Aging: Senescence as Creative Inspiration
[Exploring Life] It is strange to contemplate aging. The process of getting older often seems so gradual as to be imperceptible. The idea of getting older can create a sense of discomfort since the very mention of it requires us to come into closer proximity with the reality of our own impermanence. We have an [...]
Aging: An Unexpected Life
[Exploring Life] Life expectancy embraces a statistical assumption about how long, on average, we will live. We might also think about is a projection of when, on average, we can expect to die. For example, newborn Canadians will on average live to approximately age eighty-one. A sixty-five year-old Canadian can expect to live into their [...]
Aging: Creating A Foundation for Fulfilment
[Exploring Life] November mornings somehow inspire reflection. It’s strange to wake-up while it is still dark and this seems to be something that I never quite adjust to. Our natural internal rhythms somehow feel more forced as the amount of available light during the day decreases during the fall and winter months. On this November [...]
Spiritual Endeavour: Dark Night of the Soul – 4
[Exploring Life] When we receive an education we are placed into a system of prerequisites that have been determined by an amorphous agency. By definition, education is an experience that is predetermined, imposed, rigidly structured, and bound to a self-reinforcing system of evaluation. The essence of the education system originates in automation, mechanization, generalization, and [...]
Breathing: A Confluence of Body, Mind, and Spirit – 2
[Exploring Life] Breathing Into Discernment: The first article in this series explored the importance of developing breath awareness as a means to explore the intuitive and deeply integrative realm of thoughts, feelings, and emotions that flow throughout the confluence of our everyday lives. Breathing affects everything in our experience, and our first task is to [...]
Nature of Belief: Dying to Live
[Exploring Life] How do our beliefs change when we are faced with our own mortality? Our lives are fragile and inexorably transient. Our presence will transform when we die. The nature of our transformation at death is an unknown and, in spite of our proficiency in creating fanciful stories that propose an explanation and perhaps [...]
Points of No Return: On the Loss of My Parents – Last Words
[Exploring Life] Closure means to find a resolution to a significant event in a person’s life. With respect to the loss of a loved one, closure ultimately means to find contentment and gratitude as the final and most significant outcome of death. This is the twelfth and final entry I will dedicate to the series [...]