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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Emotional Terrain: Grief Transforms Time
[Exploring Life] Grief possesses great agility. It emerges subtlety yet its presence is potent. Grief, I am beginning to understand, cannot be equated to more distinct states of being such as the quality of sadness that results from loss. The dimensions of grief are far more extensive in nature. Loss and absence are, of course, [...]
Spiritual Endeavor: Dark Night of the Soul – 2
[Exploring Life] The Artistry of the Night: In the previous article I suggested that a dark night of the soul is one of the most profound and authentic, yet grievous, creative experiences we might have in life. When we are touched by the night we are compelled to retrieve our innate sense of artistry as [...]
Points of No Return: On the Loss of My Parents – 11
[Exploring Life] A Journey Into Memory: It has now been nearly two months since my father passed away, and five months since my mother passed away. I am learning more and more about the nature and power of memory; the ways in which I interpret and explore my own memories are changing in response to [...]
Points of No Return: On the Loss of My Parents – 10
[Exploring Life] As We Get Older: Macleans Magazine has published an important article entitled Don’t Seniors Deserve Better? in which Ken McQueen explores the reality of how the elderly are treated in our hospital system. In the years leading up to their deaths, part of the care I provided for my parents was to help [...]