Two weeks ago I wrote about a small miracle I experienced during the annual gathering in Pacific Grove, California, of the United Centers for Spiritual Living.  Today I want to describe another miracle that occurred during that week-long event at the Asilomar Conference Center.

This miracle involved a new friend of mine, Jeanette Alexander of Seattle, Washington.  Jeanette is a wonderful composer/pianist, and her beautiful instrumental pieces truly touch the heart.

One evening, anyone attending the conference was invited to participate in a talent show. Even though Jeanette rarely sings, she had just written a song that she wanted to perform while she played the piano . . . and she wanted to have some additional musical accompaniment, as well. Read the rest of this entry »

Pharmaceutical giants are at a loss to understand why placebos increasingly outperform promising new drugs in clinical trials. To the consternation of these big pharma companies, the number of drugs approved by the FDA and put on the market has been steadily decreasing over the years due to their inability to surpass the effectiveness of placebos.

And some longstanding products, such as Prozac and other antidepressants that significantly bolstered the profits of pharmaceuticals in the '80s and '90s, are waning against placebos in routine followup testing. In fact, if these same drugs weren't on the market already, many of them wouldn't even be approved considering their performance against placebos. (In order to gain approval by the FDA, the product must twice beat the placebo in a minimum of two verified trials.)

Drug developers believe the reason for the slide in pharmaceutical market approval is that the placebo is somehow getting stronger. Read the rest of this entry »

Tohono O'odham Community Action Tackles Diabetes

Members of the Tohono O'odham Nation suffer from one of the highest type 2 diabetes rates ever recorded. The disease seemed inevitable in the community.

Now, the Tohono have turned to their traditional foods and recipes to combat diabetes and obesity, with striking results.

SLIDE SHOW: Harvesting the Wild Foods of the Sonoran Desert

Find out more at the Tohono O'odham Community Action (TOCA).

Last week I wrote about all the small miracles that occur in our lives—the kind of synchronistic events and happy coincidences that seem so insignificant, we tend to easily forget them and begin to take our good fortune for granted.

But that raises a question. Can any miracle actually be "insignificant?" In other words, is there even such a thing as a "small" miracle?
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No matter your religion or spiritual beliefs, even if you're atheist, contemplating the questions of the universe — whether they be religious, scientific, or psychological — can enhance brain function. Practices such as meditation, chanting mantras, and intense prayer can provide significantly positive effects on cognition, relaxation, and psychological health.

According to a new book by Andrew Newberg, MD and Mark Robert Waldman called "How God Changes Your Brain,"  such practices both increase activity in the frontal lobe, which "creates and integrates all of your ideas about God," and diminishes activity in the amygdala, the region responsible for emotions that can generate fearful images of a frightening and punitive God and suppress the frontal lobe's ability to logically think about God.
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I just returned home from presenting my workshop in Pacific Grove, California, at the annual gathering of the United Centers for Spiritual Living.

Like I always do, I passed out a form at my workshop so people could sign up to receive my weekly inspirational messages via email.

Soon after my workshop, I sat down to enter all the email addresses I had collected into my contact list. One of the email addresses was difficult to read, and when I sent a test email to that address, it bounced back as "no such address."  I tried several more letter combinations, but none of them worked either. Finally, I gave up.
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Change has come to the Arctic. Jess Worth visits an Alaskan village and finds lives being turned inexorably upside down.

Bruce Inglangasak scans the gleaming white coastal plain with expert eyes. He's searching for caribou. Spring has finally come to the Arctic and the animals are starting to make their way down from the mountains. The villagers of Kaktovik greet the change in season with understandable enthusiasm. It's been a long winter for this 300-strong Inupiaq village, perched at the edge of the Arctic Ocean where the sun doesn't rise at all for three months and temperatures regularly reach -50°C.

Last week, Bruce made his first successful hunting trip of the year with two other men from the village. They returned with 12 caribou, 90 fish and a moose — a welcome feast of freshness after so many months living off food stored from last year's harvest. Now the sun is beating down and as we travel towards the dramatic Brooks Range of mountains spiky tundra grass is starting to poke through the snow.
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This message concludes my three-part series on meditation, and how a daily practice of meditation greatly enhances your ability to live life in the divine flow.

Two weeks ago I explained how meditation helps create gaps between your thoughts, so you are more readily open to divine insights, inspiration, and intuitive guidance. Last week I described the way that meditation helps you stay more connected to your spirit throughout the day, so you can respond to challenging people and situations in a wiser way.
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Two teams of researchers, including the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, have set sail this past week for a four-week expedition to perform extensive research and analysis of the Plastic Vortex — aka the Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch, a bobbing plastic wasteland twice the size of Texas in the middle of the Pacific Ocean northeast of Hawaii. One ship, The New Horizon (owned by the Scripps Institution), left San Diego on August 2, and the Kaisei left San Francisco on August 4. The expedition is being filmed by National Geographic, and proceeds from the documentary will help pay for the expedition.
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Every night, in the dream state, your soul communes with your higher self and probable/reincarnational brethren, and carries guidance and advice back from its nocturnal sojourn. Given the choice, most people would readily say they welcome such guidance, yet they struggle to hear but the faintest echoes flowing from the higher realms. What tools are available to loosen the barrier between waking self and higher self?

First, one must recognize a cold truth: the higher self's plan for a lifetime may horrify the ego. The ego's wants are simple: shelter, food, love, sex, health, money: as much and as often as possible. There is nothing wrong with desiring any of these; they all contribute to a stable, comfortable life. But here lies the challenge to even the most evolved ego: the higher self may consider fulfillment of these wants an impediment to its life plan.
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