When you lose someone you love, Your life becomes strange, The ground beneath you becomes fragile, Your thoughts make your eyes unsure; And some dead echo drags your voice down Where words have no confidence Your heart has grown heavy with loss; And…
The following is an interview with Stephen and Ondrea written by Chris Grasso, creator of The Indie Spiritualist (TIS). Chris connected with Levines to conduct this interview after the release of their book, "The Healing I Took Birth For."…
When our heart is broken searching for a meaning and purpose leaves us wandering and bewildered. As life changes meaning changes. What was ordinary becomes precious. What was interesting seems dull. Nothing at last reveals the reason we seem so often…
Love is the highest form of acceptance. Judgment is the mechanics of non-acceptance. Some may say that without “good judgment” there would be no “discriminating wisdom” but discriminating wisdom is the process of weeding out the…
This is the realm of the passing away. All that exists does not for long. What ever comes into this world never stops sliding toward the edge of eternity. Form arises from formlessness and passes back,…
WORKING WITH/ON A GRIEF JOURNAL Anna said, “I went to the place where my son drowned and I stood with a friend. And later we were some place and she said, "Come on. I'll buy you a journal and you can write." And I said no. I started…
Confronting loss the meaning of life changes. Searching for meaning and purpose leaves us wandering and bewildered. What was ordinary yesterday becomes precious today. What was precious yesterday seems dull and lusterless. What we liked becomes uninteresting,…
We have recommended to many who feel they cannot in grief steady the agitated mind that they take up singing. It opens into other hemispheres. When the heart aches song soothes. Sing anything from current rock themes to old love songs. A Sarah…
IS THERE A WAY TO PROTECT THE PEOPLE I LOVE BECAUSE I AM GAY AND NOT IN A LEGAL MARRIAGE, BECASUE OF FEAR THAT MY FAMILY WILL TAKE OVER WHEN I LOOSE CONTROL AT THE END OF MY LIFE? There is nothing quite like the approach of death to display loose ends,…
How do I die with dignity and have control over my decisions that may be against my family's or friends' wishes? Designate an OMBUDSMAN to speak up for you when you may not be able. It is another level of the wishes of the Living Will which…
If possible no one should die alone. A hand held can be more pain relieving than an strong analgesic. It softens the body instead of tightening around, and thus intensifying, their pain. But always remember the person in the sick bed, possibly including…
Nature is our first awakening to an elemental presence all about us. Even in a dying tree or the skeleton of the king snake in a knot hole crevice, absent nowhere. The energy moving one thought into the next precisely the same what moves the clouds across…
In Buddhism many teachers, holding their thumb and fore finger apart about the length a spark might jump, say all we have to relate to is “just this much”. The living present. The moment “as is” whether we call it heaven or hell…
When an old man died in the geriatric ward of a nursing home in North Platte , Nebraska , it was believed that he had nothing left of any value Later, when the nurses were going through his meager possessions, They found this poem . Its quality and content…
The day I awoke with no center of gravity, my heart knew it had blown its mind. There was an open cauldera where once my haircut neatly grew. I seemed a cartoon character of myself dreamed up to keep the mind from being bored. When in 1975 I went through…
In Buddhism many teachers, holding their thumb and fore finger apart about the length a spark might jump, say all we have to relate to is “just this much”. The living present. The moment “as is” whether we call it heaven or hell…
I used to feel so much like “them” but I have slowly become myself. I have come to see that what some call karma is not, as so many would have us believe, punishment. In fact karma is not just what happens to us but how we experience it within.…
What might it be like to awake into a day of compassion? To brush aside the cobwebs of fear and distrust and give your heart to the benefit of others. To not see the homeless, the imprisoned, the battered, even the prostitute as somehow less than yourself.…
What would it be like to wake up on a day when you did not have to be perfect? Not seeking to build a perfect mind or body or a personality to match nor judging its absence but liberated from the trap of perfection. Meeting ourselves as is with mercy…
What would it be like to awake in a day in a life of love devoted to prayer? What would it be like to find a prayer in the first breath, to hear an expression of your true heart in every breath that followed? Prayer is an extension from the state of…