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The Singeing Flames of Transformation and Breaking The Cultural Trance
“Once, men and women were able to turn themselves into eagles and fly immense distances. They communed with rivers and mountains and received wisdom from them. They felt the turning of the stars inside their own minds.”
― Susanna Clarke, Piranesi
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My wife, Massimilla, and I have often talked about how accepting the failure of our dreams, ideals, and what we thought we knew about life has dropped us into the singeing flames of transformation….
Transformation means giving up our defense structure of creating a war within ourselves — the structure that wants to prevent us from seeking out the truth of our own reality. This approach is the road less traveled; it is countercultural, and it negates our ideas of control, rationality, and fixing problems. But it allowed me to turn my depression into a path of deep healing and reflection and the source of a new life.
— from Aging Strong: Bud Harris PhD
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Religion is usually either cosmic poetry or cultural propaganda. The image of a “heavenly parent” can be a personal way of feeling one’s roots into the cosmos, but believing in an eternally unmarried father figure is more likely to conjure one’s place within a human patriarchal…
