Happy New Year's Eve Day!

It is New Year's Eve Day and it is a good time to reflect. Often, people make resolutions that are not kept through January. I like to make plans. Plans sound more firm and active then resolutions. This year I plan to live joyously and notice when I spend more time planning than doing.

One of my favorite quotes: You have lost a whole week making those drawings. Why don't you make the machine! - Thomas Edison to my great-grandfather in the book Beloved Scientist.

That is my plan for the new year. To notice, and do.

Have an ectoplasmic day!

Another magazine I love is Spirit Of Change. It is the largest holistic magazine published in New England. You can get it for free at stores like Whole Foods and New Age stores. Or, you can save a tree and read it online. You can subscribe for free to the digital edition. Some of the articles are posted on the home page. When you click on the article title it will come up with really small print. Click again on the article text and the font size will increase. This magazine has lots of great articles about conscious living, holistic health, and healing modalities.

Have an ectoplasmic day!

Posting on the blog

I have changed the setting of the blog so that it is now easier to post comments. Before, you had to have a google account or have a blog to sign in. Now, anyone can post without logging in with a password. You will still have to type in a phrase, so that the blog system knows that you are a human being and not a spamming machine, and I will moderate and release comments, as a secondary precaution against spamming the blog forum. Contribute your knowledge!

Have an ectoplasmic day!

Shirley MacLaine Shows Her Chakras To Johnny Carson

Naropa University Consciousness Laboratory

Naropa University, in Boulder, CO is an accredited school with degrees in many contemplative disciplines. Under the direction of Dr. Peter Grossenberger, the university offers a Consciousness Laboratory. The department is Contemplative Psychology. According to the departmental website, the Consciousness Lab provides a unique synergy between modern psychological science and ancient contemplative approaches to understanding mind and spirit. A web search found that several colleges and universities have departments dedicated to the study or neuroscience, psychology, and spirituality.

Check out the college website and the department site links. It looks like a very interesting place to study. Appears to be well-funded and donors are from recognizable foundations. The college atmosphere is very spiritual and peaceful. Very different than the very large state university I attended!

I will post more colleges, universities, and studies in this discipline as I find them on the web.

Have an ectoplasmic day!

Hark! the herald angels sing

The lyrics of this traditional Christmas carol got me thinking. This is the version in the 1982 Episcopal hymnal and I was surprised to notice that the word Sun, not Son, is written. This verse is really about universality, continuous life, and healing as Natural Law.

Vs.3

Mild he lays his glory by
born that we no more may die
born to raise us from the earth
born to give us second birth
Risen with healing in his wings
light and life to all he brings
hail, the Sun of Righteousness!
hail, the heaven-born prince of peace

Spirituality & Health Magazine has evolving website

I love reading magazines online. It is lighter on the planet and lighter on my budget. Spiritiuality & Health Magazine, with the tag line soul/body connection, is in the process of archiving articles on its website. For recent editions they are up to May 2008. The archives section goes back to 1998!

This magazine covers many topics that interest me. Some recent articles included spirituality and healing in the operating room, another about spirituality(not religion but rather your personal outlook) in the workplace. I will add a link to the magazine to the list on the right.

Have an ectoplasmic day!

Winter Solstice

December 21 marks the winter solstice. It is the shortest day of the year. We celebrate the solstice as a 24 hour period but it is really just a moment. And, like all moments and all things, it passes and we move on. This morning, at 7:04 EST, the earth's axis tilted to its southernmost extreme, and for a moment it appeared that the sun stood still. How often in life it seems as if time stands still! Yet, we are really moving forward, changing, and repeating cycles and lessons that are essential for spiritual growth.

We observe today as the first day of winter and we leave autumn behind. The winter is like midnight. We have fallen asleep and we enter the restorative phase. We awaken in spring refreshed, ready for new life.

To me winter marks progress and the heralding of foward motion within the cycle. Starting now the days grow longer. In Salem, we are in the midst of a storm and the hard earth is blanketed in white. I am home and mother nature has imposed a stillness. The life force, infinite intelligence, is gently reminding me to rest, reflect, and go inward. To lift my heart, mind, and spirit to the sun even in the darkest and grayest of times. For yes, the days will grow longer and the sun will warm my face again. But today, I must slow down, rest, and restore for the future.

Interesting animation about consciousness

The Basics

It has been a few weeks since I last blogged. This whole working and making a living thing while we are on the earth plane...well, I guess that is where we learn the lessons for our spiritual progression. Yada, yada. So, I am going to make this blog entry especially good to make up for it. Mom, you will enjoy this entry.

I am extremely interested in physical phenomena. I have been ever since family friends from many years back re-entered our lives. Ron and Tracy Spencer, from a Spiritualist church in East Aurora, NY, visited Salem and gave a table tipping demonstration. It was pretty amazing. They had worked out a code with a spirit that worked through the table, As the table would tip one of the recited the alphabet and then the table would stop tipping on a specific letter, and one of them would write out the letters, form words, and deliver messages. This was far more evidential than having the table just move.

Later that year they stayed overnight at my home and we sat at the table. It is one thing to see table tipping, or typtology if you wish to use the correct terminology, in a public demonstration and quite another to witness it in your own home, in your living room, just you and the two mediums who sit regularly. I have been exposed to mediumship, trans-mediums, and the belief in the spirit world for my entire life. Nothing was quite like this experience in my living room.

Sadly, my dear friend Ron passed away shortly thereafter and we lost track of his wife, Tracy. I would love to be in touch with her again. We became fast friends and she and I would say we felt more like sisters.

So, I did what everybody does when they want to track down an old friend: I cyber-stalked her. I googled her name, where I think she may be living, etc. Well, I wasn't able to find her let alone stalk her. I did, however, find a web document that Ron, Tracy, and Ron's parents, Peggy and Paul (also deceased) were mentioned as sources for a paper written on a website about Spiritualism. It is a long read, 16 pages at least, but worth the time. Here is a link and I will add a permanent link to the blog. Article

Have an ectoplasmic day!