My spiritual teachers are legion, and they often arise in the oddest places. Take this morning, for example: I have been a fan of Mary Engelbreit for decades. It is my custom to have a page-a-day calendar of hers that displays her prodigious illustration artistry. Mary Engelbreit understood sound bytes even before they had a name. She’s used quotes that inspire her for decades. This morning’s read: If you are more fortunate than others, it’s better to build a longer table than a taller fence.
The fear of the coronavirus notwithstanding, there is always a metaphysical—beyond the physical—cause for every illness. I’ve been a Medical Intuitive for decades. At one time, I was the Director of Spiritual & Energy Medicine at a progressive healthcare center in Boston working with the patients of twenty team physicians to help align their bodies, hearts, minds, and spirits. That said, the coronavirus has mystified me for longer than is comfortable. Fortunately, I was inspired with an interpretation that made utter sense to me.
In the space of twenty minutes this morning, I scanned The New York Times, The Huffington Post, and a newsletter from my primary care doctor’s practice. All three made me long for the days when I was certain that The Times really was, by their own report, “All the News that’s Fit to Print.” It might be. Or, it might not.
Lee Siegel’s article on why America is so depressed is chilling. His thesis is that our politics are affecting our mental health. I’d submit that the reverse is also true: our mental health is affecting our politics.
N.B. I address a particular kind of depression in this essay—spiritual angst/ennui, not clinical depression.
Kate Murphy is a listening expert. She’s written a book on it. Here is my take on her take on listening. Listen is an anagram of its own prescriptive: silent. Could that be more perfect? When was the last time you really listened to someone?
A thirty-something friend of mine had to explain the term call-out culture to me when someone we knew mutually called me out, and it totally whiffed me. After way too many words for my comfort as a definition, I finally said, “You mean holier-than-thou?” She nodded vigorously.
Today’s issue of TheOn-The-Other-Hand News comes to you via C. Thi Nguyen and Bekka Williams’ article in The New York Times from Sunday, July 28, 2019. Its title is: “Why We Call Things ‘Porn’.”
I will cop to it upfront. I am not a Facebook person. There are several reasons for it, but the main one is: I don’t get it. It has been TMI from day one as far as I’m concerned.
It’s time once again for A Femme’s Christmas Tree Cheat Sheet—Everything You Need to Know in Order to Have Someone Else Put Up Your Christmas Tree Perfectly
Plans & Prep [in order of requirement] so as not to necessitate the annual reinvention of the wheel. Butches just do not put up Christmas Trees often enough to remember these vital details!
Composer and author Michael R. Jackson, author of Off-Broadway musical hit A Strange Loop, says it all, “It is your self-hatred that will kill you,” he said. “Secrets, silence, stigma, shame—that is the virus.”
Self-help is not self-care, but self-care can be self-help. Kate Carraway’s Analysis piece in The New York Times made me sad. Is there anything we fail to turn into commerce? Anything? At all? Lately, the answer seems to be no. There’s even a relatively new word for this: monetizing [first usage unrelated to the silver or gold standard, 1997, OED].
When I went off to college, my mother forbade me to major in theatre. She said I needed to learn something that would lead to a career,* and that the theatre was pie-in-the-sky. I promptly developed a bleeding ulcer which I brought home with me at Christmastime. By the eve of the holiday, I was majoring in theatre.
Jigsaw puzzles sustain my prayer life. Needing stillness and silence to hear the still, small voice of my inner knowing, the visual distraction of searching out and placing puzzle pieces quiets my endlessly chattering mind. Yesterday, I forced a piece to fit where it didn’t belong.
