Soul’s Code

SPIRITUAL IQ QUIZ — He’s big. He’s hairy. He’s said to tear through the night sky accompanied by magical reindeer. Santa Claus makes a truly weird symbol of conspicuous consumption. Maybe that’s because he’s a figure whose spiritual roots sit deeper than today’s commercial culture.

Santa as we know him today symbolizes holiday cheer, Christian charity, and, yes, maybe more than just a little bit of pagan wildness. Little wonder this mischievous elf has been shunned by Christians, banned by secularists, and viewed with suspicion by purists of all sorts.

As he keeps sliding down the chimney into our culture, click on the radio buttons below to see how much you know about the global poster-boy for Christmas.

“Prepare yourself for events to take on a life of their own”

GUEST COLUMN: PHYLLIS KING — Often when our lives are running smoothly and seemingly at the will of our command, without warning we are surprised when a person or an event throws our life into chaos or anger. We have two choices in that moment: either resist, or to let go.

We need to remember that we can refuse to allow an external circumstance to diminish our peaceful space. There are wonderful opportunities we can create with the universe, so to speak, that deepen our compassion and growth.

Holidays always heighten sensitivity and emotions for everyone.

Many opportunities will appear for each of us to let go of our perceived sense of control.

A hallucinogen long used in shamanic and spiritual practices, Ibogaine is a non-pharma prescription for addiction

BY SOUL’S CODE — Brooke Mueller is the ex-wife of Charlie Sheen who called 911 a couple of Christmas holidays ago in Aspen claiming that the Two and a Half Men star he was threatening her with a knife (listen to the tape here). Since then, they have both done revolving doors through rehab — and Mueller’s latest attempts and failures at sobriety are a highlight reel on Paris Hilton’s new reality TV show on the Oxygen network.

Mueller’s latest stab at AA-style 12 Steps has apparently failed again, and the gossip site TMZ reports that she made plans to fly to Cancun to undergo Ibogaine therapy.

The California retreat, Harbin Hot Springs, invented a powerful form of deep trance work variously called watsu and water dance

BY PAUL KAIHLA — I first heard of watsu when I went to Harbin Hot Springs with an ex because of its rep for having the best mineral baths north of San Francisco. We were surprised to discover that the place was actually a New Age hangout.

When my significant-other saw people in a pool doing what we later learned was watsu, she almost sounded like a socialite encountering lepers — “Ewww, who are those people?”

At first glance, it did look somewhat sideways: What seemed like a bunch of aging hippies in the nude, paired up and cradling each other as if they were attempting some kind of re-birthing exercise.

One of the most profound new spiritual teachers in Europe shares an excerpt from his newest book

BY TONY SAMARA — Meditation is not just a repetition of your characteristics that you put into practice in everyday motion and life. Meditation is being a revolutionary. It is being a rebel and breaking free from what is holding the space in this negative little world that we believe to be the truth. To be different takes a little bit of courage.

Pamela Wilson asks: When you worry, or feel fear, can you say this to the anxious voice in your head? “You are welcome here!”

BY PAUL KAIHLA — Pamela Wilson has many moving parts — part spiritual muse, part Gestalt Therapist and part post-modern mystic, in the sense that she can induct an audience into an expansive state using voice and anchors the same way that the late great Milton Erickson did with patients in hypnosis.

Featured in the Soul’s Code slide show, Female Mystics, Wilson comes as advertised: I and 60 others were moved by the power of her presence the other night in a simple hall in Berkeley, CA. She held an over-educated and highly-experienced audience in her sway, to paraphrase the Rolling Stones.

Wilson is fond of revealing the ways in which the mind acts as a blunt instrument.

Inspire change, and celebrate the Nobel Prize winner’s 93rd, by doing 67  minutes of good deeds today

BY PAUL KAIHLA — July 18 is South Africa’s annual Good Samaritan’s day. This year, Nelson Mandela turned 93. And the tradition here is to donate 67 minutes to helping others in honor of the former freedom fighter’s devotion to human rights and reconciliation.

The number 67 is not a random pick; It represents the number of years that Mandela devoted himself to public service and political struggle — 27 of them incarcerated in South African prisons (1962 to 1990) such as Capetown’s equivalent of Alcatraz, Robben Island, as well as five years as South Africa’s first non-white president (1994 to 1999).

Lessons learned from L.A., Johannesburg, Sao Paolo and other metros where road rage is a danger to your body — and soul

BY RICK LEED — When stuck in your car in painful, frustrating, unimaginable traffic, already late for an appointment, who hasn’t felt like a Looney Tunes cartoon character, with steam coming out of their ears, fists pounding the steering wheel, and eyes turning red and bulging out of their head?

Road rage is usually directed at someone else who has done something heinous — or at the least, rude, like cut you off, changed lanes unexpectedly, or flipped you the finger.  But the inward-focused rage and fury that has no specific personal target is so often worse, creating more stress, more anger, more intense negative energy:  ‘Why the hell isn’t this traffic moving?’

Meditation doesn’t require much time — you can do it while you’re thinking

DAVID RICKEY: I know it doesn’t come as a surprise to say that Meditation is important for spiritual growth. Ken Wilbur claims that it is the quickest way to advance spiritual evolution. But it might come as a surprise that I don’t meditate, at least not in any classic way. I could say “I don’t have the time.” But the truth is I have never had much discipline. So, I have a form of meditation that takes no real time and requires only a bit of discipline.

We’ve criticized Ray and the franchise that made him famous, The Secret. A Soul’s Code practitioner urges us to extend compassion to both the victims and the convicted guru

GUEST COLUMN: CARI LA GRANGE MURPHY — The topics of spiritual authenticity, accountability, compassion, and soul growth are all weighing on my heart, mind and spirit today after hearing the sad news of self-help guru James Arthur Ray’s conviction on June 22, 2011 in Arizona.

As I’ve matured and grown into a more self-aware human being, I am not one to quickly judge an individual and pound on them when they are down, for I am able to see the bigger picture and recognize that there are always soul lessons involved in any situation.

Observing things from this broader perspective doesn’t make the situation any less sad or horrific for both James Arthur Ray, or for the three individuals who died two falls ago in a make-shift sweat lodge in Sedona, AZ, but it does allow me to open my heart and have compassion for everyone involved.