* Peace Really Does Depend On You
The solution for worldwide peace has always been there, right under our noses. But it requires more of us than we seem willing to give. Now, with our backs to the wall, we have run out of options. The choice is simple: act or perish.

* Healthy Grief, Unhealthy Grief
We all know that it is in one's highest good to grieve the loss of a relationship. Healthy grief releases feelings rather than allowing them to get stuck in the body. Healthy grief allows the griever to heal the loss and move on with life. et grief is not always healing.

* The Bamboo In The Wind
As I watched the tall bamboo with its many shoots sway in the wind on one blustery March day, I marveled at how nimbly it adapted to each gust of wind. First buffeted one way and then another, the bamboo shoots seemed to bow down to the elements in a respectful salute before rising up once again. The storm was doing its best to bring turmoil to the large bamboo, but it would have none of it. Instead, the bamboo danced.

* The Secret Of Effortless Happiness
Have you ever noticed just how unhappy you can get over the fact you are not happy? Unexamined, this behavior seems to make sense. But a closer look at it will reveal that being unhappy over being unhappy is like throwing gasoline on a fire to put it out. You get lots of fire and smoke -- even a strange excitement -- but in the end all you are left with is ashes.

* 6 Keys To Getting Over A Broken Heart
No matter when it happens, a breakup or divorce can and usually does rock a person's world to the very core. What most people don't realize is that their future success in relationships is directly related to how much they learn from those breakups and how they move forward after the breakup in their lives.

* The Struggle
What do butterflies have in common with the human spirit? Meet Maggie, a middle aged wife and mother who was about to find out.

* Taking Flak
Nothing invites heated debate more than calling one's religious beliefs into question. It's curious that so many people find the need to defend their particular path by attacking those who dare to let their curiosity explore dogma.

* Mr. Glass Half Empty Pitches A Snit
It's a cliched phrase, I know, but it's apt here: like it or not, New Age proponents or not -- it's now Show Time in our world. Circumstances are growing increasingly out-of-control out there, and for a while longer are sure to get worse before there's (hopefully, finally) some correction that registers in this nation's hearts -- followed by a wakeup call that gets heard. Regardless to what extent, my sense is 2006 is going to be a very bumpy ride.

* The Violet Flame Of Transmutation
We are living at an incredible time and anyone that is following the spiritual path knows that the earth is changing, which in effect propels human beings to evolve/change as well. There is no escaping. Those that are resisting the changes because they are not aware of what is going on, their lives will show much turmoil and chaos. All one has to do is look outside and see this for themselves. This is not top secret, it is wake up time. The inner search has finally been put into high gear for many! People no longer believe in other humans who once stood on high pedestals, as those pedestals are crumbling beneath their feet. Many people are finally turning inward to search for the truth within their own beings, instead of relying on and trusting outside sources. Finding new spiritual tools to help us upon our journey is at an all time high.

* The Unthinkable Lies Ahead
Since Hurricane Katrina, there is a flurry of activity on the internet from some New Thinkers. We are gaining some interesting perspectives about our possible roles in Hurricanes, Tsunami's and Earthquakes. I am not here to judge who is sincere in their desire to bring light to darkness, or who is just trying to sell some books and teleclasses. I am only here to say, the Jig Is Up. We can step into our active creative role as beings of light and instruments of love and peace, or not. Everyone gets to pick how they will respond to the changing Earth.

* Connecting Wild Ecosystems To Our Daily Lives
How can we not see what is of true value? It wasn't that long ago that we sat on riverbanks or seashores and caught our own fish. We measured the tides, waiting for the right season and the right moon until the fish gave themselves up to us. If we didn't respect the fish, and the medium that nourished and moved them, we starved. Today we prefer food moved by vehicle rather than ecosystem. We prefer Styrofoam wrapped meals to wild food. We are so squeamish about death, while we continue to sow the seeds of death simply through the way we choose to live.

* A Return To Our Roots
The principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence are the cornerstones of the US Cosntitution and Bill of Rights. It is imperative that the lawmakers and the judges of this nation keep this in mind not only when writing laws but when determining the constitutionality of any given law. Any law that cannot pass the litmus test of protecting every individual's right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness should be overturned.

* Where In God's Name Did We Go Wrong?
Although the world's major religions all agree that God (however they define the term) is omnipresent, it seems that very few of their followers -- including their clerical hierarchy -- actually understand what omnipresence really means. And therein lies the source of the world's ills.

* Where's The Outrage?
The humor in "The Family Guy" can be bitingly witty, but as with all humor, there's a line that, when crossed, takes it from the funny to the ugly. It's a line that this show crosses often and the "humor" becomes tasteless, overly crude and insensitive. But the episode that aired on Sunday, November 20, 2005 sunk to a new low and there's no way that that show will ever again be seen on a television in my home.

* We've Been Living In A Dream World
"Most people are other people," Oscar Wilde once remarked. "Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation." As he so wryly observed, the vast majority of us are not who we've been pretending to be, and the lives we've been living until now are molded according to rules and values that are not our own. Most of humanity is stuck in someone else's discarded chewing gum and has yet to break free.

* Simple Pleasures
I have been a professional caregiver for twenty years and I continue to learn a valuable life lesson everyday. I'm always amazed how sorrow and pain can bring such wonderful gifts as wisdom, patience, insight and love. I think it is very easy to make the mistake of tunnel visioning on the tasks we have at hand. We get so caught up in the daily necessities and routines that we forget or ignore the very things that can bring us joy and teach us many valuable lessons.

* What Is a Boundary?
A boundary is not about telling another person what to do. It is about telling another person what YOU will do in the face of the other's continued unkind or undesirable behavior. While it is hard for most people to accept, we cannot control another's behavior. What we can control is our own response in the face of others' behavior. A boundary is about telling your truth and taking action on it.

* Spiritual Manipulation
You've probably received this email yourself. I'm going to use it to show how the radical religious right distorts facts and truth so as to make it seem as if they are being persecuted when, in fact, it is they who are doing the persecuting.

* A Better World Is Possible
Today, we stand on the corpse of modern life. It may have been the social instinct which has brought us together and has formed our families, our towns, our cities, and our nations, but there is so much more to it than that. Cities have become the hives of vice and misery, the perfect strangers to loneliness. Our modern poets and romantics stand before this marvel of life, and are speechless.

* It's Time
While all the loss of life, environmental destruction, loss of liberty, cronyism and class warfare engaged in by this misadministration are more than enough to warrant an immediate change of command, it all pales when compared to the disaster they created in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast in the wake of hurricane Katrina. The absuridy of his claims that "no one could have anticipated" the breach of the levees simply boggles the mind, especially in light of a FEMA conference that discussed that very possibility in August, 2001!

* Resistance
Resistance is something that works for us within the model that each of us has of our world and our relationship to it. Awareness breaks down resistance and moves us forward, and for each of us in our own good time. Although I resist change myself in my physical life, spiritually I recognize that change is inevitable and I practice consideration for those that both live in the fear of change and for those that move on without me.

* Will I Forget?
It is perhaps a fear in every reformer that they may one day find themselves disenchanted by their cause. The same cries and screams that arroused them to the valiant and powerful rabblerouser now fall upon dead senses, evoking no grimace of sympathy. I have seen the face of a vivisected creature, I have seen the crimes of police brutality, I have seen the corrupt officials, the cruel religionists, the fanatical theocrats, the hunters, the butchers, the heartless armies crushing nations and states.