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Copyright (c) 2010 Dave Smart
Just as the strength of our instinct of self-preservation is grounded in the genes we have inherited from the survivors of the mass extinctions of prehistoric Earth , so the fear of winter is grounded in the genes of the survivors of the Ice Ages.
Not so much the fear of the winter or of the cold; but the fear that it will never end. For in the Ice Ages it was for many parts of the world a winter that lasted for thousands of years. And despite all the evidence...
•Vulnerable but Still Resilient: Awesome Opposites
Copyright (c) 2010 Dave Smart
There was a documentary on the History channel recently about the great life extinction at the end of the Permian age. Their theory is that it was caused by a catastrophic volcanic eruption, or series of eruptions, that covered most of Siberia with lava hundreds or thousands of feet thick. Underneath this great layer of volcanic rock they found coal, evidence of the age and the extent of these eruptions. Vapors and runoff from the eruptions, including the coal...
•Living With Waking Dreams
Copyright (c) 2010 Dave Smart
My usual response to television commercials is either to walk away and do housework while they run, or check out what's on another channel. But every now and then one really hits me, not necessarily to buy the product or service advertised, but more likely the psychological effect, one possibly not intended by its creators. A couple of commercials have hit me recently.
In one, created by an animal advocacy group, the plight of dogs trained for (illegal in this...
•Living Authentically in the Unauthentic World of Corporations
Copyright (c) 2010 Dave Smart
Many centuries ago, two or more persons trying to grapple with the frightening prospect of facing the peril of liability that their partnership would face in the business they were creating, decided to create an imaginary person to hold the liability of the partnership; and the concept of a corporation was born. As an imaginary concept it was incredibly successful. Corporations were not only an alternative to partnerships, they came to hold the ESSENCE of the...
•When We Open Our Eyes
Copyright (c) 2009 Dave Smart
A few weeks ago many Chistian churches that follow the lectionary (the agreed-upon three-year schedule of weekly Bible readings) read the story of Bartimaeus (Mark 10:46-52). The blind beggar that was healed by Jesus is allegory for spiritual blindness and insight. Recognizing that in the Bible, clothes are symbolic of spiritual defenses, Bartimaeus "threw off his cloak (garment)" and approached Jesus. Asking not for pity as he had done previously but for his...
•Well-Grounded Faith is Alive and Well Today
Copyright (c) 2009 Dave Smart
When I went to India to do the Himalayan CHAR DHAM I saw very few foreigners (I met only two Americans the whole trip), but a great many Indians from all over India. The burgeoning and prospering middle class in India is finding time and resources to take this considerable vacation to further their spiritual life.
The Char Dham YATRA (pilgrimage) is to four temples located in the Himalaya high country, each near the headwaters of a major river: Yamunotri on the...
•The Dark Side of Pharmaceutical Company Executives
Copyright (c) 2009 Dave Smart
Many people, having listened to the ads of pharmaceutical companies and how caring they are for people in their efforts to cure or eliminate diseases, are horrified to hear that all these awful rumors about health care reform, are coming from them. The thought that from these executive board rooms they are cooking up these rumors, dirty tricks and false information, to stand in the way of ANY health care reform, is unimaginable to them.
To those of us...
•Connecting With Those We Like - and Our Politics
Copyright (c) 2009 Dave Smart
Many people have told me over the years about how they feel more comfortable around "intelligent" or "smart" people. I can identify with that, but I am aware that many others feel most comfortable among 'common folk', and not 'nerds'.
A friend of mine recently took this a step further. She felt that 'democracy' was an undesirable form of governance, since it puts the majority and so the power of decision into the hands of the 'masses', rather than in the...
•Spengler's View of World Culture Revisited
Copyright (c) 2009 Dave Smart
When Oswald Spengler (1880-1936) wrote THE DECLINE OF THE WEST in 1918, followed by a revision and second volume in 1923, it was taken in high regard by the post-World War I public, especially in Germany. It's message of gradual, phased but continuous decline of Western culture and civilization since about the thirteenth century seemed to resonate with people at that time.
Basically he compares Western society, which he calls 'Faustian' culture, to classic...
•Coaches Serve People, Not Fix Them
The first thing we coaches tell our clients is, we are not therapists. We assume you are whole, not fragmented and in need of fixing. That appeals to clients; I am not a broken machine or a broken part of something; I am not an object to be fixed. If anything, I am deserving to be served. That is to say, it appeals to part of them. Another part of them, like all of us, may recognize that there are many different parts of ourselves and all too often they are in disagreement with one...
•Living With the Hero Within
For so many, President Barack Obama is a hero. And in part because of that, expectations for his presidency are higher than for any new president in at least the last 76 years. Different people see him as a hero, differently. For some, he is a black man become President, the at least symbolic fulfillment of Martin Luther King's dream. For some, son of a black father and white mother, he is the leader of a unified race. For others, his calm in the midst of swirling crisis, a trait he...
•When You Think It Is Time to Give Up Your Goals
February is for many the month of disappointment. The days are beginning to get longer, but winter is still far from over. The enthusiasm with which many entered into plans, goals, hopes and resolutions for the new year is for many wearing thin. Surveys have shown that by mid-February the majority of people who set new goals at the new year have abandoned them. The holidays of the month: Valentine's Day, Mardi Gras, Chinese New Year; are largely meant to cheer up the disillusioned and...
•Dream Symbols - Universal Signposts
To discuss dream symbols comprehensively would require far more than the size of a typical article; indeed entire books have been written on the subject. I seek here only to give a little taste to this fascinating subject; by discussing TREES and TRUMPETS.
Most psychological terms like projection, complex, system and symbol are absent from the Bible, for the simple reason that they were absent from most ancient languages. Likewise they are absent from the myths and legends of tribal peoples....
•Empathising With Those Who Travel South for the Winter
Some friends of mine who enjoy square dancing here in Oakhurst regularly go in their RV to Arizona each winter. To Havasu City, where London Bridge was rebuilt, or to other places along or near the Colorado River; they say that typically they square dance three times a week while there. I asked them: are you commuters or nomads?
They first replied: well, neither. But then they thought a little about what a commuter is. The life of daily commuters, who commute to work each workday, has...
•Embracing the Counterintuitive - and CSE's
"I believe the earth is flat. Sure looks flat to me."
Indeed it does. What leads us to reject that notion as soon as we hear it, and believe that the earth is round? Other than that it was taught in school, and still is; there is the fact that "everyone else" believes it. That the earth is round, a sphere, and goes around the sun, explains many things. Like you can go around it, satellites encircle it, it is day on the other side of the world when it is night here, and vice versa, and is...
•When You Ask 'Is That All There Is?'
When You Ask 'Is That All There Is?' With the stock market having lost some 40% of its total value in the last year, and millions of homeowners having lost their homes or about to, the doom-and-gloom has really gotten to many people. The song "Is That All There Is?" popular a few decades ago, sung by Peggy Lee, has prevaled on the minds of many. It has been vilified by some as being morally bankrupt and worse. But as is so often the case, its moral state is more complex than what can be...
•Trick Questions and Power Questions
Last Sunday the "lectionary", or traditional Bible readings, of many Christian churches included Matthew 21:28-33, Jesus' parable of the father and his two sons. The father asks each of them individually to do some vineyard work; the first refuses but later thought better of it and did the work; the second agreed but then did nothing. Jesus' question to his audience, mostly of learned scholars at the Temple and Pharisees was, which did his father's will?
Jesus was asked trick questions...
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