Soul's Code

Dia de los Meurtos is my annual chance to dance with spirits in the material world

DANNY KENNY — After reverent invocation to the spirits, the samba-like beat pulsates through the snake of flesh coiled in waiting. Slowly it begins stretching, swallowing innocent bystanders and eager collaborators alike in its path.

Aztec warriors rub shoulders with zombie-like creatures, and sartorial Calaveras (skulls) fall prey to its slithering mass. All seem mesmerized by its hypnotic charms, twisting and gliding rhythmically from its head to its tail through the candlelit San Francisco streets to their symbolic place of death.

“The process of dying, naturally, involves letting go. During full-body relaxation in yoga, called corpse pose, letting go is voluntary.”

GUEST COLUMN: HEATHER GREAVES — Yoga teaches us to journey inside and become an observer, showing us how to be relaxed yet alert.   Through yoga we practice the art of letting go.

The word YOGA can conjure images of twisted poses and unattainable contortions while standing on one’s head. Yet, whether the pose is simple or complex, the key to unlocking the secret of yoga lies in breathing.

How we breathe affects us on physical, emotional, mental and spiritual levels. With practice, it is truly amazing that even when there is a challenge on one or more of these levels, the body itself continues to breathe quietly.

Some refuse to go to work, others refuse to dine out, and almost no one will get married on Friday, the 13th. From The Flood to King Phillip IV of France, we have traced the spiritual origins of this superstition.

No one can say for certain when and why Western culture first began to associate Friday the 13th, and especially the number 13, with bad luck and misfortune. There are more than a few theories. 

Some say the suspicion dates back to the Pagans, the Norse or the early Christians. Some say it derives from unfortunate historical events or from Biblical events.

We invite you take a break from your work day, if indeed you were brave enough to venture out today, and test your knowledge of the number 13 and all things Friday.

Road to Enlightenment: No sweat?

Those who attended the now infamous sweat lodge ceremony of James Arthur Ray (including the three who died) paid $10,000 a head for the experience of being deprived of food and sleep.  Not to mention sweating it out in a small, over-crowded space.  One critic labels this “spiritual masochism,”  an extreme asceticism taking physical privation as essential to spiritual insight, much like Guatama Buddha’s early meditative practices.  Ray is continuing to receive criticism from a variety of spiritual perspectives as more witnesses to the incident speak out.

Athletes sporting Buddhism

Disciplining the mind and body as a Buddhist goal is gaining a wider following among goal scoring athletes in the U.S.  A-Rod, for one, is giving Buddhism a try-out, probably with the influence of Kate Hudson, who was raised Buddhist by her mother Goldie Hawn.  Tiger Woods has openly spoken of Buddhism’s influence on his life, particularly from his mother.  While Buddhist meditation may contribute to the game play of these men, a woman’s influence does not go unnoticed.

Three ways to move you, me and we from resentments to emotional life, liberty and happiness

GUEST COLUMN: DR. JEANINE AUSTIN — The clients I coach will often tell me that they wish they could quickly and effortlessly shake free of things that have bothered them.

Like an injured athlete who is asked to “walk it off”, many of us wish we could spend a second or two walking off emotional discomfort and then be free of it.

Unfortunately, many of us struggle with this.

For much longer than could ever be considered healthy we may be irritated, frustrated or just plain bugged by a slight, a faux pas or a cross word that transpired between ourself and someone else.

If we were painstakingly honest with ourselves, many of us would find that we have concentrated on someone’s perceived misdeed for days, weeks and (alas!) perhaps even years.

A shamanic teacher visualizes her lifelong fear as if it were a dance partner. When she faces him, she discovers that he isn’t so scary after all

GUEST COLUMN: DAWN DANCING OTTER — Lately I have been noticing how the words ‘fear’ and ‘free’ are phonetically mirrored.

I have run from fear in my life, and it has been a repeating pattern of habitual behaviour. I felt the discomfort/pain of fear, and I began to to recede from my “presence”, and to hide beneath masks of a false self.

The illusion was: ‘I am becoming free from my fear by running and hiding. It won’t follow me or find me — I will just keep running . . . keep hiding’.

In this game, fear made the rules and called the tune.  And I danced to the beat of fear with my eyes closed.

No Clowning Around With Mother Earth

If, in Kierkegaard’s parable, a theater clown’s warning of a backstage fire was met with laughs by the audience, then maybe a clown’s warning is better delivered from space.  Guy Laliberte, founder of Cirque de Soleil, will be the first clown in space to proclaim a heavenly warning to a planet in peril.  The message: preserve water resources on Earth.  Like a sacred Hopi clown yelling from a pueblo rooftop, Mr. Laliberte has made his ecological message known.

An award-winning movie puts fear under observation, terror under surveillance — and reflects both the faces of hate and compassion

BY DANNY KENNY — In Oliver Hirschbiegel’s “Five Minutes of  Heaven”, characters played by Liam Neeson and James Nesbitt deal with universal themes of reconciliation, revenge and forgiveness, set against the backdrop of the Irish conflict.

Through the prism of post-9/11 America, it also examines  pent-up and painful emotions, as well as uncomfortable questions that surround those age-old themes.

This cinematic text offers an insight into the ongoing, daily struggle for sanity and serenity — for those on both sides of the political and/or religious divide — who try to carry on living with themselves after their world has been shattered.

How I learned to forgive my parents for their easy-going, Dr. Spock style of parenting — and grow up

GUEST COLUMN: ELLA GRANT — Okay, what’s the most unpleasant parent-related memory that you have from your childhood? And what would be the best? If the nastiest episode comes to mind quickly, and the best experience not so quickly — maybe like me — you need to open up a little box of forgiveness and see what comes out.

When I was a young child my parents were very good to me — no physical beatings, no harsh words.   But as I came to realize later, perhaps their fatal flaw was that they were too good. Child psychology tells me that I was raised in a permissive manner: loving and child-centered, but totally non-demanding.

Practicing medicine without a license: we learned our first and most powerful  meditation technique and psychological skill as kids — while playing house

GUEST COLUMN: VAISHALI LOVE — Have you ever considered that everyone is born knowing how to play?  If we are all born with an instinctive knowledge for something, that wisdom must be pretty important to life itself.  For instance, without play, what would be the point of life?

As Jack Nicholson so famously expressed it in a Stephen King classic (The Shining), “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

Not to mention unhappy and unhealthy.

And from the looks of it, the real Jack has had no shortage of play.