My devotion this morning was Free, ‘for you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters’. My first reaction was, have you seen things around here lately? I fight with God every morning, in part because I’m not a morning person, but mostly because s/he always makes me think. This is what I realized: Many of…Read more Free
mental health
Love Notes
This is not an invitation to ‘good vibes only’. Choosing to actively Love, as a verb, is the hardest work we, as spiritual beings attempting to have a human experience, will ever do. Turning each other into verbal and physical punching bags through jokes, passive aggressive insults, degrading comparatives, volatile threats and reactive headlines is…Read more Love Notes
Authenticate
Authenticate: Prove to be true or genuine Validate Verify In the quest for survival we strive to prove, validate and verify that we are. All my atoms have miraculously gathered themselves into the solid mass of a walking, talking, conscious being. I think I've come together quite nicely, incidentally. What additional proof do they need…Read more Authenticate
Mental Health Matters
A few of weeks ago I did an interview with the lovely, Dr. K.E Garland on Escapsim for her new series: Mental Health Matters. If you haven’t checked out her site, I highly recommend you do. Thanks again Kathy. via Mental Health Matters: Escapism with Elizabeth Fitzgerald, LPC https://youtu.be/IwQG_OKV-g8 And here's a link to her…Read more Mental Health Matters
Drop in the Ocean
Hue manatees See cows? Think you can break my art With horror stories Of motel swine exchanges For ass and cash The please we leave behind paintings, Suicide notes Of still lives Harbors Resentment Rent the price we pay For fear of never becoming who we were destined to be I will be the answer…Read more Drop in the Ocean
Good Mourning
I used to get so mad at Buddhism and obviously still fight with most of my daily devotions. Buddha and Jesus, just laughing and taking naps while the world is killed to death by assholes and germs. Incidentally, those two things appear to be closely related. Hey guys! What the heck are we supposed to…Read more Good Mourning
Lean on Me
Two weeks ago we said goodbye to one of Ratchet's legs; legs that had run and hiked miles of trails all the way from Astoria, along the coast of the Pacific Northwest, the mountains of the Cascade Biway, the city streets of Portland and Seattle, even right down the center of Extraterrestrial Highway. Those…Read more Lean on Me
Status Update
The Manhattans count as gospel, by the way. Let’s just kiss and say goodbye...I don’t know if it was the lyrics or those blue suits, whatever it was, it worked. Good grief. I grieved for the last time we went for a coffee walk as a family, when Bubs still had four legs. The last…Read more Status Update
Dear Marsha,
How do we build a life worth living?Professor of behavioral psychiatry and director of Research and Therapy at the University of Washington in Seattle, Marsha Linehan is the founder of a clinical intervention called Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT; a tool that has helped many people hammer their way out of hell, including Marsha. Building…Read more Dear Marsha,
Gaslighting and the Great Divide
"Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which a person seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or in members of a targeted group, making them question their own memory, perception, and sanity. Using denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying, gaslighting involves attempts to destabilize the victim and delegitimize the victim's beliefs."-Wikipedia A quick Google search on Gaslighting results…Read more Gaslighting and the Great Divide
