melodious piano music which brings the mind to a high ecstatic state. My guru, Yogananda, did not suggest music for meditation practice. Total silence was his admonishment. I enjoy both silence or music, as the mood leads. Rigid rules do not apply.
Meditation is one of the most important practices we can do everyday, along with exercise, a cleansing diet, plenty of clean drinking water and rest. As Wayne Dyer said, twenty minutes of meditation is equal to eight hours of sleep. Recently, I put that to the test, and agree.
For instance, during the course of a long night at work, if I catch fifteen minutes of sleep, I awake in pain and in a cranky mood.
If I meditate for fifteen minutes, I feel rested, and the eyes are alert as well as the mind.
Thank you, Wayne Dyer, for all your wisdom. It will be more than enough to take me to my last breath, in this lifetime, and every lifetime, thereafter.
Amen
The Energy Of Prayer
I am writing this at 3 am, the perfect time to contemplate spiritual prayer and meditation. It is a PowerPoint in the day, just as 12 noon, 3 PM and 12 midnight are. These times are perfect moments to pause and reflect. The more we stop and go inwardly for guidance and direction, the stronger we become.
My radio show today is my conversation about prayer practice. What do you pray about? How do you experience the Energy of Prayer?
The American Indians do not pray “for” or “to” anything. They merge the energy of prayer with that they wish to bring into their lives.
Take rain, for example.
A rain dance is an attempt to become rain, to merge with rain and manifest its reality into the here and now.
In this way, prayer is not what we do but what we are. It is as natural as the incoming and outgoing breath. It is as easy as taking one step forward, and then another. What is important about prayer is our willingness to turn attention to the inner reality of the soul, which is changeless.
The more we experience this inner reality, the more we hear the celestial music, bringing perfect happiness to ordinary lives, uplifting our hearts to the extraordinary!
The Power Of Prayer-Podcast 240
Today’s podcast discusses prayer as a way to maintain constant contact with the Divine Intelligence, the Source which created everything.
We are in a time when it’s more important to make this connection than ever before. Spiritual Principle has been constant in her message throughout the ages. These teachings up to now, have been regarded as Secret.
Now they are available to all of us.
Listen in!
Quantum Death, Quantum Love
Do you remember those childhood nightmares we all used to have? Maybe we still have some of those, and generally speaking, we don’t talk that much about them. Maybe we talk to a trusted adviser, but wouldn’t talk about them to a perfect stranger or bring them up in polite company.
Have you ever had an experience you just don’t feel comfortable talking about?
Death is like that, too. We may think if we don’t talk about it, it will go away. Or we may think the only people we can speak about this is to a trusted advisor.
If you could’ve been with me when my mother died, you would’ve been amazed.
She had been Ill and her illness took a toll. At the moment of her death, all the lines left her face and she looked like a 14-year-old girl again.
If you could have been with me three days after my mother’s death, you would have experienced a love that transcended judgment or hate or fear. If you would’ve been with me after my mother’s death, we would have experienced what unconditional love really is, without having to explain it to anybody.
That was a quantum experience and now, I know.
Rerun Saturday!
circa 1961: John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President of the United States. (Photo by Library Of Congress/Getty Images)
The book proves that JFK was killed by the CIA of the American Government. It is considered the best researched book in the niche.
What is “The Unspeakable?”
What does Thomas Merton have to do with it?
Listen in!!
What Is Your Agreement With Reality? Podcast 239
The last few days I have been immersing my self in the life and work of Wayne W. Dyer. Dr Dyer was a student of A Course In Miracles, and every year of his life, he became more saint like.
The “I Am” is an important distinction made in A Course In Miracles.” Do you align your self to the “I Am” of the Divine. or the fear of the Ego? We can’t have it both ways.
Wayne Dyer was dedicated to helping us retrain our minds from a thought system based on fear to a thought system based on love. His own study of A Course In Miracles helped him with his own agreement with reality!
That is what today’s podcast is all about.
Healing Tibetan Style
I never went to Omega Institute to be in the presence of Tulka Thondup’s healing aura, but my husband, Tom went twice and I saw a renewed sense of calm and dedication to his meditation practice when he came back home, again.
When he returned, he taught me some of what he learned.
Two of the Twelve Stages Of Meditation Of The Healing Buddha
1) Bring your mind back to your body.
Allow your mind to generate thoughts of peace, calm and serenity.
Allow these thoughts of peace settle into every cell of your body, moving from the bottoms of your feet to the top of your head.
Think that everyone around you is calm and that the room, your house, your town, neighboring city and the whole planet and then the whole Universe is filled with a loving, peaceful calmness.
If you feel any uneasiness, locate the area in your body where you feel this sensation the most.
Then take a couple of deep and forceful breaths and think and feel the uneasiness expel with your outgoing breaths: “Haaa, Haaa, Haaa!!”
Know that the uneasy feelings are completely expelled, leaving no trace within your body.
Feel the freedom of no longer having any blocks of fear or tenseness anywhere. Your whole body is profoundly relaxed, rejuvenated and in a state of awakened awareness.
2) Bringing your body back to the earth energies
If you are feeling ungrounded or a sense of floating, think of where your sitting body touches the chair or the cushion, and visualize a unity between earth and your relaxing body.
Enjoy this feeling of boundless freedom and healing as long as you can.
The Following Are Thondup’s Eight Tips for Meditation
1) Take a couple of deep breaths and expel the sensation of worry and discomfort with your outgoing breath. Feel the peace.
2) With the outgoing breath, send the sensations far away in the form of dark clouds that dissolve into the open, empty and clear sky.
3) Think of the word and feeling of “Boundlessness.”
4) Think and feel that your body is boundless, that even its cells are boundless. Allow your breathing to relax in this boundless feeling, as though your breath were totally without limit or constriction.
5) Think and feel that all cells are breathing, in and out, directly through the pores of your body.
6) Imagine your body as if it were a body of light. Light is intangible and free. Feel what this feels life all through your body.
7) Be aware of any uneasy sensation in an open way, without judging it, and without wanting to push it away, or clinging to it.
Continue to breath naturally and remain in the state of mere awareness. Open awareness is considered a high form of healing and can help anyone during meditation and also the rest of your life.
8) If you feel as if you are floating, imagine that your body is filled with light that somehow has a heavy quality. Although light is substantial, we could think of it as heavy, the way air is weighted down by moisture or the way the earth’s atmusphere exerts air pressure.
Just remain in open awareness of the floating sensation without judgment, worry or grasping.
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Thondup describes healing with the meditation techniques he teaches in workshops and in his books.
He says that in Tibet, when he or family and friends got sick, they first went to a lama and said prayers for spiritual healing. They went to the doctor after the spiritual prayers were completed.
A friend of Thondup, Harry Winter, had an incurable fatal cancer. When Harry was seventy-four, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. His doctors’ told him he had only a few months to live.
Harry practiced meditation for years and was fully prepared to meet this crisis. He firmly believed his meditation practice would slow the disease and possibly stop it. He also believed that this meditation could reinforce the benefits of medical treatment.
To his doctors’ utter amazement, Harry survived two surgeries and his cancer went into remission.
Five years later, the cancer returned but this time Harry refused medical intervention. By this time, Harry was experienced at meditating in an open and relaxed way. He often meditated for eight hours a day.
Harry used the meditation that Thondup teaches called “Receive the Healing Blessings,” in which the mind calls forth blessed nectar to wash away impurities.
In his mind, Harry visualized Vajrasattua, the Buddha of Purification, from whom would stream healing nectar.
The nectar entered his body from the crown of his headArticle Submission, purifying and healing the cancer cells and all emotional toxicity. Harry additionally wished for these blessings to extend to all beings everywhere and the whole Universe.
Harry was eighty-five at the time of the book’s publication in 2000. He coild still be going strong at age 93!
I have a autographed copy of “Boundless Healing.” I feel as if I’ve been blessed by a higher spiritual being as I gaze upon his signature.
We must learn from our teachers.
They are here to help us.
Prayer Prescriptions For Nurse Healers
(The Prayer Prescription Series)
365 Prayer Prescriptions For Dog And Cat Lovers
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