I am flummoxed, having just read the New York Times article about Amy Winehouse’s recent death. The end of the article states, Ms. Winehouse is not the first singer who died at the age of 27. Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain and Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones were the same age. [...]
I love my work as a consultant on digital publishing and social media. It’s fun, I’m good at it, and it allows me time to write and keep up my radio show. Still, I was wondering when I’d get back into teaching, my other love. Now, it seems, is the time. In 1999 I went [...]
I am proud to be a citizen of the United States, a country that is a beacon of liberty and religious tolerance for the rest of the world. I am all for freedom of religion too, yet there are some religions that I have a very big problem with. Specifically, religions that hold truck with [...]
My ruination at the hands of Nora Ephron began in 1978, when as a high school senior in Oakland I was able to take classes at UC Berkeley. This was a tremendous boon not just educationally but recreationally, as there were security guards constantly patrolling our high school parking lot, looking out for rebellious teens [...]
One of the themes of this blog over the last couple years has been California Cosmology, a term coined by Alston Chase to describe the curious mixture of Eastern and Western philosophies, speculative science and experimental psychology that has been California’s unique contribution to many modern social, spiritual and literary movements. I have also coined [...]
I was explaining to my teenage daughter yesterday what a tough year 2010 was for most people, by way of an example from our own life. Here we were, driving on the freeway in my old Honda, heading down to San Francisco. On the back window of my car was a big white “11″ on [...]
It has been a very difficult month, and my inner and outer dialogues have circled around questions that are essentially unanswerable. Why do some kids make it and others don’t? Some people do stupid stuff for years and survive, others don’t have that kind of luck. It seems entirely random who lives and who dies. There [...]
I always appreciate a chance to refine my thinking in areas where I have a lot of strong opinions, and the confluence of spirituality, nature, and politics is one such place. Reading Bron Taylor’s excellent new book, Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future, has given me that chance. I read most of this [...]
Memo to all progressives, activists, eco-warriors and Lefty paradigm shifters: I get it, I get it. Obama is a wimp. The Senate is completely dysfunctional, and your congressperson isn’t doing nearly enough. Right. Check. Now get over yourselves and vote. I agree that the stimulus bill should have been much larger and financial reform much [...]
I had a great conversation with Dr. Joan Borysenko this morning on Dream Talk Radio. We talked about dreams and mind-body healing, and at one point discussed the limits of what can be taught in a workshop. I commented that there should be a workshop titled “The Art of Getting Up Again,” since that is the [...]
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