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.

What we saw on January 6 is not who we are - but it does show us that something is really off-balance in our nation, our world, our communities - and our selves.
I've been traveling and listening and learning more and more about what's happening, which I'll be sharing in my new online class: Understanding Values & Viewpoints in American Politics.

That new class begins with this:

There's lots more to it, and you can sign up for it by CLICKING HERE.

You may also be interested in the talk I taped on Friday the 8th:

Wow. Hanging in the balance... we're like Shrodinger's Cat, a metaphor the quantum theorist came up with to explain how things work at a quantum level: if a cat were in a box with 2 things, one of which will kill it, you don't know if it's alive or dead until you open the box - and in a quantum universe both things are true until you look. More importantly for us, though, both things are true until we believe one of them is. 

So what's that got to do with this election? Everything!  As long as it hangs in the balance we have the opportunity to think, feel, and KNOW the truth about it. And when we truly do, we will see the results.

I heard a man tell a story about how he got a phone call at work saying that his family had been in a skiing accident a couple hundred miles away. He had been going to join them the next day, but of course he immediately left work and began to drive up to be with them. The whole way he chose, over and over again, to focus on images of their happy, healthy, playful selves, not allowing himself to consider any possibilities of injury. He filled his mind with memories and possibilities of hugs and good times. When he arrived, the hospital workers expressed some puzzlement: his wife and kids had been in a really awful accident, but there were only minor scratches an bruises and they were ready to go home.

This is what is possible for all of us, here, now, today, and always - in all situations!

Here's the talk I gave to the Florence Unitarian Universalists, recorded Friday, Nov 6:

A high wind blew from the NE across Oregon the other night, carrying smoke from dozens of wildfires with it. The next morning, this is what a friend's view of her yard and the ocean beyond looked like. Really. No filters on the camera - and no fire within miles!

Today it's better here. Looks like a smoggy day in 1970s LA with the sun an orange disk through the haze. The power was back on this morning so I've vacuumed the first layer of ash that blew through the cracks with the 70+ mph winds the other night, but everything feels gritty and I wear a mask outside to filter our the ash, breathing in thru the nose behind the mask and out thru an uncovered mouth - much easier on the lungs when walking. But friends and family are now being evacuated from the fires that the wind started - all over the state.
  And, of course, I'm looking at the meaning behind the experience. What's really going on here? What in our consciousness is being made manifest in our experience?
  And, again, there are so many levels!

•   First level of possible explanation - every other region of the continent has had major disasters this year and now it's time for the Pacific Northwest to get its share. Ouch! Don't like that one much! But it is part of our belief system, so I wouldn't be surprised if it were at least part of what's happening here.
•   Second level, additional possibility - there's been a huge immigration to Oregon of Californians running away from wildfires. - and guess what! What we resist (or run away from) persists, and they brought what they were avoiding with them. We Oregonians bought into their distress and to some extent are now experiencing the effects of that. Don't like this one much either, but it is how things work: we get what we accept as real and get more of what we have emotions around.
•   Third level - as the veil is thinning between dreams and reality, people's fears are becoming their experience immediately and in spades. With the media focusing on all the fires in California, as well as the fires in the "riots" happening in cities when protesters, police, and inciters clash, it's not too surprising that such things are in peoples' minds, and must therefore become their experience. 

  All of these possible explanations are based on the fact that we experience what we believe and focus on. And that is, I'm sure, a big contributor to the level of distress being experienced.
  But there's something more, something even deeper, happening here. As I was cleaning up the ash that covered the surfaces of my little house, and looked out the window at the smoke-filled air this morning, I felt a flashback to times when I've been "cleansed by smoke" and thought of the cleansing effect of fire. Perhaps that's what's really happening in all this. If we could but see it and understand it, we might be able to take this whole experience to a new level.

  The cover of my latest ebook reflects this. It's a picture a friend took at a "fire puja" a cleansing ceremony, a time of release and renewal. The light and the heat and the intensity of the experience are all part of the process of letting go of attachments to things of the past and beginning to create - or become - something that's more fully who we are capable of being. 
   What if all this fire and ash, and all the smoke in the air is just that?
   What if we are being cleansed?
  What if we are being prepared to become something more than we've allowed ourselves to be thus far?
    What if ...?
   I'm certain that this is the time when all of us are being called to live and love and see life at a whole new level of being. Knowing that I accept the gift of this smoke and receive the cleansing and opening to new possibility that it offers. 

May the light and love and cleansing Spirit of Life fill you and your world, lifting all of us to new heights of being in the days, weeks, and months ahead.

​One more note about this virus…
 
In the science of mental healing practiced within the New Thought tradition it’s been found that every physical condition is reflective of, and a useful pointer to, a psycho-emotional condition. Looking at the SARScorona-2 virus from this perspective provides some possibly useful insights:

1. Virus infections in general tend to indicate issues around boundaries, letting another’s will override our own –
   • This virus in particular attaches to cells on boundaries that protect tissue.
   • In today’s world most people spend most of their time in work situations where they feel they must set aside their own intentions and preferences in favor of the manager’s or owner’s.
2. Respiratory illnesses in general, have to do with expression of ideas, opinions and emotions – the more difficult it is to breathe the more likely the issue is suppression of unexpressed thoughts and feelings –
   • This virus is most likely to affect the respiratory system
   • In today’s world, even though there are many ways to communicate, the expectation, both at work and in social situations, is that only certain kinds of things may be said or talked about
3. Illnesses associated with the heart generally have to do with ongoing fear – particularly of loss
   • The people most likely to deal with intense symptoms with this virus are those dealing with heart issues
   • In today’s world, the role of most media has become to point out all the reasons to be afraid, to the point where strangers are to be avoided and what was normal for people growing up even one generation ago seems irresponsibly reckless to most parents today.

Being aware of these correlations helps us understand why this particular experience is so widespread at this point in the history of our culture – which is, today, worldwide.

​Recently, a copy of the famous Chief Seattle speech, "How Can You Buy or Sell the Earth?" was put in front of me. Although I've seen it many times, this time I was able to explain how it is that Americans have come to think we can buy land.
 
For hundreds of thousands of years, people have wandered around large areas of land, finding food as they could, often not even aware there were other people on the planet. They relied on observation and intuition to guide them from place to place, food source to food source. Anyone who could intuitively access information about what they needed was elevated in stature, as were those who could carry large loads or accurately use a spear or stone knife.
 
As climates changed, people were pushed into smaller and smaller habitable areas and had to find new ways to live. They began to nourish certain "wild" supplies of food and manage forests and range lands, and they learned to rely on a new kind of guidance in the process - one which understood what a plant or tree needed in order to flourish, and how to maintain balance among a group of people living in close proximity.
 
Early villages grew out of this process. Located along waterways, they were fixed and stable. Houses and gardens were built and animals were brought in to the village rather than hunted in the wilderness. Now decisions had to be made about who would live and work where - and a new kind of guidance was needed to make it work for everyone for the long term. Wise men and women were honored who could access that wisdom and persuade others to follow it. Older women, especially, who had seen life, had learned to read people's hearts, how to nourish plants and babies, and how the climate shifted and changed over the years, were honored and appreciated - as the Neolithic "Venus" figurines attest.
 
The village gardening life thrived with few hardships and virtually no violence for several thousand years, until a new climate shift caused mass migrations into the river valleys.
 
Apparently an asteroid hit the planet and caused much desertification. The great plains of northern Africa became the Sahara desert. Much of Central Asia dried up, and areas of the Caucasus became uninhabitable. Many people moved into the river valleys.
 
Bringing more people into the villages was difficult, but doable, with the existing processes and systems. The land was reapportioned, forests were cut down, reeds planted to replace the fuel, food, and fiber that the trees had provided, and new villages were built where the forests had been.
 
But along the Tigris and Euphrates and their tributaries, things happened very differently. Large blonde men, riding horses and herding large numbers of cattle, moved down from the Caucasus seeking new pastures. They had little use for gardens and let their herds trample them. In some cases, whole villages were demolished, flattened. These men had no respect for women, seeing them as a bull sees cows, and used them roughly - often stealing them and hiding them so no one could steal them back. And they were rougher, faster, and stronger than most of the valley men they encountered.
 
By 3200 b.c.e., enough waves of Caucasians had moved into many river valleys that they had changed the culture. From the Indus to the Nile the city-state was now established. Civilization (also known as urbanization) had begun. The foundation for a new kind of culture, based on taking and expanding, was laid.
 
Under this regime, the land belonged to the emperor-king, who, using the basic idea from the old gardening culture, that the land was sacred to the divine Power, claimed it by divine right: the Divinity (God or Goddess) had given him all the land as long as he could control it. Therefore anyone else could only use it with his permission. If he liked someone or they had done a great service for him, he would give them the right to use the land - either for their lifetime or for some or all succeeding generations.
 
Up 'til this moment in time, no one had ever thought of "owning" a piece of land. But a mindset that says "I want it and I shall have it" was built into this new kind of leader. Taking over what others are using is normal to that way of thinking - and converting men into herds to trample over other lands (and people) was the way to do that. So armies were born, and the idea of battle.
 
Taking control of the rich proceeds of new land was the great hunger of this new, Empire culture. From father to son the ambition was passed down: grow! expand! acquire more!
 
This was the way of Empire culture for over four thousand years: choose a piece of land, take an army there to take it over, and then take as much of the proceeds as possible home, handing out rights to use the land to a few, select individuals. Even through the 1500s and into the 1600s European empires continued to grow by treating the whole world this way. Chinese, Russian, and Islamic empires fought back and forth across Asia, as well.
 
But then, something new began. The emperors were actually losing wealth by fighting these battles. More and more, the proceeds from the lands were barely enough to cover the cost of acquiring them. Large armies needed supplies. Navies needed to be built and maintained. And even with all the gold and riches of Africa and the Americas, the emperors were falling behind.
 
This was when the idea of selling land came into the picture. First, emperors sold the right to occupy land to individuals for a period of time: a “leasehold” for a period of years. Soon, in desperation, they actually sold their rights to own and occupy certain pieces of land to individuals. Land grants became a sort of payment for services – especially land in far-away places like the Americas - during those years. 
 
The next step was to grant (or sell) lands to companies. And it was this that made it possible for many to settle North America. The Puritans, for example, contracted with a company to get them to North America based on a promise that they would send back part of their produce in return for the right to live on that land. 
 
Sadly it became clear that people who haven't grown up sharing things in common don't know how to maintain commons or use only their share. The American colonists were not rural villagers with such a history, so they found another way: buy the company's interest in the land and then sell it to the individual residents for their own use.
 
And so it was that the American Way was established: gather (earn, borrow, inherit, or steal) enough funds to buy enough land for your own home and garden and live the good life for evermore. No divine Power to seek guidance from, no other person;s needs to be bothered by, just me and "my land" to do with as I wish.
 
So, "how can we buy or sell the Earth?" We do it by ignoring what Chief Seattle pointed out, that what we are buying is part of an interconnected web that we all share in common. We do it by convincing ourselves that, even though we pay the city and county a fee for the right to occupy the piece of land we have title to, and even though we may have one or two mortgages on it that say the lender gets that title as soon as we miss a few payments, and even though someone else owns the rights to any minerals (or in some places, water) that are buried under the surface, somehow we, like the emperors of old, "own" this piece of earth and are entitled to all the produce thereof.
 
I wonder how long we can maintain that fiction?