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Yearning for More: The Quest for Enlightenment, Part Three

Cosmic Consciousness: Functioning Within the Wellspring of Fullness

In my last post, Part Two of this series, I talked about the first of the higher states of consciousness, Transcendental Consciousness. In this blog we will talk about the next higher state of consciousness, Cosmic Consciousness, which unfolds naturally through the alternation of transcending with activity.

Cosmic Consciousness, the Normal State of Awareness

Persons who have had glimpses of the blissful serenity of pure consciousness describe the naturalness and familiarity of such experiences, as if something profoundly familiar—but lost—had been found again.

Balancing Our Inner Gender Roles

Last summer I had the opportunity to hear Pearl Means, the wife of the Indian activist and artist Russell Means, speak at an event sponsored by the Global Mother Divine Organization in Fairfield, Iowa. Pearl, who is carrying on the legacy her husband started, believes that matriarchy is the main difference between indigenous cultures and modern cultures.

She says that historically it is the women elders who are most respected in her Lakota nation. Even today, she says, “they are the last to speak, and when they speak, everyone else listens,” she says.

The Power of Silence: Unplugging for the Holidays

As women, many of us are the heart of holiday preparations, making sure everyone is fed, comfortable and entertained. We give, give, give, often to the point of exhaustion. Yet, could our silence also be

Everything Comes from Nothing

Stephen Hawking, the man often considered to be the most intelligent person on the planet, wrote a book detailing the origins of the universe. In a passage excerpted in the Times of London, we read: “Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist.”

Beautiful Just the Way You Are

Anyone who has been an adolescent girl knows the kind of crazy and negative thought patterns that can circulate through the brain when a girl thinks of her own body. I remember spending hours in

Cooking Lessons

My mom was not a feminist. You could say she was a 1950s Donna Reed sort of mom, not the kind who had a job outside the home or marched in feminist rallies when I was growing up in the 60s.

She was a great cook, and because she made such fabulous, fresh meals, on time, every day, I never felt the need to learn how to cook myself. If I felt the urge to create something, it was more satisfying to sew a dress or draw a picture. A member of a 4-H club, I learned to bake brownies and cookies, and once, in high school, I spent all day preparing a ham dinner with all the trimmings—applesauce, string beans and dinner rolls—from scratch. For all my trouble, within 30 minutes it was gone, with only a few “gee thanks” left trailing in the air. To my teenage mind, it seemed like a massive waste of time.

Advocating for Women’s Heart Health

Thirty-eight % of all deaths in women are related to coronary heart disease (CHD), more than the next seven causes of death combined. For almost three decades women have outperformed men in the raw numbers linked to cardiac mortality. While both women and their doctors once associated CHD with older males, heart health is now widely recognized as a woman’s issue. The Transcendental Meditation program can be a significant part of a woman’s solution.

Living Sustainably from the Inside Out

What does it mean to live sustainably? Is it recycling diligently? Driving an electric car? Growing your own organic veggies?

According to the dictionary, sustainable means “able to be maintained at a certain rate or level.” Or “conserving an ecological balance by avoiding depletion of natural resources.” Other people might define it as the energy going out never exceeding the energy going in.

Meditation or Medication? Today’s Plague of Pill-popping

An estimated 80 million Americans suffer from chronic pain, according to the American Chronic Pain Association, but women experience pain more often and with greater intensity. Research also shows men and women respond differently to pain medications, and in fact use separate mechanisms in the brain to achieve pain relief.

Many Ways to Mother

I guess I have to come out with something. Even though I once taught children in grades 2-4 and trained elementary school teachers in the language arts, wrote articles for a children’s column for Plain magazine and am a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, have co-authored two books on children’s health, written articles on parenting and am the loving aunt of two and Godmother of three, I myself have never given birth to a child.

Don’t get me wrong. I really do love kids, which is why so much of my career and my social life is wrapped around them. But when it came to having our own, it seemed like my husband and I always wanted to wait until sometime in the future. There were real obstacles that I don’t want to go into here, but basically, I admit it—we didn’t want kids enough.