culture
We Need A Critical Mass Of Love And Kindness!
In the 1950’s, Japanese researchers were studying a group of monkeys located on several Japanese islands. The scientists would regularly drop food onto the beaches for the monkeys.
One day, a female monkey picked up a sweet potato and washed the sand and dirt off in a nearby stream. Soon after, the mother of the juvenile monkey was also washing her sweet potatoes in the stream. In this unusual case it was a youngster had taught an adult and not the other way around, as is more commonly observed.
Over the course of the next five years, one by one, several of the other monkeys of the group also picked up the habit of washing off their sweet potatoes. The exact number is unclear, but something amazing is said to have happened – as if overnight, all of the monkeys were washing their potatoes in streams, and in the sea. Even monkeys on the other islands, crossing natural barriers. Continue reading
The Sins Of The Forefathers
Ancestor worship is a wide-spread belief system, in both primitive and sophisticated cultures. Ancestral healing unfortunately gets very little attention these days, even though some of our patterns and energy imbalances may well stem from our genetic pool.
My first exposure to the concept of communicating with our Ancestors occurred many years ago, during initiation into the Southern African culture of divining and healing. During my training to become a Sangoma*, in a remote area in Southern Africa, time was always put aside for offering prayers to, and for consulting with the Ancestors. My mentor taught me how the Ancestor energies affected their still living relatives, and how, in most African cultures, they are seen as being our link to the spirit world. Continue reading
The Wisdom Of Real Food
My relationship with food evolved the day I decided to start my own garden. I didn’t have much space where I lived, so I rented a plot in a community garden nearby, for a very small fee.
Although it soon became a part-time job, it also turned into my sanctuary. Any stress from the day cleared when I went there. I was always eager to go there and visit my growing family of fruits, herbs, flowers and vegetables. It made me feel like a child again!
Connecting with the Earth on such a deep level also gave me a new perspective on my spiritual identity. From being inspired by fellow gardeners to teaching my son important life skills, I was motivated to get serious about treating my body like a temple and also raising awareness in others. Something I once took for granted and paid little attention to, became a great passion and concern for me. Continue reading
Gut First, Heart Second
How do you know what you are doing is for your highest good? How do you know if what you want from life is based on your own wants, or has it been placed there to achieve from Universe?
Everyone has a higher purpose in this lifetime and yet many never seek it out, or achieve it, because ego starts to become more prominent in their lives, instead of Source, the Universe, God. When you were born, there was a deep-seeded dream placed within you.
As children we were able to draw on it, always just knowing that we wanted to be a fireman, police woman, doctor, astronaut, artist, lawyer, dancer, scientist, or a princess. Some of us just wanted to help others, even at a very young age. We would be kind, caring and giving towards other people whether they were children, adults or seniors. Continue reading
The Courage To Live And Let Live
The only way we are really going to make the future work is by allowing others to do their ‘own thing’ in their own way. Our future survival and evolution as a species will not be found in sameness, alikeness, similarity, or coercion. Instead, we must build a new global civilization based on expanding diversity, variety, assortment and multiplicity. Yet, there is one fundamental condition – for it to be successful it must be achieved in harmony with others and our planet.
From the perspective of the old mainstream view of our world, such a future world of unhindered diversity appears quite impossible and non-sensical, because that would mean that everybody does their own thing in their own way. And that seems really counter-intuitive… even dangerous. A disaster waiting to happen!
History has taught us that individuals doing things their ‘own way’ eventually manifests itself as selfishness, greed, creed, personal preference, chauvinism, dogma and ego-centered beliefs – which has caused most of our wars, the establishment of our borders, the separation between the rulers and subjects, and the division between rich and poor. Continue reading
Letting Go Of Guilt
We all like to be perceived as a nice person, and it can go very much against the grain if we were to be seen as otherwise! Therefore, should we have an argument with a dear friend or colleague, and as a result take on board blame for something we are actually not responsible for, we immediately start to feel unhappy.
Spirit teaches that while it is most necessary to acknowledge any actions we have made, or any part we have played in an argument, guilt can but only exaggerate any feelings of remorse! Furthermore, when we allow guilt, for whatever reason, to build up within ourselves, we may even take on board the idea that we are a ‘bad person’ and do not, therefore, deserve the best in life. Continue reading
Your Pain Is Telling You Something
Spirit recently communicated the power of pain and the importance of forgiveness to me in a way I had never quite conceptualized before. Pain is a natural process of the human experience. It is a messaging system that tells us something is not quite right with our situation.
This is true for our physical body, as well as our emotional body. The difference between the two is that physical pain is often more easily recognized, and the appropriate steps to relieve and even to heal the pain can be taken when it is recognized. Emotional pain, however, is more often left unrecognized, or the messages that are being sent are pushed aside.
Both men and women are taught to suppress their pain. Traditional adages like, “boys don’t cry,” or “keep a stiff upper lip,” are reflections of emotional ignorance. We now also live in a society where we are being medicated for emotional issues at rapidly increasing rates, which only adds to the ignorance of our emotional state. Continue reading