• Recovery Skills

    Winning and the Grace of Losing

    The Beauty of the Moon You could say the United States won the race to the moon. During the 1960s and 70s, NASA sent seven manned ships up there. In total, twelve Americans disembarked and prowled the lunar surface. By all accounts, the experience was incredible. Centuries of dust plumed up, obscuring their vision as they landed and coating their suits and equipment. As they gazed about them during the bright moon day, the unremitting gray appeared almost white. Mountains swept high against the curved horizon, volcanic lava glistened, and unusual shapes mystified them. Glassy beads and gems sparkled at their feet. A deep soundlessness filled the air. And in…

  • Spiritual and Emotional Themes

    Grief, Gratitude, and Joy

    Our Suffering World All over the world, people are suffering. That’s nothing new. We humans have been hurting one another since before we painted images of war on the walls of caves; and we hunt our furred and feathered cousins for food, or clothing, or just for sport; and now, in breathtaking numbers, we cut down the trees whose leaves turn our pollution into something breathable, and heat up our planet beyond repair. It seems there can be no life without pain. So suffering has always been with us. Lately, though, it has reached the point of explosion. With the pandemic, we became isolated. Businesses folded, employees lost jobs, schools…

  • Recovery Skills

    The Promise of Psilocybin

    A Community Journey Using psychedelics for spiritual enlightenment and emotional healing has a long history among human beings. The practice is tied to rituals designed to open our hearts to the whole, to bind our souls to the holy. Cultures of old understood that we and the earth are one. We are not something set apart, not the pinnacle of some creative scheme devised by a humanoid deity. Along with the whale, the cockroach, the rose, the coronavirus, the sea anemone, the many kinds of mosquitoes, we are one of life’s creatures. Together, we are bound, flying through this universe that is sacred and eternally old. When our minds open…

  • Recovery Skills

    The Shadow Side of Gratitude

    Grateful to Be Alive What a thing it is to be alive, to see the many shades of the sky, feel the softness of the moss, listen to the wind rustle the leaves. Even to know the sharp stab of loss is a gift, because the pain means we’ve known love. In the face of disaster and death, we can still be grateful for having lived. When we are grateful, we feel better. It’s true that we all struggle with something. Life wounds us. We have limitations. Maybe we’re blind, or lonely, or have lost limbs. Yet we can still be grateful for whatever senses we do have, for the…

  • Recovery Skills

    Finding Peace in the Dark

    The End of Night On this pre-dawn November morning, not even the moon shines through the cloud-dense sky. Yet it’s not quite dark. Patches of the trail are lit by streetlamps, and even where it’s not, the ambient light makes puddles shimmer, and the path is, if not clear, at least visible. In the city, we never experience true dark. At least not when we’re outside. Some twenty-five years ago, in Port Townsend, I stared in wonder at a brilliant sky lit up with a carpet of stars, for I hadn’t seen such a thing since childhood. In Portland, where I lived, the skies had long been dimmed by the…

  • Spiritual and Emotional Themes

    Sex, Money, and Happiness

    Money Isn’t Everything, But It Helps Before I read about the crow, I thought I would make a simple statement about the connection between sex, money, and happiness. It seemed reasonable to open this column with the platitude: if we seek happiness in that which is impermanent, we will end up unhappy, for that is what I have to say. Yet the crow shifted my understanding a little bit. For instance, although a happiness that depends on human relationships or financial security is precarious, for those of us living in the United States during the early part of the twenty-first century, the sentiment ignores certain realities of living in a…

  • Spiritual and Emotional Themes

    All Kinds of Freedom

    The Freedom of Innocence Freedom comes in many forms. For instance, there is a freedom in the innocence of a child. My one-year-old grandson has started laughing. Watching the cats play, he laughs. Noticing the adults in his life move or clap or tap their foot, he laughs. Gazing at the sky, the trees, the air itself, he laughs. When when he laughs, we laugh, too. He has discovered a new game. How joyful is this innocent freedom he radiates. He knows nothing of floods, supreme court confirmation hearings, sexual abuse, war, murder, lead in drinking water, poverty, poachers, hunger, illness, or plague. All he knows is what he sees, hears,…

  • Recovery Skills

    Finding Balance: A Treatise on the Power of Music

    On Balance and Its Relationship to Acceptance and Anger Before we knew we would cancel this Sunday’s sharing circle, we chose a theme of balance. In particular, we wondered how to balance our need for peace of mind, found generally by accepting that which exists, with our need to change and grow and resist, which requires discontentment, even anger. We’ll revisit the topic in September, exploring how acceptance and anger play out in our personal and political lives. Today, we will focus on the concept of balance. A meaningful life requires balance. When we relentlessly pursue pleasure, we end up miserable, damaging relationships, losing jobs, and disconnecting from ourselves. On…

  • Scripture Study

    Pentecost and Spirit Guides

    The Christian Pentecost According to the Book of Acts, when the disciples gathered to celebrate the Hebrew festival of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended on them in a form like fire, and She filled them with the power of speaking in tongues and prophesying. The apostle Peter spoke with such passion that thousands felt compelled to repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Thus the Christian church was born. If this had been the first time humans had ever felt the touch of something awesome and spiritually terrifying, Peter would probably have had a hard time convincing his audience that Jesus was worth worshiping. Yet when we…

  • Recovery Skills

    Moments of Clarity

    Our Moments of Clarity The phrase moment of clarity is common in twelve-step circles. Such a moment is when we clearly see the wreckage of our lives, and we make a decision to get clean and sober. Over the years, I’ve heard a number of moment of clarity stories. One evening, for instance, when a woman was drunk, she noticed her child looking at her with sadness, disbelief, even disgust. Suddenly she realized she wasn’t just hurting herself, she was also hurting this incredibly precious human being. Steeped in shame and humiliation, she resolved she would change. In the private space of her own heart and to whatever god she…