The earth's spiritual traditions are a rich repository of wisdom, practical advice, and healing knowledge, as well as art, music, and mystery. This site is a place to explore all those dimensions, ask questions, and engage in dialogue.

My Blog: Spirit on the Web January 5 Brit Hume's Spiritual Illiteracy In a recent commentary on disgraced sports figure Tiger Woods, retired Fox News commentator Brit Hume had the following to say: "The extent to which he can recover as a person depends on his faith. He's said to be a Buddhist. I don't think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So my message to Tiger would be, 'Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world."Hume, who once described himself as a nominal Christian, says he "came to Christ" after his son committed suicide a decade ago. Unfortunately, Hume displays the rampant ignorance about world religions typical of the news media in general and religious fundamentalists in particular. I'm not sure what Hume thought he meant to say, but the central tenets of Buddhism revolve around compassion for... Read the Rest December 25 Health Care for Christmas I admit I've spent the past few months feeling annoyed, no, furious, with Pres. Obama and the Democrats in general for cutting deals with Big Pharma, selling out to corporate interests and not doing enough to help the people who elected them by living up to our highest ideals. I'm painfully aware of how much better the Health Care Reform bill could have been, of how much corporate money has diluted it. Part of the problem, which needs to be addressed immediately, is the obsolete, unconstitutional, segregation-era tactic of the Senate filibuster that requires a 60-40 majority. That has to be changed so that a simple majority can enact all legislation. Without cloture, Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman would still be groveling in near-anonymity trying to get someone to pay attention to them. But on a related front, today I received a notice in the mail from Bank of... Read the Rest November 29 Where Are the Real Christians? I try not to get into partisan politics in this blog, although it's often inevitable. After all, the Democrats have not extricated themselves from the influence of money much more than have Republicans. Both major parties are beholden to so many monied interests that I'm astonished when any good legislation is passed. Until all money is removed from the electoral process, I don't believe this will change. And yet, when only 1 Republican out of 177 in the House voted in favor of a Health Care Reform bill, no matter how flawed, I have trouble und3rstanding how Republicans can so blatantly embrace Christianity in other contexts. Have any of them read the lengthy section of the Gospel of Matthew known as the Sermon on the Mount? Or the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matt 25:31-46) that embodies the heart of Christian compassion for the less fortunate? So I... Read the Rest November 22 Spiritual Art & the Vatican Does the Vatican want to re-establish its role as supporter of great spiritual art? Pope Benedict XVI recently convened an extraordinary gathering of creative people from many disciplines--and religious traditions--to discuss his beliefs about the place of the spiritual in art. But first, a little background is in order. The link between art and spirituality may seem obvious, but it has fallen out of favor in recent years. Spiritual themes have been apparent in the mythic art of the Goddess era going back 40,000 years or more, and in the work of tribal artists for millennia, but also in medieval painting, sculpture, weaving, and manuscript illumination from Europe to Asia. The expression of profound spiritual insights connected to Nature was a major element in the first concentrated movement of art in the U.S., the Hudson River School that flourished from 1825 through the end of the 19th century. Great painters... Read the Rest October 17 Diwali Greetings from President Obama In a year of firsts, and what we hope will continue to be an Era of Firsts, the President of the United States has sent a videotaped greeting to all those who celebrate Diwali, the "Festival of Lights," in the U.S. and around the world. The holiday, which runs over five or six days in different regions, is observed by Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs for a variety of reasons, and it is a national holiday throughout India. In the President's message, he creates yet another first by quoting from Hindu Scripture, specifically the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, 1.3.28:From the unreal lead me to the real,From darkness lead me to the light,From death lead me to deathlessness. (trans J. Mascaro)    In a year in which the primordial sound of OM was referred to in an acceptance speech at the Oscars, and Vice President Biden spoke the traditional Hindu Greeting "Namaste" on CNN,... Read the Rest October 8 Carl Jung and the Red Book The word is out that Carl Jung's legendary Red Book, containing many years' worth of his most private explorations of his psyche, will be published in facsimile this month by W. W. Norton. The combination of hand-lettered pages and astonishing multicolored paintings in a baffling array of styles makes the book feel like a cross between William Blake's illustrated poems and an illuminated manuscript from the Middle Ages. In 1913, Jung underwent a crisis, or what he termed a "confrontation with the unconscious." Not one to shrink from a challenge, he induced visions and hallucinations and recorded what he discovered. The Red Book is the result of his psychological self-analysis and artistic visions. The book, which was the subject of an unprecedented New York Times Magazine cover story, is laden with copious footnotes and cross-references by Jung researcher and editor Sonu Shamdasani, including citations of the writings of some of... Read the Rest September 27 Michael Moore Endorses Christian Values I've never thought of Michael Moore as an especially religious person, let alone a Catholic, although he does often come off as a moralist. But his new film and a series of interviews about it give a clear impression that Moore sees the world in spiritual terms. His latest film, Capitalism: A Love Story, takes the American system of capitalism and its wealthiest proponents to task for their lack of concern about the rest of the country--the 99 percent that live outside the sheltered world of the most powerful 1 percent. In an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN discussing his film, Moore explicitly attacks the belief held by many of those in power in the U.S. that the richest one percent should control everything. "It's not right, it's not fair, it's not American, and it's not part of our Judeo-Christian ethic, or whatever religion you belong to--Buddhism, Islam. All... Read the Rest

Quote for Monday, February 08 Dr. Jekyll is Mr. Hyde; Iago is Othello and Desdemona. We are each of us one, but multiple at the same time. Only when we can welcome this multiplicity of being within us, especially the distasteful parts, can we become truly whole, truly human.- Roger Woolger, Other Lives, Other Selves Email list Click here to sign up for Peter Occhiogrosso's email list. You'll receive notice of new blog posts, workshops, and other goodies. Peter's Blog, which has replaced his Newsletter, covers a wide range of contemporary spiritual topics, including the interface of spirituality, science, and politics. Past Newsletters are archived on this site; past blogs are also archived on this site. I'm excited to announce that the popular deck of Healing Cards that I created with Caroline Myss a few years ago has just been made into an iPhone app. Healing Cards iPhone app. | Healing Cards. News Coming Next Year: How to Write & Publish Spiritual Books with Peter Occhiogrosso A Six-Day Workshop at the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health Lenox, Mass. April 4-9, 2010 (Sunday-Friday) and A Five-Day Workshop at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, N.Y. June 6-11, 2010 (Sunday-Friday) Many of you have an important spiritual book inside that you want to get out to the world. Yet, you may feel overwhelmed by the prospect of completing a manuscript and getting it published. After 25 years of writing and coauthoring books for major publishers, I have developed a simple way to translate spiritual ideas into a format that will appeal to agents and editors. Whether you want to find a commercial publisher, self-publish, or just structure a readable manuscript for your personal use, this workshop shows you how. You will work on your proposal and be able to share it with the group for feedback and guidance. Through journaling, dream interpretation, targeted breathing exercises, visualization, group discussion, and feedback from me, you gain access to deeper levels of your creativity and spiritual insight. Using a Wi-Fi-enabled classroom, you can work on your laptop and easily read each other's work and my editorial input in real time. I'll also show you how to surf the Net to locate appropriate agents, editors, and publishers. Ultimately, you come away with the tools you need to create a professional proposal or manuscript outline. This workshop is open to writers at all levels of experience, both those who have been published and those who hope to be. To register, just click here to add your e-mail address to my mailing list. I will notify you when the Kripalu and Omega Web site registration pages go live so you can be among the first to register and ensure a seat. Class size is strictly limited so that everyone can receive the necessary attention and feedback. Peter's Newsletter, March 2009 The Holy Land, Part Two: Sacred and Profane Banyas Creek, a source of the River Jordan Some months ago when I mentioned to a friend of mine.a physician who had lived in India until he was twelve.that I would be going on a tour of the Holy Land, he responded with mock confusion. .The Holy Land? Where.s that?. As I lamely started to explain what seemed obvious to me, he broke in to set me straight. .Oh, you mean your holy land.. Then he laughed to let me know he was just making a friendly point. I was talking to someone born and raised in a country of well over one million square miles, all of which is considered holy land by its more than one billion native inhabitants. That got me thinking about what on earth we mean by the Holy Land anyway. The Americas were and are considered sacred turf to their native inhabitants, now largely displaced. Yet the people we also call Indians, the Native Americans, never needed to erect great shrines, temples or churches to feel moved by the holiness of the land they... [Continued] Click here to read the entire newsletter. Click here to read all previous newsletters. World Religions Visit the all new World Religions section with detailed material drawn from my book The Joy of Sects. More Info Order Now New 8 CD Set: Creating a Personal Spiritual Practice Peter Occhiogrosso and Lench Archuleta Many people on the spiritual path have expressed the desire to create a personal spiritual practice that can be integrated into their daily experience. In this CD set, recorded live at a three-day workshop held at Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, N.Y., in August 2007, Lench Archuleta and Peter Occhiogrosso present a diverse array of wisdom, rituals, and traditional methodologies from which to create your own daily practice. Working separately and together, Lench and Peter draw on both Native American and Eastern traditions that connect Body, Mind, and Spirit. More Info Order Now New DVD: Building a Personal Spiritual Practice Peter Occhiogrosso and Lench Archuleta Discover elements of a Personal Spiritual Practice that you can integrate into your daily life. Learn to build a home altar. Yaqui healer Lench Archuleta joins author, spiritual writing teacher and breathing instructor Peter Occhiogrosso to show how to create a sacred space almost anywhere in your home. Lench explores the sacred in urban and country landscapes, including how to create a sacred circle in the woods. Peter demonstrates a classic Qigong exercise called the Swimming Dragon. Together, Lench and Peter offer an interactive combination of Native American and Eastern traditions based on workshops they have taught together at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, and The Crossings in Austin, Texas.

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