A Roll in the Universe

Once physical disease is ruled out, it is time to consider the root cause of most mental depression: a lack of love and connection in life (not a lack of serotonin). Source: Wikipedia Commons Via Paula's blog comes the idea of grabbing some book, going to page 62 and line 6 on that page to use for a blog post. I opened Kindle to the last book I'd been reading (Graves MD, Harrison. Mantra Meditation: An Alternative Treatment For Anxiety And Depression (pp. 62-63). Novus Energia. Kindle Edition) and Kindle being what it is, I chose what it claimed was page 62 and what was the sixth paragraph (or line shift, if you will) because the sixth line was a header. My sixth paragraph is the quote above. The quote also echos another book I'm reading: The Shack . I saw a quote paraphrased from it on Facebook: "Why am I here?" "Because this is where you got stuck." That resonated with me, so I decided to reread the book. I'm stuck, you see. Stuck somewh...

"Luminescence is emission of light by a substance not resulting from heat; it is thus a form of cold-body radiation." Wikipedia's definition of luminescence immediately put me in mind of a literal cold-body radiation. I still don't quite understand it. It happened when my then-boyfriend attended church with me. "Church" was not really church the way a typical Christian might think it. The term was used for lack of something else recognizable, something that would identify the building as a place of worship that wasn't a mainstream religion. The philosophy offered in this church was one of compassion, tolerance, positivity and personal responsibility. The church also believed in the power of healing but did not promote actual laying on of hands. Which led me to learn about the aura and the invisible body. Yes, a bit New Agey but I liked it and still do. With this sort of thing in my life, I was getting into the idea of us being energy bodies and of ...

A struggling friend reminded me of a situation I was in the autumn after my dear grandma died. Re-reading that gave me a surprise: I'd forgotten how down I was then. I remember crying during the meeting with my bosses, but I don't remember taking sick days and waking up angry every day. But yes, it all ended up well, better than expected, and yesterday, as I told a potential boss about my strengths and weaknesses during a job interview, I could honestly say I didn't lose my cool with customers or co-workers any more. "I have no reason to be angry at work," I said. Sweet. Today, I woke up feeling pretty good, and I mused on the messages in the book I am currently re-reading (here is a description of my first read ), and my praying to the Holy Spirit yesterday, and that the interview went swimmingly—personality test and all—and it hit me: I didn't second-guess myself after it was over. I usually find some fault with how I interact with people after the fa...

OK, I knew my last post  would not appeal to everyone, but as I said in a comment to a comment, I take my wisdom wherever I can find it. Which happens to include astrology. Because of my family's interests, I grew up in a home that not only had huge picture books showing the treasures of the Sun King and Tutankhamen, but also books by Teilhard de Chardin, Krishnamurti, Alan Watts and Agatha Christie. The one common thread: Mystery. Life's mystery. What makes us tick? What else is there? Travel, whether literally or metaphysically. That's what my family does. We like to wonder and dream and think big and if there's a UFO encounter thrown into the mix, that's fine, too, but most importantly: Enjoy humanity. So I knew my Sun sign at the age of 7, and pretty much knew when all the other Sun signs were, too. My grandma had my chart made for me, so I also knew that there is more to astrology than just Sun signs. (The whole solar system is in on the act.) There are so ...

I am going down yet another rabbit hole. It diverges from the one I was falling down about a year and a half ago . At least somewhat. All roads lead to Rome, but not all are main highways and will get you to your final destination; they do move you forward, though. My new rabbit hole is all about how, if I forgive everyone and everything, we will all cease to exist and happily so. Some background: I accidentally learned of ho'oponopono . In looking for more information, I ended up reading Joe Vitale's book "Zero Limits" (and I really liked it). All my decades of swearing to affirmations to accomplish something got set aside while I instead practiced on chanting "I love you" inside my head. I have since gone back to using my usual morning affirmation since that seems to be such a good set-up for me and my day. 1 However, the ho'oponopono method makes perfect sense to me and it is far simpler (and more foolproof) than affirmations. Affirmations req...

Some time last month, I was listening to a new spiritual podcast, and the speaker said that we can all heal ourselves and each other by stating, "I love you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you." Apparently, this series of four short statements healed all the patients of a psychiatric facility, simply by being uttered by a doctor while he was looking at the patient files. I was intrigued. So I googled the phrase and discovered it comes from a Hawaiian spiritual ritual called ho'oponopono .* I found a blogpost that described this "cleaning" process. I found an online article claiming that you can heal the whole planet with ho'oponopono because everything that comes into your sphere of experience is your responsibility.** I searched Amazon for books describing ho'oponopono. I bought Mable Katz 's book "The Easiest Way" .*** And her title may not be an exaggeration. After reading her short book, I have replaced my usual rit...

I own the extended DVD set of "What the #$*! Do We (K)now!?" , also known as "Down the Rabbit Hole". I can't remember now how my browsing the internet today started, but I ended up learning a lot about the science in "What the Bleep": It's terribly inaccurate. There are other inaccuracies or downright errors, but for the most part quantum mechanics only work on quantum levels, not at sizes like a basketball or a universe or even a mere atom. And that spoils all New Age claims that it is quantum physics that explain the Law of Attraction or any other woo-woo belief, like spontaneous healing, psychic phenomenon or near-death experiences. Dang. I was so hoping science could explain these things by now. My surfing has brought me to The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry . There I have found good writing, and proper skepticism. Not the finger-pointing pooh-poohing of beliefs, but rather a behind-the-scenes look at some claims and what's factually ...

I have never understood the food-as-hobby thing. Of course, I’ve never understood the car-as-hobby thing, either. Some things are just used by most of us, while others of us delve into the inner workings, the bits and pieces, and know the subject from the inside out. I have a friend who delves into food, and with it, food policy. I have left my comments on her blog since food policy (rather than actual cooking) fascinates me, too. A comment in her blog post about avoiding animal fats almost had me using up her comment space. My goodness, arguing about food! Not what it tastes like or whose going to cook it, but what it actually is . I realized that my opinions about food were in part colored by what I had read and heard about it. Part of what I had read was that animal fats are not the reason for human obesity. Or heart disease. And that’s when it hit me: Food policy is like a religion. People argue about what the tenets are, whose canon to follow, and which prophet to listen to...

I have always been interested in Christianity. More specifically, I have always been interested in the answer to this question: Does Jesus save? I have always struggled with having a faith in Jesus. My own family is made up of theists, but nobody ever bothered with the traditional religions. Grandma couldn't understand why anybody wanted a faith where you looked up at a bloody, half-naked man every Sunday (good ol' Catholics), and I couldn't understand how anybody could put their faith in a man who looked like a hippie (good ol' Protestants). So while Grandma and I both ended up deists (that's not a typo), we found our spiritual sustenance outside the mainstream. Still, I've always had the question. Norway has a state religion. It allows for freedom of religion for everyone - except the nation itself and its monarch. The reigning monarch of Norway must be - according to the country's constitution - an Evangelical Lutheran, since the Evangelical Lutheran ...

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday St. Mary's (Mariakirken) , Bergen's oldest church

Tom could hear a humpback mother and calf from his house. The humpbacks migrate from Alaska down to Hawaii for the winter. I always thought they were chasing food, but no. They don't eat while on winter vacation. They merely give birth and then head back up to colder waters come spring. Tom had no photo of mother and child but I do. The above photo of a humpback mother and her calf, blowing its air hole, is from my summer vacation in Alaska in 2007. We were so lucky not only to follow this mother and calf and the calf's antics (constantly slapping the surface of the water), but we also got the rare treat of seeing humpbacks bubble net feed. You can see more whale photos from my Alaska trip here . I find it a bit amusing and rather fitting that today of all days, I post about a mother and child. I'm not Christian, and can hardly be called sentimental when it comes to babies, but even I am moved by the beauty and tenderness of the story of the baby Jesus. The beauty a...

I could write tons and post an equal amount of photos from my trip. Instead of the usual itinerary run-down, this post will be a bit more philosophical. The main focus for my little bus trip was "Olsok" (St. Olav's Day) and the St. Olav's Days in Trondheim. A bit of background, that is to say, a short history of Norway: We start with the viking era: Miscellaneous farmers, fishermen, vikings ruled by miscellaneous earls and lords who claimed a hill each. Harald Hårfagre (the Fair-Haired) refused to get a shave or a haircut until he'd gathered Norway into one kingdom. Fighting ensued with the local earls. The kingdom of Norway emerged. Harald went to the barber. I refer you to the nice link above to Harald because where he left off, we sort of pick up. Powerful earls in the Trondheim area wanted to do their own ruling, preferably with a distant Danish king, and by the time King Olav Haraldsson (St. Olav's real name) came around, there was not only a stron...

I have a friend who is an atheist. She's an atheist because she sees no evidence to the contrary, though she has tried. I have another friend who's an atheist, but he has figured out the "where do we go when we die" thing: We live on forever, not as who we are but as the stuff we are made of, coming from the stars, going back into them, and so on. Recycling, as it were, rather than reincarnation. So I may not be me, but I won't be no longer existing, either, and I like that idea. When the more mystical ones seem a little too theoretical, I like the recycling idea. I have a third friend who is not an atheist, but she's having trouble with being a theist because none of the definitions of God[1] feel quite right. She wants to believe, but she doesn't know what to believe. I have suggested to her earlier that perhaps her deity is nature itself - as it is for many people. Just drinking in the world in all its mundane glory, rather than focusing on the unsee...

I saw the company doctor today. Just a regular annual check-up. Blood pressure's up but still a healthy 120/80. Cholesterol's up but within the healthy range. Iron levels are good. Heart and lungs also sounding normal. Lung capacity still rocks. I don't feel like I'm going to be 47 in less than two months. One thing though: My doc asked me about an answer on a form about how I felt about upper management. Turns out that the subtle shift I've felt since this summer has been felt by other employees. The question is, what next? I'm still working on that question. In the meantime, trees are turning gold, evenings are turning cold, and I'm rhyming. I think I could do with a bit of Wow! in my life about now. Just to shake things up a bit. Perhaps I got a bit of Wow! Saturday night. I attended a lecture titled "Buddhism in the West" given by a Danish lama, Ole Nydahl . He had to give his talk in English, because spoken Danish sounds too consonantles...

I like archaeology (can't spell it, but I like it). I like stuff about religion. I am fortunate enough to belong to a culture where the two get combined all the time, thanks to a book that's actually a collection of books, called The Bible. Fact or fiction, God's actual words, or just men's. This is the debate about the Bible. Add to that debate the book "The Bible Unearthed" , a very scholarly archaological look at the history of ancient Israel and the version of it that's in the Bible. Because it is such a scholarly read, it took me a while to get through it. Not exactly a page-turner, but for anyone who wants to know about the buried past of Israel, this book will tell all. With maps. I finished the book because it had one hook: After all this archaeological digging around (no pun intended) in the Bible passages, the authors promise that there was a reason why the Bible was written after the fact, and therefore ended up with a screwy timeline and so...

I just read an article on theists vs. atheists and it was not a waste of time. It was a very good look at how the non-believers and believers can get along and why insisting on not getting along isn't a good idea at all. Over on my other blog I go on about God a lot. I try to write for the atheists and those folks who grew up feeling strangled by religion and so have trouble with the word "God". (Since I found a definition of God that doesn't include a definition of hell, I'm OK with the word and concept.) But I cannot speak about my own spirituality and spiritual process without including God because that's not how I am wired. And apparantly we are wired for such things. Faith or a need for a faith is emerging as something genetic. And for that reason, I am baffled at how atheists get through their day, their life without having a faith, without prayer, without a desire for a connection to something bigger and better than oneself, and at the same time a ...