Never on Sunday

Greece just elected a new prime minister who is promising to remove the austerity program that had been implemented for the country to qualify for bail out loans from the European central banks. He's young (40), he's handsome (our newspaper showed a photo of young girls screaming as if they were attending a rock concert), and.....I have no idea how he plans to do this, but as the saying goes: kαλή τύχη — I wish him good luck. 

Goddesses in the Dust: Doritos Dancer

Morgana Phlaum, a childhood friend of my daughter's, stars in this commercial, one of the shorts chosen to possibly be shown during the Superbowl. The commercial's creator, Alex Pepper (featured in an article on CNN Money), is also the dancer who drops Morgana (actually a lifelike dummy of her ;) off the edge of the building. For the $80 it took to shoot the spot, he's already earned $25,000 and a chance to win $1,000,000 if this is chosen. 

We all hope this cute spot will win, so please vote for Morgana and Alex at: https://crashthesuperbowl.doritos.com/finalists

Answers from the Greek Landscape

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage. 

Lao Tzu

A few months ago I wrote about questions that the Greek landscape provokes  in me. The expression of a mother's face, the lilt in two men's limbs; these are but a few of the answers.

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them - that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward whatever way they like. 

Lao Tzu

Goddesses in the Dust: Epiphany, not Resolution

An archaeologist unearths the divine feminine, one archetype at a time...

The word epiphany is from the ancient Greek word ἐπιφάνεια, which means manifestation, striking appearance or sudden realization. Last year I wrote about Epiphany, the Christian holy day, which occurs on January 6 and is the twelfth day of Christmas. It is also the root of the Italian word and custom of La Befana, or an old woman who delivers treats to children on the eve of Epiphany. 

This year I thought about what epiphany means to me. An awakening of awareness can come in many forms. Instead of resolutions I'd like to propose an alternative - what if we were not to promise to lose weight, exercise more and be nicer to others? What if, instead, we decided to explore ourselves? The epiphany here is not about how we can make ourselves better, but how we can simply treat ourselves better by examining our lives? 

Another word for this is mindfulness. As the author Jon Kabat-Zinn states, "Mindfulness in an ancient Buddhist practice which has profound relevance for our present-day lives. From the Buddhist perspective, our ordinary waking state of consciousness is seen as being  severely limited and limiting, resembling in many respects an extended dream rather than wakefulness. Meditation helps us wake up from this sleep of automaticity and unconsciousness, thereby making it possible for us to live our lives with access to the full spectrum of our conscious and unconscious possibilities. Sages, yogis, Zen masters have been exploring this territory systematically for thousands of years; in the process they have learned something which may now be profoundly beneficial in the West to counterbalance our cultural orientation towards controlling and subduing nature rather than honoring that we are in intimate part of it. Their collective experience suggests that by investigating inwardly our own nature as beings and, particularly, the nature of our own minds through careful and systematic self-observation, we may be able to live lives of greater satisfaction, harmony and wisdom."

Here's my meditation spot, where I will be sitting in 2015...

Do you practice any form of meditation? If so, what kind, and do you feel it is helpful?

Which Wolf Do You Feed?

An old Cherokee told his grandson, 

"My son, there is a battle between two wolves inside us all.  

One is fear.  It is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, inferiority, lies and ego.  

The other is love.  It is joy, peace, hope, humility, kindness, empathy and truth."

The boy thought it over for while, and finally asked, "Grandfather, which wolf wins?"

The old man quietly replied,

              "The one you feed."                    

                                  

As we head into 2015, I am wishing you all the blessings of the New Year and the wisdom to choose which wolf to feed.