BY DAVID RICKEY — January in northern California is usually a time of rain, cold, and a psychic hangover from the double-barreled Christmas and New Year holidays, which can tend to be anything but Holy days. After getting swept up in the maelstrom, let’s step back a bit a get some perspective. Thanksgiving is a good place to begin as both a word and place in time.

Being grateful for what we have, for what we experience — even for who we are — has a major effect on our daily life.

Gratitude comes from an awareness that this is not all just an accident. This morning, as I left for work, at about 5:30am . . . I was greeted by a clear night sky pocked with stars. Recently I read that we are “recycled stardust,” that the elements that make up our bodies had their origins in the ancient unfolding of the universe.

1,000 points of meditative light

Looking up at those stars I could feel a sense of belonging, that all that, out there, produced “me.” And you!

And probably other life forms that we don’t have the cognitive capacity to comprehend. This isn’t an accident. Scientists are discovering evidence of a directionality, a purpose that you and I participate in. Part of this purpose is consciousness.

We are here to experience this amazing universe. And what a gift that ability is!

An awareness of our emerging out of this 15-plus-billion-year evolutionary process can make us grateful for all that has gone on before our being here. And it can be the source of celebration of all that has emerged with us and supports our journey: the food we eat, the specially-blended air that we breathe, the exact temperatures and seasonal balances that support life here on Earth. It can also be the foundation of a sense that this is not so much about us, but that we are part of a process that is still unfolding, evolving now through our choices and actions.

Seeing light waves as the carrier of the cosmos’ intelligence

Christmas then becomes a celebration of the light that is the source of our life, and our wisdom.

When we speak of the “Light that shines in the darkness” we can recognize that Light is the essence of everything, the currency that transmits all intelligence and information, if you will.

The divinity that we participate in is now expressed in human form. The wisdom has incarnated. We may see this in Jesus, or in other great sages, but it is our truth as well. It is available to each of us if we will only quiet our chattering thoughts and tune into the greater wisdom that is our essence and has brought us here, and that urges us forward in responsible growth and expansion of capabilities.

The cyclical aspect of life, that gives expression in each New Year, shows us that there is forgiveness and the chance to “try anew.”

We too are evolving, and hopefully learning as we go. With gratitude for what brought us here, with a celebration and honoring of the wisdom that is available to us, and with the acceptance of both our failings and the possibilities of doing better and learning from our mistakes, we have all that we need to contribute to the future, to be an active part of the evolution of consciousness, of creating new and better life.

In this way, these holidays can indeed be Holy Days, days where we touch again the sacred truth of who we are and why we are here. This holiday can become a template for each day, living in gratitude, with wisdom, forgiveness and new resolve.

David Rickey is an Episcopal priest, Soul’s Code co-founder, and counselor in San Francisco who holds a weekly ministry at a residence for the elderly in northern California. Read David’s previous articles for Soul’s Code: Church for the 21st century: an oral and aural buffet we can all savor, and Mosques and the masks of God. Follow David on Twitter.

BY DANNY DREYER  — My long run is my favorite run of the week. It’s a time when I get to do some of my favorite things: slow down, take in the beauty of nature, socialize with friends, and just enjoy being alive.

I didn’t always feel that way about long runs, though. Even after years of training, my knees always hurt after 10 miles. My  wake-up call came in 1991, when I began running ultramarathons. The pain in my joints was unbearable.

I decided to find a way to make running less painful and more joyful. I’d been a student of T’ai Chi for over 20 years, so I started applying the T’ai Chi posture and concepts to my running. The first time I tried it on a five-mile run, I was amazed at how relaxed I felt.

The foundation of tai chi is correct posture, focus, and relaxation.  As I brought more awareness to my body during my workouts, my relationship with running completely changed.  I began to notice how this technique was preventing injuries, increasing my efficiency, and improving my performance. And I was surprised to discover that my new technique had benefits beyond the physical.

I found that incorporating T’ai Chi in my running also presented the opportunity for spiritual exploration and the integration of body, mind and spirit. Being pain and injury-free is an amazing benefit in itself, but the uniquely beautiful thing about Chi Running is that it’s truly a practice – I’m never really finished. Each run is an opportunity to improve my mind/body connection, work on my technique, meditate, explore my thoughts, and learn more about myself.

Since its birth in 2001, Chi Running has helped hundreds of thousands of runners discover the endless benefits and possibilities running offers. Yes, the technique helps prevent injury, increases efficiency, and improves performance, but it can also satisfy you in ways you may never have suspected running could.

I enjoy every minute of being out running, and I know when I come back I’ll be in that great space that only a long run brings on: relaxed, pleasantly fatigued, peaceful--and with a deeply nourished soul.

 Danny Dreyer is an ultramarathoner who founded Chi Running, the running style that incorporates principles of T’ai Chi. He authored the book “ChiRunning: A Revolutionary Approach to Effortless, Injury-free Running.”

1. PEAK EXPERIENCES

Have you ever had a peak experience? Read honest, life-altering accounts under our category, Peak Experiences.

The term was coined by one of the founders of humanistic psychology, Abraham Maslow. Peak Experiences are aspirational stories about natural highs (Paul Kaihla on the shaman origins of the sauna), breakthroughs (Rick Leed on becoming a foster parent), and inspirational insights (psychotherapist David Rickey on his Aha! Moment that took a lifetime).

 

2. SURVIVAL GUIDES

Click through our illustrated mini-series. Our subjects range from addiction to Ashtanga Yoga.

Look under “Slideshows” on the right side of the site. Our favorites include The New Female Mystics and Tom Hudgen’s first-person story about traveling to a Texas super-max prison to forgive the man who raped and murdered his sister when Tom was a child.

Our newest series: 5 Mind-Body Workouts that are about to Break out.
 

3. READ SUPER-STARS OF PSYCHOLOGY and SELF-HELP

More than 100 authors, practitioners and other experts in the ‘helping professions’ have contributed to Soul’s Code, including some of today’s leading spiritual teachers.

Examples: David Richo, an author of 14 books who headlines events at California’s world-renowned Spirit Rock Meditation Center and the Esalen Institute; Pamela Wilson, one of America’s new female mystics; Tony Samara, a leading spiritual teacher in Europe; and Michelle Ritterman, an author and psychotherapist who was a protege of Milton Erickson, the founder of modern medical hypnosis.
 

4. INTERACT WITH THE ABOVE STARS ON OUR TWITTER DECK

Reply to, Tweet to, or Re-Tweet more than 20 of the most active guides in our community by clicking on the “Soul Stream” tile.
 

5. A DAY IN THE LIFE OF . . .

What would Carl Jung have blogged, if electronic journalling had been around in 1900, when the co-founder of modern psychology was 25? Or, say, if Rumi, the mystical poet of the Sufis had done social media?

Each month we feature a mystic for all time in A Day in the Life of…
 

6. LOVE SCROLL

What is the most loving thing someone has ever said to you?

That question has informed our innate way of feeling good for centuries — and not surprisingly, the whole religious experience. We humans are wired to experience the sacred as a group. Click the tile to share.
 

7. EXPRESS YOURSELF HERE

This is a community site. We don’t play favorites like Oprah. We are not a personality cult like Oprah.com

We are not creatures of any religious organization, or any particular technique. But we invite you to let it all hang out here:

Welcome to the Soul’s Code family
 

BY ELLEN FENNER — We all have a moment we can look back on and see divine intervention that we didn’t necessarily recognize at the time. For me it was the day an angel (see photo) sat me down at her kitchen table and fed my starving soul.

In the spring of 1984, I returned home from my second year at college completely dejected. I had lost control of everything I’d ever imagined myself to have any control over. When I decided not to go back the next year, I gave up a full-tuition scholarship and set myself adrift.For five months I languished at my parents home in rural New Hampshire, unable to move forward. They did their best to help me get going again but the terror was overwhelming. Instead of enjoying the prime of my youth, I was paralyzed.

My parents had begun renting the other side of their farmhouse to a new tenant. She was a woman from Chicago who had moved to New Hampshire to help start a publishing company in our small town.

I (in the picture to the left) would see her come and go, and once in a while my dad would send me over to her side of the house to call upstairs and see if she wanted some lunch with us. She was a writer and I felt a little bad about interrupting her in the middle of her work but I’d force myself to do it.

We’d all sit down around the table and talk. This fascinating woman had the most interesting view of the world, and told us stories about the people she was meeting and all that she was learning about them.

She was a city girl in her late thirties and had totally uprooted herself by moving to NH. She had no sense of what it was like to live on a farm, so my dad helped her get used to it by letting the sheep out to chase her! One day she even ended up on the roof of her car while Dad chuckled at her as he watched from inside the house.

At his urging, I’m sure, she invited me over to her kitchen one afternoon. I was completely unprepared for the directness of her question:

“Ellen, are you gay?”

I was caught off guard. “Uh . . . yes . . .” I stammered back.

She just said, “I thought so . . .”

Much of my distress at college had begun with this revelation about myself. I braced myself for the lecture that I thought was coming.

She began to tell me her understanding of why gay people exist in the world. To my surprise, she didn’t tell me that I was wrong or bad. Instead, she helped me to understand my place in the world and the progression of life in general, since it was clear to me that mine was not going to follow a “normal” trajectory. She told me stories about how gay people throughout history had existed to change the consciousness of society.

We discussed the population crisis and how homosexuals were a way for the universe to put the brakes on a bit. I began to understand that it was up to me to create my own concept of life. She urged me to “just take one step. It doesn’t matter what direction — JUST MOVE!”

We talked for hours, and though my memories of the specific conversation are spotty now, I still feel the opening of my heart as she peeled back the white knuckles of my mind, one by one, to reveal a light in me that I had forgotten was there.

Years later, after I’d fallen out of touch with her, I overheard someone in Florida talking about this amazing woman she’d just learned of named Caroline Myss. My ears perked up, and I flashed back to that farmhouse kitchen encounter in 1984. “You know Caroline?” I asked the woman. She replied, “Doesn’t everybody? If they don’t, they should!”

I had no idea that Caroline, this wonderful thinker and writer who wore fancy fur coats in rural New Hampshire and had been afraid of a bunch of sheep, had since gone on to deliver to the rest of the world the same message of clarity and redemption that she had given me in the infancy of her work as a mystical Medical Intuitive, spiritual teacher and author. As the woman in Florida said, “If you don’t know Caroline, you should.”

Thank you, Caroline Myss, for devoting your life to sharing your message.

Ellen is a writer and artist living in central Florida, immersed in the suburban dream of her youth, but with the perspective of a lifetime of unconventional experiences and spiritual searching. Check out Ellen’s humor-fueled blog, Downright E-fenzive.

And maybe it’s also why video games are the fastest-growing form of modern entertainment.

If you don’t think video games are also spiritual, you simply haven’t played very many. Video games are rooted in the same myths and archetypes that have shaped us for millennia.

The key difference: video games put the audience in the middle of the action, whether that means blasting armies of alien invaders in Halo Reach or fighting with crooks and your own conscience in Grand Theft Auto IV.