Quality time together
Many couples already spend considerable time apart because of career demands and other responsibilities, but the need for quality time together often increased dramatically when preparing for a wedding. What was once free time is now spent picking out invitations and meeting with vendors, so they are looking for ways to stay connected. Having a scheduled workout appointment with a personal trainer is a way to guarantee that they’ll have at least a bit of bonding time every week.   Read more...

Whenever I read the articles sent into www.odemagazine.com, I am always struck by several things. The first, of course, is the hopefulness. Also there is creativity and imagination. The focus is not on greed or grabbing, but rather on openness, generosity, and trust. Plus the diversity of expressions, projects, and happenings are very titillating. And like icing on the cake, there is often a touch of humor and fun, too. Just the fact that so many souls from so many backgrounds and outlooks contribute is very exciting indeed.

The prism of perspectives, creativity, and hope-filled endeavors are magnificent, but there is a deeper dimension, too. And that is an underlying theme or pattern that holds them all together. That unifying principle might be compared to a white light that bursts forth into a spectrum of many colors, or the reverse, where the many return to their common source, the light. From the Buddhist perspective it could be seen as the integral relationship between emptiness and form.   Read more...

The streets are relatively safe to ride, but any group larger than three has its own dynamic. At that point there are only two ways you can turn. Up or down.

Evening falls. W rides his board on a concrete slab through the park. Three lamp posts down the path two girls stand like amateur hookers. Some primitive force crawls up his spine and sends his attention through the bushes where he sees three young predators lurking in the dark. Make no mistake - this is no time to be a hero. W remembers one of the few lesson that stuck by him from high school - there is no free lunch unless you are the lunch.   Read more...

Have you ever felt a loss? Not the conventionally defined ones like the loss of health, a loved one, or money. I mean, a loss of self.

Have you ever felt this pesky feeling of being away from your own being. Feeling like a stranger who has lost his way and is standing at the precipice of sanity, in danger of plunging into deeper dungeons of the horrible demands of life?   Read more...

Is there a peace room in your home?

Is there a war room? (Check where you have the television.)

Alice Walker inspired me this week, “War will stop when we no longer praise it, or give it any attention at all. Peace will come wherever it is sincerely invited.”

You know, of course, that whatever we praise increases. How much time are you spending praising war? We don’t mean to do it most of the time. It’s just what’s on the news, you say?   Read more...

I recently attended the 25th Conference on Shamanism and Alternative Modes of Healing which took place on Labor Day weekend. The conference was founded by the late Dr. Ruth-Inge Heinze, who died in 2007, at the age of 88. Heinze was a long-time faculty member at Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center, and was a close associate of Stanley Krippner. The path of shamanism came to her late in life when she decided to return to school and train as a social anthropologist in her 50's. Eventually her studies led her to explore the psychology of shamanism, shamanism in Southeast Asia, and complimentary and alternate medicine.

In keeping with Ruth's personal exploration, she initiated the conference in San Rafael California 25 years ago to explore a wide range of practices and topics within the shamanic realm and beyond; topics such as reiki, qi gong, yoga, wiccan ritual, spirit mediums, comparative religions, quantum physics, ethno-medicine, bio-physics, psychology and vibrational healing among many others.   Read more...

I've always had a problem with my thoughts and emotions. I identified with them, as 99% of us do, and that brought a lot of worries, frustration, desires and fears. It was practically my whole life. Through time I learned that what they said was wrong and then I learned to fight with them, which wasn't much fun either, but in general it meant an improvement.

Now I believe I'm doing the next step: not fighting...   Read more...

Ask this question and most people would prevaricate and flounder with their answers. I have observed that people don’t hesitate when they are admitting to being satisfied with their job, life, and marriage. They would readily admit to having fun. But happy in the true sense? Well, it could always be better…a guarded look follows the shrug.

Why is it so hard to admit that we are happy?   Read more...

I found something very interesting, true and straightforward on Tim Ferris's blog (the guy who wrote The four hour work week - I highly recommend it by the way.). He quoted a speech that Martin Luther King gave and i believe it to be very inspiring. See the quote below, enjoy ...

By the way, i decided to not write "i" anymore with a capital letter unless it's at the beginning of a sentence.

"I say to you, this morning, that if you have never found something so dear and precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren't fit to live.
You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid.

You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You're afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you're afraid that somebody will stab or shoot or bomb your house. So you refuse to take a stand.

Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at 38 as you would be at ninety.

And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.

You died when you refused to stand up for right.

You died when you refused to stand up for truth.

You died when you refused to stand up for justice."

-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
From the sermon "But, If Not" delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church on November 5, 1967.

“Peace Day Magazine is brought to you by World Peace Emerging.” This is the first sentence I saw when I opened the online ezine.

Those last three words made my heart leap for joy: World Peace Emerging. Yes, oh yes, it is, it has to, we’re doing it was the not so subtle subtext. Also, please God, Goddess, Mother, Father and way too many other deities to list here.   Read more...