Soul's Code

Gay marriage, Prop 8., and the spirit

The California Supreme Court upheld the right of California voters to amend their constitution to take away the rights of a minority group — same-sex couples who want to legally marry. At Soul’s Code, we’re devoted to expanding every person’s rights— and consciousness. Gay people and their supporters seeking solace at this time might visit MyOutSpirit.com and the MyOutSpirit blog.

The Examined Life: Worth living

Okay, last year’s film The Examined Life: Philosophy in the Streets may not be hot news, but one of our correspondents, Amy O., has just seen it and thinks it’s pretty great. The film poses questions about self and society to several prominent contemporary philosophers, including Judith Butler, Peter Singer, Slavoj Zizek and America’s super-hip public intellectual, Cornell West (who likens modern philosophy to Jazz and Blues). It’s a must-see for every seeker. View the trailer below.

Watching our thoughts from a place of awareness, before they become action, is the path to peace — and highest way to honor fallen service men and women

DATELINE: Memorial Day service at the Presidio Interfaith Chapel, San Francisco. A sermon by Fr. DAVID RICKEY — On this Memorial Day 2009, we gather again to honor and remember those who have served and sacrificed for freedom in this country and around the world. Here and at national cemeteries throughout this land, row upon row of white markers pay silent but eloquent testimony to the thousands upon thousands of women and men who have lost their lives so that others may live in peace.

But they have not lost their lives so much as they have spent their lives, spent for a cause that was much deeper than themselves. It is not because they were killed or served in battle that we honor them, but because they lived in distinction. Not only did these heroic individuals fight for freedom and justice. So many of them lived in witness to the values they held with such deep respect.

Lisa Rinna invents a new mind-body technique, “Rinnavation”; Obama goes to Notre Dame; Huston Smith, the world’s leading religious pluralist

The Hollywood actress (Entourage; Hannah Montana; Melrose Place, etc.), soap star (Days of our Lives) and Dancing with the Stars hoofer — has a new book out, Rinnavation: Getting Your Best Life Ever.

The cute term, “Rinnavation,” is her own euphemism for peak experience (because, hey, she knows her readers will want whatever she’s got), which the celeb said she had while a contestant on ABC’s Dancing with the Stars. “It sounds so crazy but dance touched my soul,” she told an Entertainment Weekly reporter.

While Rinna’s current Playboy May 2009 cover spread may give one cause to question that claim, Rumi famously said that the path to enlightenment is made of 77,000 baby steps. We hope that the dance steps that got her started carry her to a real Rinnavation.

So just what did Obama say at Notre Dame?

How the swashbuckling archetype of pirates-past became today’s image of oceanic terrorists — a spiritual response

GUEST COLUMN: AMY LEASK — We’ve been incredibly spoiled by the likes of Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom.  Thanks to them we’ve become enamored with knee-high leather boots, gold hoop earrings and shoulder-perched parrots.

Very few of us made it through childhood without donning an eye patch and blackening out a tooth or two at Halloween.

Well into our adult years, it’s still acceptable to sport shoes with skulls and crossbones, or joke about being a swashbuckler while downloading songs and movies from the internet.

There’s very little that isn’t cool about being a pirate — at least for those of us who’ve never left shore or had to swing a sword.

Tom Hanks’ “Angels and Demons” vs. the Pope

MICHAEL MATTIS — Is movie star Tom Hanks the post-modern Galileo? He has lived with the Holy Roman Church’s ire since he starred in Dan Brown’s Catholic conspiracy-theory-inspired The Da Vinci Code.

Now things are a wee bit different, as Hanks’ character, super-stud Harvard prof, Robert Langdon, actually attempts to save the Vatican from the mythical Illuminati. We remember that this was a pretty good audio-book on a road trip. Maybe you’ll like the movie.

Apple dis’s Jesus app

Apple claims that its much-vaunted iPhone always has “an app for that.” Want to know where you are? They’ve got an app for that. Want a pizza? They’ve got an app for that. Want to look like Jesus Christ?

Star Trek’s Vulcan spirit

On Friday pointy-eared fans will be lining up to see the new J.J. Abrams (Lost, Alias) Star Trek. Central to the new plot is Mr. Spock, played by both the original, Leonard Nimoy, and by the young Zachary Quinto. Spock — with his Vulcan blend of logic and mysticism so obviously derived from a mix of Eastern practices that seem to include Zen, the Tao, a dash of Shaolin Kung Fu for martial flavor (can you say “Vulcan neck pinch?”) and the Kabbalah (Nimoy, who is Jewish, is said to have derived the “Vulcan peace sign” from an ancient kohanim gesture — has always been Star Trek’s most engaging character. Just for fun, here are some resources on Vulcan practices created by Trekker fans: