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Save the World a Little Later
A meditation to preface spiritual topics. Read it here.
STOP! (For a Moment) excerpt:
The natural, contemplative opportunity of food gathering, field work, and careful craftsmanship has been banished from our lives, and a poverty of perpetual busyness assaults our senses and batters our souls. We have gradually lost the riches of quiet and healing solitude and lost the ability to be still.
Read more of STOP! (For a Moment)
Silken Tide excerpt
The earth and this valley welcome the sun, eternal cycles embraced once again, the brief celebration of life and creation quickly pirouetting through the columns of light and shadow before the noise of traffic and the din of vapid conversation send Life into hiding for another too busy day.
full text of Silken Tide
Excerpt from Alternative Path Home
Our path to that goal will regularly change per the vicissitudes of circumstance and revelations welcomed and avoided. Belief will change, faith will change, loyalties and friends and memberships will change, and if they don’t the goal sought is of questionable worth. But somewhere under the career, titles, credos, dogmas, and rituals of daily life, all subject to adaptation and accommodation, the soul’s goal better remain fixed, lest the soul be lost without rudder or sail.
Read the rest of Alternative Path Home
Excerpt from Storm of Creation Click to read all.
Copyright 2020 Don Ray
....This world is merely a storm,
all existence is storm,
a rude disruption of the eternal status quo.
Creation does not unfold as a gentle ripple across the shimmering surface of space-time.
Creation, of a universe or your soul,
explodes at the sharp end of the lightning bolt,
expands through the concussion of the thunder.
Turn and face it,
let it disrupt your life,
this thunder of ongoing Creation......
Would We Miss Death?
When the touch of blade and fist no longer existed, would the touch of caress and embrace replace them?
Would we seek new accomplishments and frontiers and personal growth or would we seek entertainment and escape from boredom?
Would we miss death?
Would we eat the Fruit in the Garden again?
More Than Meat
Excerpt........In the modern, western world, “spiritual” discussion too often means nothing remotely personal, but more a political bludgeoning to convince the other person they are wrong. Little wonder spiritual topics are taboo in polite company. As for spiritual discussions in church and temple, what if your deeply personal spiritual experience is not exactly like everyone else’s, and worse, what if it is not in perfect lockstep alignment with authority and doctrine?! No, church, temple, and mosque are no place for deeply intimate, spiritual expression......read all of More Than Meat
The Death of Personal Growth
Excerpt.......Personal growth occurs like a snake shedding its skin or a hermit crab moving to a new shell. We have to shed something of the shell of our identity in order to grow into our Self.
It is a recurring process, this personal growth. It is a death process. It is a birth process. It is the life process. It is an eternal process. Read all of The Death of Personal Growth
Unlocked Door of our Solitary Confinement
The little self dancing alone eventually leads to hopelessness and despair, for the little self dances in solitary confinement. That is why we race to fill our senses with experiences and sensations. Anything, anything at all, drugs, pain, tattoos, sports, violence, sex, travel, bright lights, possessing materials, shopping, buying, consuming, eating, eating, eating, all provide the illusion of escape, the illusion of something external to our little self, all distracting from the isolation of the self. Read more: Unlocked Door of our Solitary Confinement
Heart Blindness
Such madness besets this poor blinded humanity! Dear God, such madness! This surely testifies to there being far more to existence than mere reductionist physical and mechanical forms. Such madness contradicts the principles of evolution. No species would ever evolve into such madness. How evident it is that we must be blind, yet we know not to what we are blind. It is so painfully evident that we have lost contact with something critically important. Such mad chaos in sentient beings, such impassioned conflict and self-destruction and self-delusion cannot be explained by evolution. That seems as preposterous as claiming that a loving God makes all these horrors happen. Read more: Heart Blindness
Life Adrift or Navigating Life Excerpt
Do we drift through life or navigate through life? Sometimes after the storm the familiar waters - those shallow waters - the beach of comfort, still remain in sight, still enticing us back. But sometimes, once in a while, the storm tosses us so far away, or so thoroughly submerges our once secure shores, that we are left in the midst of deep and dark, with no apparent bearing and no source of direction. Read more: Life Adrift or Navigating Life
Intention of Attention (excerpt)
......there is no separating attention and intention.
Should one accept the gift of consciousness,
should one turn from mindlessness and embrace mindfulness,
should one choose to cultivate attention,
there is no escaping the responsibility of intention.
See all of Intention of Attention
Impossible Yearning (excerpt)
We should not deny our longing for Unity and Communion, in whatever guise we may title it. We should fully accept our need and the hunger and the emptiness. We should pursue the sting of that driving hunger with laser like focus. But we should look not to party or people or the public. We should look to Source, the Source of the longing and the Source of fulfillment. We should take time from the relationships and activities that provide only momentary tastes of Communion and Unity and immerse in the gift of Deep Communion and eternal Unity that promise to embrace and endure, Communion and Unity real and foundational, abiding when the prophet is charlatan, the friends are fickle, the spouse unfaithful.
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Collapse of Wordly Wisdom excerpt
In moments of fear and panic and distress our worldly wisdom breaks down and we are left without a clear course of action. For a moment we experience the futility and pointlessness of this temporal existence. For a moment we cannot deny what really matters, we cannot ignore our helplessness.
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Successful Disaster Excerpt
As failures and disasters compile we begin to notice the little details we never anticipated, a life affected, a life touched, a life saved. Our career and relationship disasters slowly are revealed as lessons and opportunities, and our grandiose plans begin to wane in submission to The Grandiose Plan. Read some more of Successful Disaster
Flightless Souls on Walkabout
We, our conscious souls trapped in a temporal blindness and localized into a carnal body, feel driven to wander, to explore possibilities, to take risks, even risking our souls. We explore beliefs and faiths and ways of being and ways of living, though that may mean leaving the security of the familiar and traditional. Read more of Flightless Souls on Walkabout
Recognizing Beauty Excerpt
If we cannot perceive the beauty in Nature we cannot discern it in ourselves. If we cannot recognize loving Creator in Creation we will not recognize our souls as children of that Creator. The value of Nature's beauty reflects our own value, as we arise from and are integral part of the same Source fulfilling the same Purpose. Read all of Recognizing Beauty