I was recently asked to speak at an event regarding the spiritual life. Several weeks prior to the event, I sat down to collect my thoughts and come up with a topic. Nothing came to me. I felt barren of ideas and inspiration. I tried to will myself to be inspiring. Of course, this didn’t work. I next grabbed books from my library regarding spirituality and began to cram. Some of what I ingested was momentarily inspiring, yet when I put the books down, I lost my excitement. I began to panic when I realized I was supposed to be spiritually uplifting in less than a week and I was so lost. My next strategy was to sleep (a lot)!
Posts filed under Spirituality
Bringing Youthful New Leadership to Jewel Heart: The Crazy Wisdom Interview with Spiritual Director Demo Rinpoche
Rinpoche has an impressive resume of lifelong monastic and religious studies starting at age five, when he entered Drepung Loseling Monastery in Mundgod. He officially joined the monastery in 1987 where he spent nearly thirty years of uninterrupted education in meditation, debate, memorization, philosophy, and composition under the Dalai Lama’s direct supervision. After completing his studies at Drepung, Rinpoche received the highest monastic degree of Geshe Lharampa from Gelugpa University in India in 2011. He continued his studies at Gyume Tantric College and was a visiting scholar under the auspices of the Dalai Lama at Sarah College of Higher Tibetan Studies in Dharamsala. At the request of the late Gelek Rimpoche, Demo Rinpoche came to the United States, where he received his master’s degree in Inter-Religious Engagement from Union Theological Seminary in New York City in 2018.
Stirring the Spirit to Health: A Profile of Energy Healer Karlta Zarley
There you are minding your own business, and the sound of a battalion of bees builds to a crescendo—and then disappears just as rapidly. If upon hearing the sound you freeze in momentary panic, you only have a nanosecond to catch a glimpse of the source, and most often it will only be a blur. Seasoned, you know to not swivel about wildly, but to scan with your eyes and turn slowly. Then, you may see the actual flight of the hummingbird. It is a flash of iridescence, a determined small head leading a wake of whirring wings—an almost visible stream hanging in the air where it cuts through this pane of reality like a knife through warm butter.
An Unexpected Journey
In 2016 my life started to transform. I was pregnant with my second daughter and I was joyous and terrified at the same time. My daughter’s father and I had been on and off for several years. He was in another relationship and I wanted to be with someone so badly. I believed if I were patient enough, kind enough, and quiet enough, he would pick me. Shortly after announcing I was pregnant, he admitted there was no choosing me, and the pregnancy would not change that. It was the biggest wake-up call of my life. For years I’d waited for him to choose me and make me a priority. The breakup slowly made me realize that I needed to choose and love myself. I gave birth in 2017 and committed to a journey of self-love, but it evolved into a deep spiritual journey.
Honoring Our Ancestors
I was 18 years old when the telephone rang. My grandmother had passed. In a moment of stunned disbelief—this was my first experience of death in our family—I was also informed that in two hours my flight would leave for Boston. There was much to be done and very little had to do with processing emotions. I had to arrange for someone to cover a shift at the restaurant where I was waitressing, contact my college about missing class, find someone to care for my cat, and pack a suitcase. I had never been to a funeral, and my only reference was the movies. Yet, somehow, I managed to sort it all out and found myself surrounded by family, all mourning my grandmother.
Cashiering As A Spiritual Practice: Working the Front Lines at a Grocery Store During Covid
I am pretty sure I coined the phrase “cashiering as a spiritual practice.” I don’t know any other job where I could get this much practice to be my best self with scores of unique people every day. Of course, it’s easy and rewarding to serve someone who is competent, friendly, and polite. The actual spiritual practice happens when someone is not blessed with these qualities. How do I feel when a customer is on her cell phone during the entire transaction, never making eye contact, and barely a thank you? What are my thoughts when someone is overtly rude, demanding, or both? What if someone is looking down on me, as they perceive my “station in life” beneath theirs? How about the customer whose eyes are burning a hole in me because she is in a hurry and thinks the long line is my fault? With humility, I realize I’ve been “that impatient customer” before, too. See how many opportunities I have to practice every day?
Supporting Spirituality in Seniors
Years ago, when I was working as a geriatrician, I had a patient named Maria. She was an 82-year-old Italian woman who had been raised in a convent in Italy. She had crippling arthritis that gave her terrible back and knee pain, and was only minimally relieved by all the many medical interventions we tried. She spent most of her day on a narrow bed in her bedroom where she had a life-size statue of Saint Therese of Lisieux. She managed to drag herself to church every day where she insisted on painfully kneeling during Mass despite my attempts to convince her that God would hear her prayers just as well if she sat in the pew. Although I considered myself to be a spiritual person, I still found it hard to understand how her faith could sustain and allow her to keep going in a situation that most people would have found intolerable.
What Do You Live For? Informing our Response to Turbulent Times
We live in turbulent times, yes, but human history has been full of crises, natural and man-made. What is important, what makes or breaks us, is how we respond to life’s challenges as well as its gifts. Maya Angelou wrote, “You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.” All we can do is try to meet that challenge with power and presence, becoming bigger through our response, and perhaps even do something positive in response.
Finding My Voice
I’m over a mile into my morning jog… the distance it takes for my body to stop complaining and just let the endorphins do the work. Pink is turned up all the way in my headphones, and my feet are locked in with the beat. I’m in the best mood. So I’m not even annoyed as I near a crosswalk and slow down just in case I have to wait for oncoming traffic.
Double Double, Toil and Trouble: The Appeal of Witchcraft and Paganism in the Modern Era
You see it in Newsweek, CNN, and other news websites that report on spirituality and esoteric culture like Quartz and Gaia. You see it through phenomena such as Instagram’s 300k+ subscriber feed to Hoodwitch, Youtube’s explosive growth of tarot readers, and gray or shamanic witches offering online tutorials and looks into their family traditions of Celtic witchcraft, and Wiccan seasonal ceremonies. Wicca, witchcraft, and paganism have long had an important perch within Crazy Wisdom Bookstore’s book sections, and local Wiccans, witches, and pagans have long been written about in The Crazy Community Wisdom Journal, but all these related areas are experiencing exponential growth, both locally in earth-religion-friendly Ann Arbor and on the national scale.
Living From the Awakened Heart
Thirty years ago, when I founded Deep Spring Center and first began to teach meditation and to channel my discarnate teacher, Aaron, there were few places where one could meditate and enjoy organized spiritual discussions. The Zen Temple comes to mind, and Jewel Heart had just opened the previous year. At that time, “meditation” usually meant Buddhist meditation, although one organization in town taught Transcendental Meditation. There were even fewer places that offered any connection with spirit and specifically discarnate, channeled entities. Looking at the Crazy Wisdom Community Journal now, I see with delight all the opportunities for practice and discussion in many traditions.
The Science of Breath and Spirit: A Young Scientist’s Adventures in Breath at the Ann Arbor Zen Buddhist Temple
“Are you connecting with your breath?” Rev. Haju asks me, leaning forward to inspect my posture. Her eyes are hawk-sharp but loving. It’s a powerful combination. I close my eyes and let go. I am not always good at that. For someone with ambition, letting go can be quite alien. Striving, trying to force things to be a certain way, are habits I slip into as soon as I stop paying attention. But the Rev.’s watchful eyes are incentive to pay attention. To prove that I can let go. That I know how. And the act of proving reminds me what it feels like.
Happy, Healthy, Wealthy, Wise: Kabbalah for Kids
By Karen Greenberg
"This [Kabbalah for Children and Kabbalah Pathworking and Soul's Purpose Kabbalah] is the most valuable investment that we have ever made in our son."
— Judy Sauer, Literacy Specialist, Novi Community School District
How could a Kabbalistic approach be the most valuable investment parents have ever made in their child? And why would it be important for a child to have Kabbalah in his or her awareness?
Kabbalah is an ancient system of creation and how creation works. No one is entirely certain about where Kabbalah came from, partly because it was passed down as an oral tradition for thousands of years. Kabbalah is a Hebrew word that translates into “receiving.” We are receiving the secrets hidden in the Torah, or Old Testament, that teach us how to have a H2W2 (Happy, Healthy, Wealthy, Wise) life. The Kabbalistic system is actually the Unity energy of what is called the Tree of Life (from the Bible, as opposed to the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Duality energy: pain and pleasure, sorrow and joy, war and peace). The energetic Tree of Life is laid out on our bodies. It has ten different spheres, each representing a different quality of God (G-D).
A Kabbalistic approach is such a valuable investment in children because it helps them reside in a more empowered version of themselves, rather than in disempowered parts. Today, bullying is off the charts—nearly one-third of all children are bullying others or being bullied, according to ABC News. Suicides are the third leading cause of death among young people, with upward of half of those as a result of cyber, emotional, verbal, physical, sexual, or social bullying (as reported by the CDC). Therefore, it is crucial that children learn to take their power back, for their own happiness and health. As the children learn about the ten qualities of G-D (like love, compassion, severity, understanding, and wisdom) in the Tree of Life, make them a part of themselves, and strive to display these qualities in as many of their interactions as possible, they become more G-D-like, and therefore much more powerful in materializing what they are attempting to create. Teaching children to live in the Tree of Life reality trains them to approach life as proactive co-creators of their dreams, goals, and purpose.
In addition to bullying, another reason why today’s children may have low self-esteem is because they feel that something is inherently wrong with them. In part, this may be because they have received diagnoses that end in the word “disability” or “disorder” (Learning Disability, Reading Disability, Attention Deficit Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Executive Functioning Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Intermittent Explosive Disorder). But, what if they are not disabled, disordered, or dysfunctional? What if they are just different? What if their differences have been divinely coded to bring about a change of age that is now underway?
Clair-Ascension®’s approach to Kabbalah recognizes the Divinity in each child. Every child is created and equipped with exactly what that child needs to carry out his or her soul’s purpose. For example, if that child’s purpose includes revamping the entire educational system so that it will better meet the younger generation’s needs, then personally experiencing difficulty focusing or organizing or processing might prove to be essential to reconfiguring the entire educational system. Perhaps this is similar to someone who is born with Spina Bifida who grows up to become the chief pediatric surgeon operating from a seated position on children with Spina Bifida.
The younger generation is wired to reveal problems, and eventually help create solutions, not only in their school system, but in government, the judicial and political system, the economic system, organized religion, their parent’s marriage, their partner, and their siblings. In H2W2 - K4K (Kabbalah for Kids), we help the children find, then we encourage, support, and nurture, their soul’s purpose.
If the younger generation receives homework assignments that they think are irrelevant to their life, one cannot just tell them that they have to do it anyway in order to get good grades, to get into a good college, to procure a good job, to earn a decent living, and to live in a safe neighborhood. They do not care. If they consider a homework assignment a waste of their time, they refuse to do it. However, once their soul’s purpose is identified, parents and teachers do not need to motivate them at all. Their motivation is intrinsic.
Even though it is good to question, sometimes some young people can cross the line and behave inappropriately, perhaps swearing at their parents or speaking very disrespectfully to authority figures. In Kabbalah for Kids, we develop a respectful, healthy one-on-one bond with each child, modeling in class and out, respectful behavior in all their relationships.
Happy, Healthy, Wealthy, Wise - Kabbalah for Kids is also a multi-sensory approach that allows them to move, to integrate the energy of the different qualities of the Tree of Life into their bodies. We use color, quizzes, questionnaires (before and after their experience), and an ascension journey to help these children organize themselves, and their time, their papers, their room, to help them create balance in their life, to acquire healthy eating, sleeping, and exercise habits, to navigate comfortably through their low-vibrational emotions (including forgiving), to repattern their limiting beliefs, to discover their genius so that they are eager to do their work, rather than parents needing to nag. We help them with relationships and friendships, and how to have enough self-respect to set healthy boundaries and use discernment with others who may be disrespecting them, making fun of them, teasing them, and even bullying them. We assist them in connecting with the Spiritual Realm, G-D, their Higher Selves, Archangels, and Angels. We aid them in being aware that they are a spirit in a body, and as such, have a spiritual calling, a purpose, a mission, a destiny. We help them in their Divine Original Vibration Embodiment (the purity of who they were originally, before any wounding), so that they not only connect to, but embrace their authentic self, who G-D created them to be, and what G-D created them to do. We foster their living in the flow of life, at a place of inner peace, joy, and love.
Traditionally, Kabbalah was taught only to scholars of the Torah—Old Testament, and other holy books, who were married males over forty. How exciting to bring an introduction to Kabbalah geared toward fifth graders and up!
Karen Greenberg, the owner of Clair-Ascension®, offers classes and private sessions in H2W2 - K4K (Happy, Healthy, Wealthy, Wise - Kabbalah for Kids). Please visit the website clair-ascension.com or contact Karen at krngrnbg@gmail.com with questions or for further information.
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Sustaining Our Spiritual Journeys
While brief bursts of inspiration can reignite our commitment to our spiritual journeys, many of us are challenged to sustain the same level of enthusiasm over time. Why is this? I recently asked about 40 people in a journaling workshop I facilitated what barriers they have encountered in using writing as a spiritual practice. Their answers, while focused on writing, were identical to the types of challenges I commonly hear people in my interspiritual coaching practice express as challenges on their spiritual journeys: 1) self-judgments, 2) not having enough time for practice, and 3) lack of clear intention.
Leaps of Faith: Earth Elements
Kristen Madrid and James McDonald have had a lifelong interest in the metaphysical and spiritual tools for healing practices, and their shared passion has blossomed into Saline’s first and only mind, body, and spirit shop: Earth Elements. At their store on Michigan Avenue in downtown Saline, you’ll find everything from crystals and gemstone jewelry to loose leaf teas and Reiki healing services. Together, they have created a one-stop-shop for self-exploration and spiritual connection. Stay for a cup of their “tea of the day”, and you will find it is also a wonderful space for relaxation and taking a much-needed break.
From Ann Arbor to the Peruvian Rainforest: The Ancient Mystery of Being Practical
Many people today are attracted to the world’s indigenous cultures, sensing these ancient ways touch the enigma of the soul which is so fundamentally lacking in mainstream society. Yet there might be a blind spot in this approach to ancestral spirituality, one that became apparent to me while living alongside indigenous elders for many years. Helping to unite this gap between worlds has since become my life’s work.
The Feminine Face of God in Ann Arbor
I posed many similar questions to different spiritual leaders in our community in an effort to educate myself about the Ann Arbor goddess scene. They all recognized the dominant masculine energies which pervade our society and still they were hopeful, funny, erudite, and, most importantly, wise. They helped me see that I wasn’t confused, but that the grander cosmos was unaligned.
The Deeper Benefits of a Day of Silent Meditation
At the end of a silent meditation retreat at Triple Crane Monastery, we often hear that people experienced many kinds of benefits such as: increased flexibility, increased energy, a reduction in stress and anxiety, a feeling of being more connected to their own senses, more happiness, a discovery of their innate abilities, more insight, and an increase in wisdom. However, some may say these are only the superficial benefits of meditation. Are there greater benefits from a truly deep meditation?
Spiraling Up!
Do you have areas of your life where you feel ‘stuck,’ even though you’ve tried many ways to make changes? What lasting upgrade would you like to make in your health, finances, or relationships? Beneath every problem are beliefs, feelings, and often-traumatic responses with which we resonate unconsciously. When we resonate with what is positive, we spiral up; we’re able to access opportunities for change in a creative and self-empowered way. We feel confident in our capacity to handle what life brings us with clear thinking and an open heart. Basically, our system is energized by these positive beliefs and feelings.
Conversation with ShuNahSii Rose About Changing How We Relate to the World Around Us
ShuNahSii Rose is the creator of In Sacred Balance. Now in its 27th year, In Sacred Balance offers a model of a “sustained inter-generational feminist spiritual community” with deep Ann Arbor roots. The magic ShuNahSii creates is palpable and necessary, a healing balm for the soul of the world. I met her for coffee and to chat about her passion for restoring relations between humanity and other inhabitants of our world.
The subtle energy system has always been integral to humanity’s weave of existence. Though the media tends to focus on seven major chakras in the Hindu/yogic tradition, there is commonality across Cherokee, Incan, Pueblo, Tibetan Buddhist, and Sufi Muslim mysticism beliefs to name just a few. That being understood, there are major and minor chakras throughout the body—at every joint, nerve bundle, palms of the hands, souls of the feet, nipples, and more.