A long healthy life

DSC06997_v2This is a concluding paragraph to a Ted Talk by Robert Waldinger

So this message, that good, close relationships are good for our health and well-being, this is wisdom that’s as old as the hills. Why is this so hard to get and so easy to ignore? Well, we’re human. What we’d really like is a quick fix, something we can get that’ll make our lives good and keep them that way. Relationships are messy and they’re complicated and the hard work of tending to family and friends, it’s not sexy or glamorous. It’s also lifelong. It never ends. The people in our 75-year study who were the happiest in retirement were the people who had actively worked to replace workmates with new playmates. Just like the millennials in that recent survey, many of our men when they were starting out as young adults really believed that fame and wealth and high achievement were what they needed to go after to have a good life. But over and over, over these 75 years, our study has shown that the people who fared the best were the people who leaned in to relationships, with family, with friends, with community.

Here is the link to the talk The Link >

Magic Mushrooms

DSC01580Can one blissful moment change your life? Producer Andy Mills introduces us to Reverend Mike Young, a man who can pinpoint a pivotal handful of minutes in the 1960s that he claims did just that. As a college student, he was part of a study in which theology students were given psilocybin (a.k.a. magic mushrooms) in a church basement during a Good Friday service. This might seem ridiculous, and in fact, it wasn’t long after that the use of these kinds of drugs for both science and recreation was banned. Nonetheless, we follow our curiosity to some current psilocybin experiments that demonstrate the powerful and surprising effects of psychedelic drugs. Dr. Roland Griffiths and Charlie Bessant help us pin down these hard-to-describe, intense feelings of rapture. And Andy finds himself reassured about a deeply personal experience from his own past.

Go here to listen to the interview >

Queen of Rainbows: Flowering

queen of rainbows floweringAnother year and time to draw a card with advice for the new year.


The Queen of Rainbows is like a fantastic plant that has reached the apex of its flowering and its colors. She is very sexual, very alive, and full of possibilities. She snaps her fingers to the music of love, and her zodiac necklace is placed in a way that Venus lies over her heart. The sleeves of her garment contain an abundance of seeds, and as the wind blows the seeds will be scattered to take root where they may. She is not concerned whether they land on the soil or on the rocks–she is just spreading them everywhere in sheer celebration of life and love. Flowers fall on her from above, in harmony with her own flowering, and the waters of emotion swirl playfully beneath the flower on which she sits.
You might feel like a garden of flowers right now, showered with blessings from everywhere. Welcome the bees, invite the birds to drink your nectar. Spread your joy around for all to share.

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Zen wants you living, living in abundance, living in totality, living intensely–not at the minimum as Christianity wants you, but at the maximum, over-flowing.
Your life should reach to others. Your blissfulness, your benediction, your ecstasy should not be contained within you like a seed.
It should open like a flower and spread its fragrance to all and sundry–not only to the friends but to the strangers too. This is real compassion, this is real love: sharing your enlightenment, sharing your dance of the beyond.