A Classic Post from Martha Beck

I love this: "Easter in the Year of the Dog."

I have been practicing gratitude lately, just while driving to work, singing the Gayatri mantra to Kali as I send Her love and thanks from my heart... it's easy to let myself get into those toxic spaces where "they" are a bunch of idiots conspiring to ruin "my" life, where I'm not getting what I want because not everyone groks the like, totally perfect wisdom of my every wish, and from there it's easy for me to get resentful, fearful, falling down the sinkhole of doom as "my" dystopian future, in my imagination, enfolds me like a shroud...

but it's not about me, or them, or the future... it's Her, now, always.


Also: Martha gets down with early hominids.

OK, Now SkepChick Is the Greatest

blog... ever. Or at least has publish'd the greatest reader comment ever.

Is There, Possibly, Hope... Possibly?

I just read that as late as 1978 Allen Ginsberg had to be told by Chogyam Trungpa, his Teacher, to "Be doubtless. Go ahead and do it, and [don't] be hesitant about what you're doing."

I guess we all have to learn these lessons over and over. I guess it doesn't make me a Bad Student or a Bad Person that I didn't ascend to godhood the first time I chanted the Gayatri mantra. I guess the fact that I worry, get scared, and feel awkward doesn't mean I have about the same chance of "getting there" that a flea has of spontaneously evolving into a racehorse.

Because there is no "there."

Here is there, and the more I am here, the more I am Her.

Sad Yet Cool

One of my favorite books, one you've heard me rant about for years, is now effectively in the public domain on Scribd.

I can only assume, given Scribd's new, uhh, commitment to the concept of intellectual property, that Patrick Harpur's Daimonic Reality appears there with its author's blessing. I know that, despite this book's wit, brilliance, and insight--it is truly an important work--it has never topped the charts and Harpur has had trouble "keeping it out there."

If you want a nice summary of Daimonic Reality, read Dr. Snake's interview with Harpur.

But I think you should read the whole book.

This Is Why I Like SkepChick

At least one of their writers thinks it's possible to be religious AND a skeptic (!!!!!!!∞).

As I never tire of saying (sorry, loyal and Cherish'd Readers), skepticism is the one requirement on the spiritual path, if a person is going to make genuine progress without going insane, dropping by the roadside into a ditch of bitterness (or hubris, if there's a difference), or getting took by some Sally League Jim Jones.

You don't have to believe in anything, you should practice incessantly but you will need breaks now and then, you don't have to subscribe to any single religion or world view, but you need to doubt. Your doubt will sustain you. Your doubt, in the pages of your spiritual journal (OK, there are two requirements) and in your heart, will blossom into some kind of transcendent faith, and even if that faith is in yourself or the laws of physics and you leave all gods behind-- if it is a faith that births the world every day, like the flooding of the Nile or the waxing of the moon, then it is the faith you need.

Even atheists have their Holy Guardian Angels.