Symbols and Meaning

Symbols are the path to meaning. They help makes us human. They allow us to connect to one another and to the universe.

Symbols

Symbols express the core of who we are.

Joseph and his Brothers

Joseph seeks his brothers (Gen 37:15-16). He does not really find them until they find one another at the end of Genesis.

Walking inside Ourselves

When we walk through a familiar building, our home or workplace, we are also exploring the pathways of our unconscious and of the Source.

Symbols Let Us Experience Life

Symbols are the vehicles through which we experience life. Daily activity gives us the illusion that events are tangible and symbols are codes. Dreams allow us to see symbols as they are: the force that channels energy into form.

Jacob Wrestles Again

Jacob wrestling with No-Name: Can we really put a name to most of our struggles? (Gen 32:23-33)

Jacob Wrestles

Jacob wrestling with No-Name. That’s what we all do most of the time, isn’t it? (Gen 32.23-33)

Symbols and Feeling

Symbols express feeling at the most profound levels. If we do not interpret symbols, we are not fully in touch with our feelings. Without symbols, history describes people as automatons, stick figures empty of life.

Learning from each Person

There is always something to learn in every place and from every person.

Waking Anesthesia

Under waking anesthesia, life moves as a dream does. Time contracts. Moments take on greater meaning. Events do not flow from one to another, but from symbol to symbol, forming a poem and a painting.

Truth’s Wrinkles

Seeing Truth’s wrinkles helps me to stop making the same mistakes.

Wings of Gratitude

The wings of gratitude carry me to the present moment and allow me to enjoy it.

Patience Takes me by the Hand

Patience takes me by the hand up to the summit of the mountain to view life’s panorama.

Love Your Neighbor

“Love your neighbor as yourself.” “Yourself” is not your I, but your divine spark, the authentic you. (Lev 19:18)

Integration

Integration: Making sense of opposites; living in diverse realms; finding a way to enjoy eating chocolate, garlic, sushi together: ONE

Anxiety

Anxiety: millennial residue; protection, also subversion; when transformed, a gateway to self-discovery, community renewal.

Calm

Calm: Long-sought after, so difficult to attain, yet right in front of us.

Opening Our Eyes

Opening our eyes is often difficult, but worth it.

Meals as Holy

The Source is an honored guest at every meal. Show it hospitality by taking pleasure in good food and by eating with gusto (Gen 18).

Hidden Anatomical Sketches in Sistine Chapel?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=michelangelos-secret-message-in-the-2010-05-26
According to some interpreters, the Sistine Chapel paintings contain hidden anatomical sketches

What Underlies Existence

A beating heart, light breathing, oxygen, carbon, the earth, a puff of wind, the hum of life, gravity, quantum waves, dark matter: that which inconspicuously allows existence to exist.

Crackling Fire

The crackling fire inside you is your passport.

Oneness

Many paths, many truths, One Source

Gulf of Mexico Disaster

Gulf disaster: When we wreak havoc on the earth, she vomits back.

Learning Another Language

Learning another language is an acting exercise. You practice feeling yourself in another’s skin and move to a new beat.

Languages and Rhythm

Languages echo the pulsating rhythms of life. To speak or read another language is to feel another rhythm.

Life Pulses

Life pulses to a medley of rhythms.

Martin Heidegger and the Jewish Question

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/books/review/Kirsch-t.html

Two very different approaches to Heidegger’s association with the Nazis. Heidegger is one of the most well-known philosophers of the the 20th century (very influential on post-modern thought) and a leading existentialist thinker

Dreams Flow

Dreams flow from the warm currents of an unseen ocean.

Happiness in the 21st Century: Dalai Lama

http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2010/05/20/4315193-dalai-lama-21st-century-will-be-much-happier

An Oasis in the Wilderness

Sometimes I wander in a desert looking for an oasis. Other times, I have too much water to drink. Now I see: Staggering in the dry sand, I give the desert time to prepare my refreshment.

Breath

When I feel my breath, I feel the presence of the Source. Awake and asleep, I inhale and exhale divine scents.

Flexibility and Perservance

Flexibility–Perseverance: two sides of the same coin

A Door

Sometimes the door is open. Sometimes the door is closed. Sometimes you have to knock. Sometimes you have to open the door yourself. Sometimes you have to force the door open. Sometimes you have to find another door.

An Adult

He was an adult in a field where there are too many children. The difference between adults and children is that children want power so that they can be somebody, and adults want power so that they can do something.”

Eric Severeid’s radio commentary on the death of John Foster Dulles
in 1959 (via Albert Pennybacker)

Light in Darkness

Even in the darkest places, there are little slivers of light. Seek them out and begin to heal the world.

Moving from Fragments to Wholes II

Integration and wisdom usually come from the experience of fragmentation, making “mistakes,” and feeling disappointment and pain. I don’t know of many integrated and wise persons who have not gone through a lot in life. So, in that sense, fragmentation is a gift that allows us to experience, or re-experience (if we are speaking from a karmic perspective), the learning of integration and wisdom.

Aleph

‎”Aleph” is a soundless Hebrew consonant. Perhaps it preceded Genesis 1:1, which is when the Kabbalists believed creation actually began–in silence before the light was scattered. The Bible actually begins with a “bet,” which is our “b” sound–the pressing and parting of lips.

Aleph-Beth

Aleph-Beth (A-B): That’s how creation began. First breath,then the kiss of lips in voice, finally the universe.

Chemicals and Cancer

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/06/opinion/06kristof.html

Nicholas D. Kristoff: “The medical establishment has embraced the idea that untested chemicals can cause cancer. It’s time for Republicans and Democrats to address this issue.”

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