What if we lived in a world based on the free giving of gifts, rather than on scarcity and competition? What if our money wasn’t based on debt and usury but rather on natural increase and abundance? Charles Eisenstein helps us imagine that world in his book Sacred Economics, which you can read in its entirety here. Filmmaker Ian MacKenzie aids that process of imagining with this beautiful short film.
Dig it!
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Debating with my father is never a good idea. The traditional man leans towards a ‘my way or the highway’ philosophy and tends to only believe ideas he already supports. Yet, as I sat in the living room with my parents and my grandmother, we began to discuss religion. Religion is, and perhaps always has been, a hot button issue. Setting aside controversies, religion is often very personal to believers. No one likes to have their beliefs and values contradicted. As we watch politicians debate and wars wage, all in the name of religion, it is no wonder we should find ourselves saddened.
Whatever God you happen to believe in, I’m sure they did not intend for their presence to divide humanity. Happiness and joy can be found in religion. Acceptance and peace with others different from you can also be achieved.
The choice is yours. Religion does not have to be a controlling part of your life that separates you from the rest of humanity. Those very qualities control and separation can make us feel isolated from the rest of the world. Diversity is beautiful and free will is essential. Don’t let anything control you. Instead of following a religion blindly, seek to question and grow like a person. It may be true that in your search for a personal truth, you will make mistakes, but through those mistakes you will become a greater person. Above all, remember you are the only one who can define the personal relationship between yourself and your God.
About the author: Tonya Vrba is a passionate writer. Her work has been published in newspapers and blogs. She is currently an active writer for Online Dating Sites. Learn more about Tonya and her work at her personal website.
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Hello wonder,
Here’s the gems I dug up a few weeks ago. If you’d like them hot and fresh, go ahead and sign up here.
THE GEMS
What a handsome heretic! Check out that cowl.
In 1600, the Roman Inquisition burned at the stake Giordano Bruno, an Italian Dominican friar, on charges of heresy and pantheism. Bruno earned the respect of modern-day depth psychologists like James Hillman and Thomas Moore for his profound insights regarding the relation between the human soul and the cosmos (which he understood as non-hierarchical, with God immanent in every particle — a view the Catholic Church did not like too much, hence his execution). Today I’m especially digging Bruno’s treastise on The Heroic Frenzies, which takes a Socratic view of love as a means of mystical ascent.
Big old beautiful heart!
I’m a big fan of the research of the somewhat-comically named HeartMath Institute, which proves the dramatic effects of the human heart’s electromagnetic field. In this interview, Dr. McCraty, director of research at HeartMath, discusses the Institute’s findings and their relevance to the global shift in consciousness we’re working toward. This interview puts in simple terms the fascinating phenomenon of coherence — a state wherein heart rhythms and brain waves match up, amplifying the power of the heart and the health of the body. Interestingly, coherence is created when we generate positive, loving emotional states– sincere appreciation, compassion, and kindness. The HeartMath Institute’s findings scientifically confirm the wisdom of the great spiritual traditions that the heart is the key organ of spiritual growth and change.
One of my favorite means of achieving coherence (apart from loving-kindness meditation) is just listening and singing along to the music of Krishna Das. For those unfamiliar, Krishna Das has been singing kirtan, Sanskrit love chants to the divine, for decades– a practice he took up when he asked his guru how to meditate to get enlightened and his guru just cryptically replied “Meditate like Jesus.” Well sure, just meditate like Jesus! You know, it’s easy! — Krishna Das interpreted the instruction to mean that he should focus on loving God with all his heart, all his mind, and all his strength (Jesus’ own advice– check the Gospel of Matthew) and that he would do this by singing kirtan. His voice has all the deep-bass soul of Leonard Cohen or Johnny Cash, layered with immense joy. I once hugged Krishna Das after one of his concerts and was astounded to feel an actual huge, wonderful electro-magnetic pulse emanating from his heart. I think I need to write to Dr. McCraty and ask him to use Krishna Das as a test subject so my experience can be objectively confirmed and published in the annals of science.
UPDATES
You’ll notice the look of the site is changing– I’m taking the uber-helpful Girl’s Guide to Web Design Course and learning to build my own magical design using the Thesis wordpress theme. I’m just in the first week now, so things look a bit plain — but 7 weeks from now, oooooh baby, we should have something good.
I’m continuing to be overjoyed and astounded by the progress folks are having while working with me in the low-cost coaching sessions I’m offering for 2012.
Love!
Carolyn
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[Whenever I send out a new letter full of gems and updates, I post an old one here. Sign up now to get the gems hot and fresh as I find 'em.]
Hello wonders,
This week we’ve got a deep meditation on soul sustainability, a tour of the Temples of Humankind, and the first best-selling addiction memoir ever.
Rhina Ju is a dynamic visionary artist and lifestyle concierge (the word means “keeper of the candles”!). This week she offered a beautiful meditation on her philosophy of sustainable soul culture. Check it out if you need some nourishment.
Damanhur – The Temples of Humankind (youtube series)
One of the chambers at Damanhur
Deep beneath the earth in Northern Italy, an intentional community has built an astounding, gigantic network of chambers dedicated to honoring the fullest potential of humanity and divinity in concert. Built over decades by dedicated artisans as a labor of devotion, hese halls and temples are visually stunning and profoundly inspiring.
Confessions of an English Opium Eater – Thomas de Quincey (pdf book)
I prefer the psychedelic swirly Dover Thrift Edition cover of every book. Don't you?
“I am too much a eudaemonist,” the erudite Thomas de Quincey lamented. He meant, “I really want to feel good ALL THE TIME.” This, of course, is a hallmark of an addictive personality. De Quincey shocked the world with his loopy, brilliant, and touching memoir of his opium addiction — the first that the genteel world had ever seen. De Quincey, a prolific and well-respected political economist, suffered terribly during his youth as a homeless orphan in London. He began taking opium first to ease the horrible stomach pains he acquired after too many years of hunger damaged his digestive system. After a time, he noticed opium’s entertaining side effects and began taking it for visionary exploration. Sadly, his fondness for the drug led him into terrible despair and paranoid delusions. (He came to believe that a Mongolian warrior was visiting him at his cottage in the cotswolds and threatening the purity of his maidservant.) As far as I’m concerned, one of today’s addiction memoirs touch De Quincey’s for sheer lyrical wonder and emotional intensity. Read it to better understand the addict in all of us.
My first low-cost coaching sessions ($25 each) have been going amazingly well. Here’s a testimonial from the brilliant Abigail Amalton, artist and photographer at The Silent Infinite:
“Carolyn’s approach spoke to my soul directly. When I spoke of my difficulties with finding my audience, she knew exactly what I had to heal in my own psyche in order to connect better with others through my work. I’ve had negative past experiences in the field of life coaching that have left me feeling condescended to, being forced into a specific ideology and like I needed to be fixed. Not so with Carolyn: she spoke to me as a friend and kindred soul on the same path, extending a hand and rooting for me. I experienced total acceptance in her presence and as a result of the compassion she extended me, I learned how to be kinder to myself. In my conversation with Carolyn, I felt truly appreciated, listened to and valued as an artist and a human being. Months later, I’m still amazed at how just one experience of true compassion can so positively shift one’s self-perception.”
Thank you, Abigail! You can schedule your own soul-shifting session with me here.
Also, Part 4 in the series Surrender Your Addiction to Suffering is up.
Love!
Carolyn
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This is the first part of me (Carolyn Elliott) interviewing problem-solver extraordinaire Matthew Stillman of stillmansays.com about creativity and living in our genius with grace.
I asked Matt to tell us about his radically generous experiment wherein he sits in Union Square and helps folks solve problems.
I also asked him an ever-thorny question: how do we make a living while living in the gift?
We touched upon Jesus’ far-out injunctions, Charles Eisenstein‘s gift business model and the importance of getting in touch with our own inner greedy stock broker.
An illuminating and wonderful time. Part 2 coming soon.
Please excuse any awkward cuts. I kind of suck at iMovie right now.
Love!
Carolyn
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"Love is a new way of being on this planet."
I can’t even begin to describe what music has done for me. How can an art form, independent of the flaws of its creators, catalyze such deep healing and transformation? How can somebody else’s stories lead me back to myself, deeper into my own bliss? The deeper I move into the subjective, the more often I hit the universal. Do we all ultimately share the same core?
Art is love. And love is transcendent, transformative. Love has no opposite. Love is the step beyond dualist thinking. Dualism dissolves completely in the heat and light of pure love. This wonderful step beyond is not even thought nor is it just feeling – it’s pure being. Love is being absorbed in the flow: the conscious observer-participant co-creating the universe, the drop of water in the endless ocean of existence. It isn’t merely an emotion, not merely a state of mind – love is all-encompassing being. It is a subtle awareness of the life force that flows through us – through bone and bloody capillary, through neural networks and the serpentine energetic currents in our spines.
Love is the knowing that this life force is one and the same with what moves stars to begin their lives in misty stellar nurseries, light years away. It is the possibility that everything in this universe, every last little organism, every drop of blood is alive – purely. And simply waiting for us to realize this.
Love is a new way of being on this planet. It revolutionizes each individual who decides to make it a way of life, changing her so that she may never go back, never settle for anything less than pure joy. So what do lovers do? We live for love. We show, through our lives, that it can be done. That we can partake in this cosmic dance with joy – that this is our birthright. Love is the activation of our potential for continued and unending bliss.
It is the knowing that in spite of pain, we live. Pain, however deep, helps us remember that we are embodied and interconnected. When we reflect on our pain, then we remember that we are ensouled. As long as you love, you’ll never lose your soul. So, why continue to hurt? Catalyze the transformation with a deliberate joy in every moment of this ecstatic existence. Push for it. Let it open you up. Let joyfulness be a breaking open of the calcified shell of the ego. Decide you’ll never live in the egoic mode again – and when you do, laugh at it.
Live this way and let life have its way with you, move through you – let spirit sense matter in whatever way it will, for the purpose of love. Live this way and you won’t have to meet with death to finally live – because you will no longer unconsciously push yourself further and further to hurt simply to feel alive.
Gather with other souls in love and explore collaborative ecstasy. Collaborative beauty. Explorations like these are how the planet will begin again, how we can jumpstart conscious evolution. Let go of the patterns we only cling to out of habit and replace them only with love.
Love is how we will reach the stars sooner than we think.
Abigail Amalton, author of this here guest post.
Abigail Amalton is an amazing artist who lives and creates in New York City. Check her out over at The Silent Infinite!
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(Whenever I send out a new letter I post an old one here to the blog. To get the gems and updates all hot & fresh, just sign up here to my mailing list)
Hello wondrous creature,
I always get extra-reflective on snowy days like today in Pittsburgh. I’ve got a handful of discoveries for you to share that reflective vibe, and exciting news about my work.
Iron John by Robert Bly (audiobook on youtube)
In addition to being an amazing poet, Robert Bly is also the leader of the Mythopoeic Men’s Movement, a movement dedicated to reclaiming conscious masculinity via ritual and myth. In Iron John, Bly offers an in-depth exploration of a fairy tale story that holds important wisdom about what it takes for a man to free his psychic energy from that of his parents and the culture at large, and to integrate as a fully life-giving individual. I found out about the book via the brilliant hip-hop artist Eric Venuto aka Bamboo, who recommended it to my partner, Dey. As soon as Dey mentioned that the book had a heavily Jungian point of view I couldn’t resist digging in and reading it myself. I finished it in an afternoon because it’s just that good. This audio version offers the distinct pleasure of Bly’s soothingly gruff voice and the advantage that you can “read” it while washing the dishes and otherwise doing tasks around the house. (I would NEVER clean my apartment if not for audio books– I’d be too busy reading!)
The Kingdom of God is Within You – Tolstoy (ebook)
Until stumbling around wikipedia the other day I never realized that Tolstoy wrote nonfiction– but he did — and quite an important work of nonfiction, too. This is the book that spurred Gandhi to adopt his principles of nonviolence which led to the liberation of India from British rule. In it, Tolstoy explores the radical political dimensions of Christianity and makes the searing (and still extremely relevant) point that Jesus’ teachings leave no room to justify violence of any kind, including the violence of war, which many ostensibly Christian leaders in the U.S. and around the world encourage everyday. But his critique doesn’t just target those in positions of power– it also beckons whoever digs Jesus to get way more serious about integrating that great man’s disruptive and profound teaching into everyday life. Read it if you’re looking for an inspiring jolt for your political and spiritual awareness.
Buddha in Suburbia (streaming documentary film)
Buddha in Suburbia follows exiled Tibetan lama Lelung Rinpoche as he strives to get along in the Western world and to reclaim the lost teachings of his previous incarnation, teachings which are key to the legacy of Tibetan Buddhism. It offers not only fascinating insight into the plight of the Tibetan people, but also the pleasure of watching a man pursue a genuine epic quest for spiritual knowledge. I don’t want to trivialize the difficulty or sadness of Lelung Rinpoche’s work in the wake of the Tibetan exodus– but he’s seeking the missing scrolls of his ancient people. How cool is that?!
I’m delighted to announce that I’m launching a low-cost coaching program for 2012. Each one hour session is just $25 (that’s about $75 less than you’ll find most coaches charge). Curious why the price is so low? You may want to read my post that details the spiritual and political motivations that inspire me. I only have 20 sessions available per week, and two of those have already been taken — so if you’re interested in grabbing a slot, I suggest you go ahead and purchase it.
Love!
Carolyn
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Aether is a lot like mercury, but more so.
I’m trying to network on the interwebs, which is stealing some of my writing mojo away from this blog and putting it on… other blogs.
To get your dose of awesoming-your-lifeness this week, I invite you to check out my post on the fabulous Sources of Insight. I’ve written about how anyone– and I mean anyone – can read poetry better-than-a-pro with a simple contemplative exercise that I’ve perfected and tested over the years with my students at the University of Pittsburgh.
In the post, you’ll learn
Here it is: How to Read Poetry to Expand Your Heart
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[Whenever I send out a new letter with 3 gems from the interweb, I reprint one from a month previous right here. If you want to catch the gems while they're fresh and hot, go ahead and sign up for the letter here.]
Dear wonderful genius,
This week we’re a little off-schedule because I spent two days on planes travelling to the small town of Cuttack, India–where I’m now getting to know my partner’s family and being overfed great Indian food.
Oooh La La Tu Hai Meri Fantasy – music video
This bubbly hit song from Dirty Picture, a film about Silk, India’s first sex-pot star, is blasting on stereos all over Cuttack. It’s as sweet as a mouthful of cotton candy and oh-so-catchy. I have to share it with you to get it out of my head!
Hero With a Thousand Faces – book
This month I’m revisiting this illuminating classic by Joseph Campbell about the universal spiritual adventure underlying all myths and folktales. Campbell’s work is a mix of hard scholarly fact and tremendously wise insight. I love to watch films and read novels while asking myself about what in the story corresponds to the plot movements that Campbell noted: What’s the Call to Adventure? Who’s the Mentor? Where’s the Inmost Cave? When I do this, I get better at understanding the movements of adventure in my own life and learn more about what it truly means to be a hero.
Money as Debt – animated movie
The biggest heroic journey of our time might be the movement to question and alter the very foundations of our present financial system, a system which is so damaging to our earth and to human happiness. This probing gift of a film concisely and simply explains the dangerous sleights-of-hand that make money out of debt and imprison countless people in a painful cycle. A must-see for today’s heroes.
“Surrender Your Addiction to Suffering – Part One” has gotten more hits than any other post in my blog’s history! It’s great to know that the quest for deep freedom resonates with so many folks.
Andrew Long, of the delightful Excellence blog, gave a happy review of my book, Awesome Your Life: The Artist’s Antidote to Suffering Genius on Amazon: “Carolyn has a real gift: it lies in evoking the latent brilliance that resides in each one of us. If you’re ready for it, this course will take you for a ride. Her writing is also a gift: it is fun, funny, easy to connect with, and encouraging. Her voice is warm, coaxing, and personal. I feel like I’ve known her for a long time.”
Thanks, Andrew! You can check out the book for yourself right here.
Love and joy!
Carolyn
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Feeling fear? Don't just do it anyway.
There’s a line in one of my favorite books: “fear is a lack of faith.” Fear is also a lack of gratitude.
It’s not possible to simultaneously be in a state of deep gratitude and a state of fear. Why? Because fear is a condition of being closed down, of clenching up in order to protect oneself from anticipated blows.
Gratitude is a condition of softness and openness. It’s receptive and allowing. That’s why every New Thought prosperity guru on the planet will tell you that if you want to increase the flow of goodness into your life, you need to increase your gratitude. Gratitude is expansive: it makes room, it invites in. It’s the precursor of all gifts.
I prefer the ethos of “soften into gratitude and do it wisely.” Why? Because when I take action while I’m in a fearful mode, that action tends to be a little desperate, and it tends to promote alienation and division rather than unity and love.
Here’s an example: the department is sending a professor to supervise my class this week and evaluate my work. Fear comes up. It says: “He’s going to grill you about why you’re allowing your students to assign themselves their own grade; he’s going to disapprove of and insult your woo-woo teaching style; you’ll probably be fired by Friday and not allowed to graduate with your degree.”
This is a string of alienating thoughts that appears from the part of my mind that believes in separateness, in subject-objectness, in the possibility of attack.
Under the basic “feel the fear and do it anyway” ethos, I’d show up to class on the scheduled day of the supervision, but I’d still be in my fear. I’d probably be brusque, evasive, or overly solicitous (3 favorite defense mechanisms) when talking to the supervising professor.
Under the “soften into gratitude and do it wisely” commitment, here’s what I’m doing instead: feeling grateful for all my time as a teacher; for my students; for my own bravery in designing a class that fits what I believe is true rather than what’s conventional; for this professor who has his own humanness and thoughts and feelings and who may having something insightful to show me.
I practice holding the awareness that I don’t need to defend myself– I can just love instead. I don’t need to be right and I don’t need to make myself safe. That’s just not my job. My only job is to offer love freely and without condition.
My experience is that when I make unconditional love my highest priority (putting it on the list way above shoring up my ego and position) I receive an illumination. I may not get what I think I want (to avoid criticism; to avoid discomfort) but I get what I need– which is usually a lot more valuable (a clearer picture of who I am; a more honest connection to others).
I can easily prevent myself from receiving those gifts of clarity and honest connection by choosing to act while fearful and allowing fear to make me defensive and manipulative in my efforts to protect myself.
When I choose not to protect myself, but to simply surrender to my duty to love, I can move forward without fear into greater union with myself and the very people I first imagine are threatening me.
Love!
Carolyn
Image by my love for you, used under Creative Commons license; borrowed from Flickr.
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I'm a counselor for creative people, committed to living in the spirit of the gift. I also write books of all sorts, make music and throw art parties.