It's the time of year when people all over the world have, for millennia, celebrated the Great Mother - as the Earth, as the Divine Feminine, as the "Mother of God." And a huge part of our relationship with the Mother is our experience in the womb and the birthing process - which is, in many ways, what is happening today. 
Here's a link to a talk I gave as part of the May 4 (may the "forthe" be with you :)  Sunday service at Portland Center for Spiritual Living that provides an overview of the birthing we're going through today.

I delivered a talk at the Florence Unitarian Universalist Fellowship that I hope will help people have less anxiety as we move through this transition period for all of humanity. CLICK on  the image below for a link to a pdf of the slides i used.  I included a short video of Donald Hoffman's explanation of how what we perceive is not real; CLICK HERE for a link to the full lecture.

When my book, Unveiling Your Hidden Power, was translated into German and published last winter, we began to schedule a book tour. It looked like the easiest way to get from town to town without constant packing and repacking was to take a boat tour up the Rhine from Basel, Switzerland, to Amsterdam.
What follows are some of my accounts from that trip.

CLICK HERE for a link to a talk I gave to the Florence Unitarian Universalist congregation on the Sunday following the November 2024 election of Donald Trump as president. Most of the people in the room were in distress because of what they believed the election of this man, and this platform, means for the future of Americans.










And if you need another voice saying very much the same thing, here's a longtime student of intuition and prophecy, with his take on what's happening now:  https://youtu.be/-qB9AO2JJAc?si=0uBq3zQdoW0Uinsb

I received an email the other day from yet another person really concerned about the polarization that's happening, not just in our politics (globally as well as nationally) but in our social interactions. 
The issue that triggered the email was the wide variation in what people consider facts, these days:
"... the problem with the rampant ignorance portraying itself as knowledge is that it can not be corrected, in any way that I can see. It serves itself entirely, like Frank Herbert (or was it Robert Heinlein) said of the Angry Mind, exists only for itself. These proclamations of absurd and impossible things are very disturbing more for that reason than for what they actually say. Data without any possible corrective feedback."

My response to this email, which is one of many expressing concerns about the issue was:

So... how about this: the world of negative/distressing polarity is pulling further and further away from the world of positive/loving polarity, and you're just observing it. How's that for an explanation? No need to try to change it, simply to hold to the love and trust that most of the folk who can feel it will come along, while those who can't will move in into their very different world. 
Like the cover of the original Make the World Go Away:

After several years of speaking almost every Sunday, as well as teaching monthly and weekly classes and recording a weekly radio show, I decided to take a break. I had agreed to speak at, and offer books at, the International New Thought Alliance conference in July, so I put together a road trip that included visits with family and clients across the western U.S. 

You can follow my journey by clicking on the links below:
    Summer Sabbatical 1: Oregon to New Mexico with Several Stops
    Summer Sabbatical 2: Across the Great Plains, INTA, and More
​    Summer Sabbatical 3: Back-roading through the great Southwest
​    Summer Sabbatical 4: A Different Kind of Retreat

What is the distinction between traditional Christian Science and the teachings of Emma Curtis Hopkins and Emilie Cady?
Basically, Emilie Cady didn't go there at all. She found her path through her training as a holistic physician, attendance at revival meetings, participating in study groups around Emma Curtis Hopkins' teachings, and her own reading of the Bible. Her ideas became the foundation of Unity teachings precisely because they were so clearly NOT Christian Science but were so clearly expressed that all could understand and practice them.
 
Emma, on the other hand, studied with Mary Baker Eddy and worked for her for a while, called her own teachings Christian Science until MBE made it clear that no one outside her organization would be permitted to do so, and actually taught and published lessons that were very similar to MBE's for the first couple of years. We have published books based on her notes for 1887 and 1888 that are virtually indistinguishable from MBE's CS. 
 
Emma's initial move away was to include references to what she called "other mystical writers" and to accept what is now called NeoPlatonism: the existence of everything in an ideal form ready for us to attune ourselves to experience it. In Lesson 2 of Scientific Christian Mental Practice she goes further away when she contradicts MBE's teachings on 2 points:
    1, That there is no intelligence in matter; Emma argues that if God is omnipresent and God is Intelligence then Intelligence must be omnipresent and that includes all forms of matter. She also says that matter, as such, is not Real, but transitory. That is, eternal spiritual Substance is taking a form for the moment that meets a consciousness and will change as that consciousness changes. 
   2, The denial of sensation; Emma states that if all sensation were delightful then no one would argue against its existence, that the issue is with our perception, not with the object being sensed; if God is Good and God is omnipresent, then all that is Good is omnipresent and therefore what we sense must be Good.  
 
 
What’s the difference between praise and gratitude?
Gratitude is a heart opening brought about by deep appreciation in the moment, and may be triggered by contemplation of the past or the present or potential futures. Gratitude opens the way for more opportunities to experience gratitude.
 
Praise is any and all descriptions of what is. Emma says, literally, that "all description is praise". Praise opens the way for more of what is being described., which is why we're careful about what we describe. Praises may also arise from a state of gratitude, as reflected in the Psalms and many hymns, where words can't describe the depth of our appreciation for what we're experiencing, but still we try.

 

I recently received an email from a student who was concerned that by listing the ways that good things are present or would be appreciated, we may be "placing other  gods before" the One, Infinite, Source of All that Is. Here is my response:
I get the sense that in your thinking, an object is not Source/Spirit, a person or event may or may not be Spirit, a quality may or may not be Spirit - and that is, indeed, what the culture teaches us. But what Emma Hopkins and Emilie Cady understood is that it's ALL ONE SPIRIT/SOURCE/SUBSTANCE. Every thing, person, experience, or quality we perceive is our brain-limited version of Spirit showing up for us. So, they're telling us, when we name anything, any person, any state of being, any feeling as our Good, we are naming Spirit, and by naming Spirit in that form, we are inviting Spirit to take that form in our perceptions.

When Hopkins and Cady encourage us to acknowledge the good and claim it for ourselves they are offering a way of experiencing all that we call good by identifying all that we call good and  ourselves as the same thing -- Spirit, the Source, the underlying power and intelligence of all that is. They say that we can have it without feeling required to DO anything to achieve or experience it. We identify with that experience, that physical form, that quality, and because we ARE it already (for we could not wish, desire, or imagine it if we weren't), we then begin to perceive it in our lives. We no longer seek it, because we realize we ARE it, and the form that is here and now is Spirit in expression - so it is Good. The lamp is Good, the food is Good, the body is Good, the person over there is Good, their healed body is Good...I name it Good to get out of the habit of naming things as not okay and  reinforce my understanding that all is Spirit/Source/Substance taking whatever form I call good, that all I perceive is what I have thought and felt before now, and is my very loving, cooperative Spirit Self showing up as my world for me.

It's that time again, the deep dark days of winter - and dozens of holy days to help us thru...

I received an email this week asking me about whether the body really needs to be weened off of medications "slowly and gently".  This was my reply...

Yes, in Truth, no medication is ever needed and there is no need to be limited by anything material. However, the way I think of it,

• the body is what the brain tells it to be;
• the brain has been programmed by our childhood and adult experiences and decisions;
• that programming has trained the brain to block input from the mind;
• as we learn to let the mind have more and more access to the brain, the brain gives the body new messages;
• the mind, our spirit, soul-Self, is infinite and unbounded;
• so the new messages move the body toward unlimited health, unbounded strength, and immunity to whatever is happening in the material world

For someone with training and experience in the medical world, stopping a medication will usually include "a need to wind down safely and slowly". For another (say, a guru in India) that's not an issue; nothing physical can have a deleterious effect on the body.
 
Now, as you're doing the clearing work, however, as you release and replace more and more of the brain’s programming, you will find that fewer and fewer of those old programs apply and more and more of your spirit-Self is your experience.
 
So, as you go along, if you're paying attention to what you're thinking, and that thinking is focused on the spiritual reality of you, rather than the past experiences of the physical-emotional body, AND you can trust yourself to deal with any issues that may come up, you can feel free to do whatever feels right in the moment. 

Be aware, though, that the brain's programming runs deep, so you may find there are ups and downs along the way, as you make the shift from one state of being/consciousness to another.