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 June 2 The Spiritual Power of Pain Relief I recently spent a day in a workshop given by Susun S. Weed, called "My Herbal Medicine Chest," which elucidated the healing powers residing in more than a dozen common plants, from burdock to yarrow. Weed, an ethnobotanist and internationally recognized expert in herbal medicine, has devoted her life to the study of plants of all sorts, and her workshop was a revelation. She added immeasurably to my knowledge not only of herbal remedies, but also how to spot and utilize these plants, most of which grow right around us. Plantain, for instance, is a common weed that grows all across North America in front lawns and meadows, and even pops up through the cracks in your driveway. (See photo: Common Plantain, plantago major, is distinct from the banana-like fruit that grows in the tropics.) It has remarkable healing properties when chewed and made into a poultice. A few days... Read the Rest March 20 Double Fantasy The spiritual world is rife with powerful paradoxes, perhaps none more confounding than the fact that romantic love can be at once passionately physical and profoundly mystical, transcending time, space, and even bodily limitations. In its material manifestation, romantic love can encompass the best and worst of human drives, from fierce loyalty and self-sacrifice to physical and emotional abuse, lies, and betrayal. Yet the mystical realms to which love can open the human heart are boundless, extending beyond the physical body--as far as we now know the nonlocal mind can reach. That all-in-one reality of human love gives the lie to the Manichaean split between body and soul that has formed the basis for countless strains of puritanical prejudice and bad religion over several thousand years. So it's all the more inspiring for a book that tells the love story of two people who emerged from the New York City... Read the Rest 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

Quote for Thursday, July 29 Allah did not create any illness without also creating the remedy, except death.- The Prophet Muhammad Starting July 2010: Online Class: Writing and Publishing Magazine Articles (6-8 weeks) with Peter Occhiogrosso Magazine writing requires a much more specialized approach to form than writing a book. Articles fall into a number of categories, but the most popular are the feature story, interview, review, essay, and first-person account. But they have one thing in common--almost no magazine piece for any respectable publication gets published without first going through a process of writing a query letter, discussion, submission, and revision. In this online class, you will propose articles and I will suggest why your ideas work or not, how to shape them into workable ideas, and how to come up with different approaches to the same subject matter that will appeal to different kinds of publications. You will then compose your article in stages, responding to weekly assignments. I will "edit" the article by suggesting ways to revise and improve it, from grammatical and stylistic tips to a complete restructuring. You may go through several re-writes en route to a workable piece--and an understanding of how the whole writing-and-submitting process works. We will also discuss how to approach editors, how to track down subjects for your stories, conduct and tape interviews, conduct research, and other technical aspects of the magazine writing craft. This online class takes place in cyberspace, using what's known as a list server. The list includes you, me, and everyone who has paid to take the class. It is inaccessible to anybody who hasn't registered, so no outsiders will be looking over your shoulder. Once you join the class, you will receive all the e-mails from me and the other workshop members. Anything you send to me or another member can be read by anybody else in the class. The class runs from 6 to 8 weeks depending on travel, and costs $260. For more detailed information and to register, please follow this link: http://www.writers.com/occhiogrosso_classes.html   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. 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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