2024-CasteBlog-featured

See the movie, read the book!

by BooksCelebritiesFeaturedMovie Reviews

I read Pulitzer Prize-winning Isabel Wilkerson’s amazing book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, when it first came out in 2020. I was so blown away by it that I urged you to read it, and even had a discussion group on it, recognizing I was reading an instant American classic.

You may recall it dissects all of our misperceptions about race (and we have quite a few), and argues that it’s really “caste,” not race, that is the underlying structure. Whether or not you agree with the author, you will find her argument fascinating and compelling.

Isabel described a caste system as a constructed hierarchy based on ancestry (not race) that pits presumed superiority (like German gentiles) against presumed inferiority (think German Jews). According to Wilkerson, caste is the silent usher, guiding us to our proper seat in the culture. She compares India’s treatment of the Dalits, the “untouchables,” to Nazi Germany’s stigma attached to the Jews, to American oppression of African-Americans. Each country uses dehumanization to justify keeping certain groups of people at the bottom. The author explores why, even today, white working-class Americans vote against their economic interests: they are voting to preserve the caste system, implicitly needing a group of people they themselves can still “look down on.

Isabel Wilkerson

Ava DuVernay

Now Ava DuVernay’s film, “Origin” is a powerful and fascinating interpretation of the book, Caste, and you will be glued to your seat watching it. Knowing DuVernay’s history (she made documentaries like “13th”, connecting slavery to the mass incarceration of Black men), it’s not surprising that she was interested in this topic. What is amazing, however, is how she creates an investigative, fictionalized drama in which we follow Isabel’s character as she puts the pieces of the book together (from the South of the US to Germany to India), all the while her entire personal life crumbles around her. It will definitely jolt you out of your comfort zone and make you want to take action to remedy these injustices immediately.

Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor does a beautiful job of playing Wilkerson; she’s able to be searching and yet confident at the same time. She’s totally portraying a mentor to all, especially women, who yearn to make a difference.

Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor

So grab the popcorn, watch this important film, and then drop your comments on my Facebook page, here.

See you at the movies!

2023 Martin Luther King MLK Day

Celebrating Martin Luther King’s Legacy

by AdvocacyCelebritiesEnergy MedicineFeaturedSocial
2023 Martin Luther King MLK Day

January is a month for reflection and hope. From festive celebrations on New Year’s Eve to the widespread tradition of making resolutions, January gives each of us an opportunity to pause and consider how we might best use our time and energy to thrive. It is so easy to get caught up in the busyness of life, in the ceaseless daily demands that pull on our attention and distract us from the bigger picture. Taking a moment in January to envision and write down your goals for personal and spiritual growth is a gift that will pay dividends over time in terms of a life that has purpose.

In the United States, commemoration of the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday (January 16, 2023) is in keeping with this spirit of reflection and renewal. The federal holiday was established in 1983 and recognized in all fifty states by the year 2000. Martin Luther King (MLK) remains America’s most globally famous and influential civil rights leader. Hiroshima, Japan, for example, acknowledges MLK Day each year, due to King’s unwavering commitment to nuclear nonproliferation. MLK Day is also officially recognized in the Canadian provinces of Toronto and Ottawa.

2023 Martin Luther King MLK Day

The Civil Rights Movement in the United States took place between 1954 to 1965. It began with the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education that segregation in the public schools was unconstitutional and culminated in passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Martin Luther King’s public career dovetailed with this crucial period of American history. Already prominent in the Black community as a Baptist minister, King reached national fame—largely via the then new technology of television—as the leader of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. This successful 381-day organized protest resulted in the Supreme Court striking down segregation on Alabama public transport as unconstitutional in November 1956.

Following this victory, King continued to lead civil rights marches throughout the segregated South. He was instrumental in creating the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), headed by Black clergymen, and in organizing the movement around the principle of non-violence. Non-violence, in this case, did not simply mean refusing to meet aggression with a counterattack (though that was crucial).

Instead, non-violence as a tactic drew from a deeper moral and spiritual worldview. In promoting nonviolence, King incorporated the teachings of Jesus and the recent example of Gandhi’s peaceful and successful resistance in India to the British Empire to argue that civil rights activists had to lead by example. Meeting violence with violence ultimately reduced the humanity of everyone involved and provided antagonists with a pretext for yet more aggression. In his own words, now etched in the south wall of the MLK Memorial in Washington, D.C., “darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

2023 Martin Luther King MLK Day

To end the cycle of violence, and to embody the righteousness of the civil rights cause, King urged those who participated to remain nonviolent. While by the late 1960s, many activists began to waver in their commitment to passive resistance, King held firm that long-lasting change could only be achieved through sustained non-violence. Indeed, in 1966, following passage of the Voting Rights Act, King moved the marches to the segregated neighborhoods of Chicago and other Midwestern and Northern cities, making the case that segregation was not only a Southern problem but an American one.

2023 Martin Luther King MLK Day

It is easy to forget today how radical some of King’s ideas were in their time. As with anyone who is commemorated in a statue, a stamp, or a holiday, the edges of history tend to blur a bit. King was a revered figure in his day, but also a polarizing one, and he was certainly a complicated man who worked under near constant public pressure. By the late 1960s, he began to link the cause of racial justice to social justice and started work on a planned Poor Peoples’ Campaign. His involvement was cut short by his assassination in Memphis, TN, on April 4, 1968.

Yet while King, like all consequential figures, often divided his audience, the lasting impact of his life and work is assured. King was on the front lines of the mid-century Civil Rights Movement from Montgomery to Selma to D.C. to Chicago. He believed that reconciliation was not only possible but inevitable, and, in this, he continues to represent the best of the United States. Just as he drew on the deep heritage of Christianity, and the long history of non-violence, King grounded his speeches and writings in the United States Constitution. He did not seek to work outside of that framework, but rather to have the United States live up to the ideals contained in the Declaration of Independence and the 14th Amendment.

As we pause for a moment in January to reflect, to plan, and to think about our own spiritual journeys, it is relevant to remember that King’s actions and writings do not sit frozen in the past but provide inspiration for the present and future of peace and justice. As he wrote, in an August 1967 address to the SCLC, “we must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future.” When we celebrate MLK Day in the United States, we are not only looking backwards at our history, but moving towards a more perfect union.

2023 Martin Luther King MLK Day
Yogananda

Meet Mystic Paramahansa Yogananda

by CelebritiesEnergy MedicineFeatured
Yogananda

Unleashing Your Inner Intuitive Power

I want to talk to you today about Paramahansa Yogananda,  the mystic known as “The Father of Yoga,” who was born in the late 1800’s in India and died in the 1950’s in Los Angeles. Today, everyone knows Yogananda as the man who wrote Autobiography of a Yogi, the book that Steve Jobs read every year of his adult life. But more on that key fact in a moment!

Yogananda is one of those rare people who totally embraced his intuition.  Because I know from personal experience just how hard it is to honor your intuitive hits, I’m sharing his story today to encourage us all to listen to our own intuition. His story is a blueprint we can follow.

Yogananda’s mother died when he was only 11 years old. Even then, his  awareness of the spiritual was light years beyond the ordinary. His mother was instructed by a holy man to give a sacred amulet she had to her son, telling him to keep it close, until it disappeared. A few years later, Yogananda began his search for an enlightened teacher, and he met with many sages and saints on the way.

Yogananda

Finally, when he was 17, he met Swami Sri Yukteswar. That’s when the precious amulet his mother had left him simply vanished, having served its purpose, by identifying Yukteswar as his guru. Yogananda described his first meeting with Yukreswar as being the “sacred rekindling of a relationship that had existed across many lifetimes.”

He trained under Yukteswar for the next ten years; Yukteswar told Yogananda that he had been sent to him for the express purpose of spreading the concept of yoga globally, especially in the West.  One day, while in meditation, Yogananda saw American faces pass before him, and he realized that was a sign that he was to go west and spread the word about meditation and yoga.

In 1925 he established his first center in Los Angeles. The first major Indian teacher to settle in the US, The LA Times called him “the 20th century’s first superstar guru.”

Yogananda

Hollywood was ready for him: he attracted celebrities like bees to honey. His ability to talk about the human spirit and God, without being dogmatic, was like a breath of fresh air – he was a spiritual prodigy, a spiritual genius. He loved to tell his audience that “God is in your spine!” The timing of his message couldn’t have been more perfect: with the world poised on the edge of an atomic revolution, he spoke of his beliefs of meditation and yoga being a “science,” and said that if you had sufficient meditation power, you could do anything.

Yogananda

At a time when the West was just beginning to wake up to the spirituality of the East, George Harrison of the Beatles was becoming more and more disillusioned with money and fame and began seeking a deeper meaning in his life.  His search with Ravi Shankar, the virtuoso sitar player, led him eventually to Yogananda.  As a member of the Beatles, the most popular pop music band in history, George helped to propel an entire generation of the western world into an awareness of Eastern spirituality. As Deepak Chopra put it, it happened “overnight.” George repeated the “Christ-consciousness” language that he picked from Yogananda, who urged his followers to find in themselves that same consciousness that Jesus exhibited, with compassion, equanimity, and love for all humanity. Yogananda’s embrace of Christ and His teachings made him even more popular in the West. George’s Here Comes the Sun album, and the single, My Sweet Lord, inspired by a two-hundred year old gospel classic, switches mid-way from “Hallelujah” to “Hare Krishna,” in the lyrics, demonstrating that they are one and the same; the lyrics acknowledge that Krishna and Jesus are the same energy. People loved the songs as they validated their own personal search for the God force. When George Harrison was invited to the White House to meet President Gerald Ford, he took him a copy of Yogananda’s book, telling the President it was his favorite gift to give.

And what’s really interesting is that the Beatles 8th album, and my personal fav, Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, has bits of pieces of India in it, as well as Yogananda and his guru and his guru, on the cover! Seriously!

But Yogananda created a perfect storm for America’s worst issues, issues that, unfortunately, we still have today: media hype, religious intolerance, ethnic stereotyping, and blatant racism. It wasn’t long before he was put on a government watch list and kept under surveillance by the FBI as well as by the British authorities, who were concerned about the growing independence movement in India. Focusing on the fact that he was a person of color and attracting a lot of married women, whose husbands resented him, a confidential file was kept on him. Ahead of his time, Yogananda didn’t quite get it when he wasn’t allowed to speak in Miami, being the wrong color, and he flaunted convention when he performed a marriage between one of his male Indian students who followed him West and a white woman; that did not go over well at all.

Yogananda

After some years, he traveled to Europe where he visited Assisi, the home of St. Francis, the Athenian temples, Socrates’ prison cell, Palestine, and the regions of Jesus’s ministry, and of course Cairo, to see its ancient pyramids up close and personal.  He also met with living western saints like Therese Neumann, the woman who manifested the stigmata, the wounds of Christ.

Yogananda

He traveled back to India, when his guru, Yukteswar, died, in the desired yogic tradition, sitting up; he simply allowed his consciousness to exit his body. While there, He met with Mahatma Gandhi and the female saint, Anandamoyi Ma.

Later, he had a supernatural visit from Yukteswar, who appeared to him in the flesh, while he was meditating, telling him that he was now guiding him from the astral plane. Wow, that must have been something!

Once Yogananda came back home from his travels, he was shocked to find that his best friend from childhood, Dhirananda, a man he had trusted like a brother, had betrayed him. Some years before, he had invited Dhirananda to the US to help him run his Center in Los Angeles. He made him a Swami and treated him like his “right-hand man.” He left Dhirananda in charge of the Center while he traveled extensively. When he returned home, however, after one long trip,  he found that Dhirananda had opened a competing spiritual center close by and had attracted many of Yogananda’s students away from him. However, Dhirananda just didn’t have the personal magnetism that Yogananda had. Ultimately, Dhiranada abandoned the competing project, threw off his monk robes and Swami title that Yognanda had given him, married a Caucasian woman and moved to Michigan, no less, where he became a well-respected university professor. The ultimate blow was 6 years later, when he sued Yogananda. And then there was a second lawsuit, also from yet another of Yogananda’s disciples, again for money. Back at the Center, Yogananda never really recovered from what he perceived as these ultimate betrayals, calling these two disciples his “two Judases.” It’s important for us to acknowledge this side of Yogananda, the human side.

In 1946, Yogananda stopped traveling and wrote a memoir:

Autobiography of a Yogi. It launched a spiritual revolution, selling more than four million copies, has been translated into 45 languages, and is considered among one of the 100 best spiritual books of the 20th Century. 

The Autobiography has been an inspiration for many, most famously, Steve Jobs. Jobs first read the Autobiography as a teenager. Later, he went to India and re-read it there, and, after downloading it on his iPad, he faithfully re-read it once a year.

Yogananda

When Steve was planning for his own death, he asked that the Autobiography be given as a parting gift to everyone who attended his memorial service. Imagine being handed that little package covered in brown wrapping paper as you left the memorial and headed to your car, to open it and find out it had Yogananda’s book inside – what a message to you that would have been to rely more on your intuition than anything else. Clearly, that was the message from Steve to his guests at his memorial – that we should actualize ourselves from our own intuition, since that’s what the book is about – the message would have been to look inside ourselves and realize what we find within. That’s what it means to become self-realized or self-actualized. Steve was big on intuition, and that’s one of the most important things I can teach you – use your intuition above all else; it never lies to you.

Yogananda

Yogananda, using his Yogic gifts, was about to foretell his own death, telling his followers when it was time for him to leave the world. That evening, he told his dinner companion  that “it will just be a matter of hours and I will be gone from this earth.” He spoke at the dinner and then simply fell to the floor, and left his body, thus achieving mahasamadhi, or the conscious exit from the body. We should all have that kind of leave-taking be our goal!

Yogananda’s lessons for us as seekers include many key teachings: first, that we can have direct personal experiences of the divine, especially through daily meditation; secondly, that even though we have personal flaws, the purpose of our human life is the evolution, by way of our individual efforts, of our limited mortal consciousness into God consciousness; thirdly, that we are evidence of the complete harmony and oneness of Jesus’s original teachings as well as original yogic teachings, and that these original truths are the common scientific foundation for all truth.

Here’s one of my favorite quotes from Yogananda:

“The Western day is indeed nearing when the inner science of self-control will be found as necessary as the outer conquest of nature. This new age will see our minds… broadened by the now scientifically indisputable truth that matter is, in reality, a concentration of energy.”

If you’d like to learn more about the “Father of Yoga in the West,” and how he made ancient Vedic teachings more accessible to a modern audience, check out the video, Awake: The Life of Yogananda, produced by Gaia. You can sign up for membership and access this documentary (along with tons of other valuable content) right here >>

Yogananda
Mediumship

EDGAR CAYCE & MEDIUMSHIP

by CelebritiesEnergy MedicineFeatured
Mediumship

So, let’s talk about mediumship, Edgar Cayce, and contacting our love ones on the other side, a very fun subject! Connecting to “the other side,” or what’s commonly called “mediumship,” is the practice of communicating with the dead. During a typical reading, the medium conveys messages from the deceased to the living. There are two types of sessions with a medium: in the mental type, the spirit supposedly takes over and controls the speech of the medium. In the physical type, the communication may claim to include voices, rapping on walls and tables, and movement of objects. Wild for sure! The practice can be traced back to early times when shamans in our communities provided guidance to the tribe by talking to the spirit world. The heyday of mediumship was back in the late 1800’s, when spiritualism, a movement that focused on mediumship, was in vogue. They didn’t have TV or internet back then, so this was evidently their form of entertainment. Mediumship is generally frowned upon by most modern religions but is mentioned in the Old Testament. Mediumship has seen a real rise in popularity recently, that’s why I want to address it today.

Mediumship

So, the question is – why talk to the dead, is it helpful, and is it safe? I can assure you that when someone on the other side weighs in during one of my healing sessions with a client, to offer insight or direction, I pay attention, so yes, it can be helpful. However, I teach that guidance from the other side be allowed to come to you, the practitioner, naturally, in the course of the session with the client, as opposed to you, willy-nilly, reaching out to the other side. Further, I believe that any information received should be used solely for the purpose of helping that individual heal. Here’s why:

  1. A common problem I have seen with individuals who make a practice of regularly reaching out for information from the dead, is that individual medium’s third and sixth chakras, that is, their power center and their third eye, get blown all out of proportion by doing this work, to their ultimate detriment. You don’t want to have that kind of imbalance in your energy field as it can affect your body, mind, and spirit, in negative ways. Again, I distinguish the limited practice of occasionally receiving information or advice from a loved one who reaches out to you, the practitioner, during a healing session, to aid their loved one back here on earth. When these fairly rare occasions occur, you, the healer, quietly, and with no fanfare, gently guide your client based on the information received. That way, you don’t fall into the old ego trap, and try to impress with your abilities.
  1. Another problem I’ve seen over a lifetime of practicing and teaching energy medicine, is that spending too much time in the areas beyond this realm in order to connect to someone on “the other side” is a risky endeavor: it’s not uncommon to pick up undesirable connections “out there;” some of these connections may be just minor annoyances that a qualified practitioner can later clear for you, but other connections I have seen can be as serious as outright possession. My experience is that it takes a lot of skill and self-awareness to know when you are “out there,” when you are safe, and when you are not. It seems like it never fails that when someone tells me they feel like they have “picked up” some dark energy, they will also volunteer they have worked with a medium. Even more problematic, I’ve found, when I’m asked for help by a medium, is that they are often quite bound up with negative energy and spirits they’ve accidentally encountered.
Mediumship

Now that I’ve laid out the dangers of mediumship, whether practicing it or receiving it, I want to distinguish the time-honored and valid practice of you personally connecting, whether alone or under the umbrella of a trusted teacher, to your ancestors, to animal guides, to ascended masters, and to the divine, which I do daily, and encourage you to do also. We can all benefit from continuity beyond this earthly realm, and that continuity can help heal ourselves, or someone who has requested our help. At the same time, however, we want to accept the wisdom that spirits beyond the veil can impart in a state of humility and quiet devotion – never use it to impress. 

So now, with all those provisos, I want to tell you about the life and legacy of a man with the most amazing abilities in the area of obtaining really valid guidance from beyond this realm. I’m talking about Edgar Cayce, of course. I discovered him when I was in my 20’s and devoured everything I could read by him and about him. I was ultimately invited many years ago to his campus in Virginia Beach, to his Center for Research and Enlightenment, to teach there.

When Edgar was a young man, he totally lost his voice; he couldn’t speak at all for a whole year. Desperate for a cure, he let a traveling hypnotist, and hypnotism was very big back then, put him in a trance, and, for as long as he remained in the trance, he could speak, but as soon as the trance ended, he couldn’t talk again.

After that, another hypnotist offered to help him, but when Cayce got hypnotized by him, he was able to diagnosed himself and found he was suffering from a psychological paralysis and then suggested to himself a treatment that worked. That’s when the local hypnotist said that Cayce should offer trance healing to the public, that clearly, he had a gift. A secretary recorded Cayce’s readings after he had already done about 8000 of them; eventually some 14,000 of them were memorialized in writing. I have read many of them. They are available online and today I’ll share a thumbnail version of some of his most profound insights.

Mediumship

Cayce said he got all his information for the requested readings from the Akashic Records, a term he coined, by the way. His subjects didn’t have to be present for him to do his work. My experience in this field has been the same: you can see from my work with guests who call into my Facebook Live show on Tuesdays that the call-in need not be physically present for me to get the information I need to help them. I’m getting the info from the same place that Cayce did, that is, the Akashic Records. And I can train you to get information from the Akashic Records too, in a safe way.

When Cayce was asked to explain the Akashic Records, and I just talked about them at length on a recent show on FaceBook and YouTube, he said they were “the record which each individual writes upon the thread of time and space.” Cayce said that, after our death, each of us is presented with our personal Akashic Record, an accounting of our karma. Cayce’s readings indicate that we each write our own life story with what we think, what we do, and how we interact with everyone and everything. Just as an aside, my own experiences with Near Death Experiences, which I talked about a few Facebook shows back, along with all the studies I’ve done on the NDE’s of others, establishes that we do often go through a life review during the NDE.

Cayce usually couldn’t recall later what he said to a client during the trance state, and when I’m in the slightly altered state that occurs when I’m getting information for you and helping you, I can’t usually recall much of it later either. It’s as if the information just flows through you, but doesn’t stay in your consciousness, and Cayce’s experience was the same. Nevertheless, I am 100% present when the info comes in, which is an important distinction: One of the things I want to be sure to mention is how dangerous it was for Cayce to not be conscious and present during his readings; another man, John of God, by the way, also followed that risky practice of not being conscious. When I worked with John of God in Brazil some 20 years ago, I saw with my own eyes just how dangerous it was to have another consciousness take over your mind and body. And we all know how sadly John of God’s life has turned out, my heart goes out to him, despite the horrific nature of his crimes. But we’ll talk about John of God another day. The important thing to know is that you need to be fully awake, aware, and present whenever you’re working to help heal someone or in contact with the Akashic Records or souls beyond the veil for someone else. I am always fully conscious of myself and my guest, and what I’m saying and doing during every reading and healing. That old style of reading and healing where the practitioner allowed their consciousness to leave their body is dangerous because negative entities can enter your body, mind, and spirit, and take over. 

Another classic mistake that Cayce made was that he overworked, and consequently died young at 67, as do others who can’t seem to say “no” to the needs of others. When I see that personality attribute, I recognize it as a need for approval that isn’t healthy; it means the healer is out of balance. Been there, done that. In case the shoe fits ☺

Edgar Cayce’s immense library of readings has been grouped into six categories: (1) health; (2) philosophy and reincarnation; (3) dreams; (4) ESP and psychic phenomena; (5) oneness; and (6) spiritual growth, meditation, and prayer. In the decades since his death in 1945, many terms that he invented — including Akashic Records, spiritual growth, auras, soul mates, and holistic health—have become an integral part of our language.

 

Edgar Cayce made a number of prophecies that are of interest to us today:

Mediumship

First, he predicted, long before they occurred, the stock market crash of 1929, World War II, and a shift in the electromagnetic poles of the earth that started in the year 2000 and is still going on and is likely a major cause of us moving into the New Age.

As for the future, he also made these prophecies that have yet to occur:

When asked if human life would be extended beyond what was happening in his day, he said yes, it would be extended considerably longer.

When he was asked, “Will we discover the design for a self-fueling  machine?” Cayce said we would, which offers hope when it comes to the climate crisis and ways to eliminate the use of fossil fuels, since they are devastating our ecosystem right now.

Cayce revealed that since humanity’s consciousness has evolved and expanded over time, a New Age and a new understanding of humanity’s relationship to God would appear right about now; that each of us must work with our own soul development to resonate with this new consciousness. He also said that an ancient “Hall of Records” from Atlantis would be rediscovered that would signify the manifestation of this new level of consciousness. 

Cayce prophesied that eventually China will become the center of true spirituality. In light of what’s going on right now in the world, this is an especially interesting insight.

Mediumship

He also had plenty to say about reincarnation and karma. His readings essentially counseled those fascinated by these subjects that one’s past lives should be of considerably less concern than one’s present life. I couldn’t agree more: I’m always telling my students to focus on this lifetime, since this is the one where you can make changes. He said that although we retain skills and lessons from past lives, it’s important to understand that the value of this life is to evolve further by adding skills and lessons by living, growing, and being of service in the present. Our abilities from past lives are provided to help us fulfill our purpose in the here and now. He also said that we pre-select our surroundings before each incarnation (parents and family, location, time period, etc.) that will best help us learn the lessons we need for completeness.

Cayce stressed that prayer (talking to Source) and meditation (listening to Source) affects your consciousness and your vitality and that the survival of our planet literally hinges on those of us who view life in all its diversity as crucial elements of a sacred whole. 

And now — to answer the question that nearly everyone asks after they’ve learned that we survive death — ‘’What are our loved ones  doing on the other side?”  Edgar Cayce had this to say: “When we die, we merely change form and are very much alive. Death is only passing through God’s other door.”  I very much agree with this – so let’s make the most of ourselves while we have the advantage of a physical body!

Mediumship

If the idea of tapping into wisdom from beyond this Earthly realm is of interest to you, think about enrolling in our best-selling Astral Travel course. It will teach you to safely go beyond what we experience here in physical form, to attain knowledge and guidance that isn’t otherwise available. Click here to learn more now >>

St Francis Assissi

St. Francis: Why We Celebrate this Early Activist

by AdvocacyCelebritiesEnergy MedicineEnvironmentalFeatured
St Francis Assissi

I want to tell you about one of my favorite people of all time and talk about the environment at the same time. If you’re an animal lover and nature lover, like I am, and you’re as worried about the state of our environment as I am, then this guy and his energy is for you. I’m talking about Saint Francis, the patron saint of animals and the environment. Francis’s journey from rich spoiled kid to one of the most amazing people who ever lived is a story worth hearing about.

As a child born into a very wealthy family in the late 1100’s – his father was a landowner and a cloth merchant and his mother was royalty from France, so an upper-class family, — Francis was far removed from the daily grind that the rest of the world had to face to survive at the time. It reminds you of Buddha’s early days, doesn’t it.

By age 13, Francis had a serious drinking problem, he was into gourmet food, and, if there were drugs back then, I’m sure he did those too. If you have ever had addiction issues, like I have, you’ll relate to him big-time. He dropped out of school at 13, a rebellious kid who ignored the city curfew and drank himself into a stupor every night. He managed to get away with this behavior because of his charm and his father’s wealth.

St Francis Assissi

As he got older, Francis became highly skilled at archery and on horseback. And although his father expected Francis to go into the textile business, he dreamed instead of becoming a knight. He clearly wanted to achieve hero worship status, which is why he honed his skills as an archer and rider. Ironically, he became a major hero for very different reasons.

Soon, a war broke out between Assisi and Perugia, and Francis leapt on that moment and joined the cavalry. However, during his first big battle, he was captured and, because his family was wealthy, held for ransom rather than killed. It took his father almost a year to pull together the enormous sum required for his release.

It was during his time in prison that Francis began having visions. After he got out of prison, he told everybody he could hear the voice of Christ, who told him to redeem the church, which was, of course, corrupt, (what’s new), give up his profligate lifestyle, and live like the poor.

The defining incident that separated Francis from his father forever was the time he stole a bolt of cloth from his father’s shop and his father’s horse to raise money to rebuild a fallen-down church. Upon discovering the theft, his father delivered him to the local bishop and reported the theft. The bishop told Francis to return his father’s money. He did so, but at the same time he also stripped off his clothes, stood there nude, and declared that God was the only father he would recognize henceforth. The bishop gave him a rough tunic to cover his nakedness, and Francis headed out of town. He was attacked almost immediately by a bunch of thieves and badly beaten, but he took it all in stride, feeling elated because he had finally been fully freed from the expectations of others. If you’re one of those people who had to fight your father or mother to become the person you really wanted to be, you’ll relate to him. After this incident, the Francis that so many of us have come to know and love, embarked wholeheartedly on the road to his true destiny.

Francis’s radical embrace of poverty wasn’t mainstream at the time (any more than it is today). The church itself was enormously rich, as were the people at its helm. This wealth didn’t sit well with Francis; he felt it diverged from the original ideals Christ had decreed. So, he went on a personal crusade to change this, visiting up to five villages every day. His charisma and the purity of his message drew thousands of adherents into his orbit. These became the very first Franciscan friars. He even preached to animals, how cool is that!

St Francis Assissi

By the time he died on October 3, 1226, at 44 years of age, many predicted he would be canonized as a saint. As his health deteriorated, he returned to Assisi to die. Knights were sent from Assisi to guard him and guide him safely home since, at the time, the body of a saint was viewed as a valuable relic that would bring glory to whichever town it rested. He was canonized as a saint on July 16, 1228, and in 2013, nearly 800 years later, the current Pope honored Saint Francis by taking his name and becoming Pope Francis.

Because of visions he had, or actions he took which were counter to the sensibilities of his times, some regarded Francis as crazy, while others considered him as close to Christ-like as they had ever encountered before. One example of his counter-cultural inclinations was his care for and kissing of lepers, whom he said were really Christ in disguise.

Clearly, Francis was an early activist. If you’re obsessed, as I am, by prejudice or unfairness or the assault on the natural world that’s happening, you will relate to Francis.

St Francis Assissi

Now another important point about Francis: Once he found his path, he was obsessed with nature and animals and the environment. He was so attuned to the animal world he could easily hear animals speak to him. If you’re totally into animals, like I am, I bet you can hear them too – I still remember the first time a horse ever spoke to me – I was on my boy, Influence’s back one hot morning, when I clearly heard him say “it’s too hot and my feet hurt.” I jumped off, looked him in the eye, and could see he was really laughing it up – horses have such a great sense of humor!

So back to Francis: his annual feast day is coming up soon, and it’s a custom in many cities to bring your dog, cat, hamster, horse, or you name it from the animal world, to the steps of a local church for a blessing. It’s a very cool ceremony, I used to ride my horse down to the local church, with the dogs following, for us all to get a blessing.

Francis totally wore himself out, fasting and living in rough conditions, in abandoned churches, without any heat. That’s why he died so young, at 44. Now, here’s a really interesting point: he got the stigmata of Jesus, that’s the wounds that Christ got on the cross, making him the first person to every have that happen. Wow, what an achievement!

So, how does Francis relate to our present-day environmental crisis?

For those of you who live in rural or suburban areas of the world, I’m sure you can remember driving in the countryside where your windshield was smeared and spattered with the massive remains of bugs that collided with you. How long has it been since you’ve encountered that? I simply can’t remember the last time it happened to me it has been so many years. That tells an ominous tale about what has been happening just during our brief lifetimes. Insects feed countless other creatures that fly, swim, crawl, and burrow. Given fewer insects, fewer species survive.

Back when I was a kid, it seemed like every few rhododendron leaves hosted a green tree frog. Not anymore! And garter snakes, salamanders, pollywogs, bullfrogs, dragonflies, and bees, not to mention rattlesnakes, were easy to find just about everywhere if you kept a sharp eye out for them.

The environmental crisis that we find ourselves in today didn’t happen overnight, but for a lot of us, it certainly has escalated enough that even we can remember multiple “before and after” scenarios that are disquieting.

For at least the past 75 years, environmentalists across the globe have been sounding the alarm about the destruction of Earth’s natural habitats.

St Francis Assissi
St Francis Assissi

You have certainly heard of some of the earliest ones: Rachel Carson, whose book “Silent Spring,” served as the first canary in the coal mine was a big wake-up call for all of us. First published in 1962, the book documented the damage that man-made pesticides were inflicting on the environment. Its publication is considered by numerous historians to be the genesis of the modern environmentalist movement in America.

Fast forward to today. Let’s visit with a few latter-day Saint Francis types from across the globe who have made saving the earth and all its inhabitants their life’s work:

Jane Goodall, the late Dian Fossey, and Dr. Mary Galdikas, have studied and worked closely with chimpanzees, mountain gorillas, and orangutans respectively in their natural habitats in Africa and Borneo, becoming the world’s foremost authorities on these great apes. They have documented each species’ social networks, amazing skillsets, intelligence, and the ever-present challenges that face them as humans continue to invade and negatively impact the places they count on to continue as viable species.

One gorilla, Koko, raised and taught sign language by Penny Patterson, made it clear to those of us who are paying attention that these magnificent beings experience pleasure, pain, sadness, and deprivation every bit as much as we do. When Koko’s pet kitten died, Koko became very sad and signed to Penny, “My heart hurts.” And when Fred Rogers of the show, Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, visited Koko, she immediately took off his shoes, as she had seen him do so many times on her favorite TV program. The look they shared with each other was priceless.

St Francis Assissi
St Francis Assissi

 

On September 23, 2019, Swedish teenage environmentalist, Greta Thunberg, spoke at the United Nations about climate change, angrily and tearfully accusing world leaders of half-measures and outright inaction. If you haven’t seen her speech, I encourage you to google it. In it, she makes no bones about the fact that the environmental crises we face right now are the direct result of the powers-that-be looking the other way or placating us with inadequate half-measures, despite the fact that what whole industries are doing to the earth right now is unsustainable — and lethal not just to us, but to every creature that shares the planet with us.

I’m sure David Attenborough is familiar to you: his documentaries have been shown on TV for years. Check out his Extinction: The Facts (2020), which depicts how the world is in the midst of a sixth mass extinction, where human poaching, illegal wildlife trade, and overfishing are pushing one million out of eight million species on the planet to the very edge of extinction.

St Francis Assissi

Hans Cosmas Ngoteya: This Tanzanian conservationist has lived in the Serengeti since his childhood and has always had a passion for wildlife and the environment. But instead of becoming a ranger or tour guide, he has opted to protect the Serengeti environment and its irreplaceable wildlife.

Julia Hill: Between 1997 and 1999, Julia Hill (nicknamed Butterfly) decided to live on the branches of a 180-foot redwood tree for over 700 days to keep loggers from cutting it down. The tree in question, which Julia named Luna, was estimated to be 1500 years old.

Considered among the most fiercely committed environmental leaders, Julia Hill has continued to fight environmental shortsightedness by being involved in the writing of a number of books on saving the environment. Interestingly enough, her passion for the environment began after her near-death experience in a car crash. Ever since, she has since been a devoted advocate for the environment and natural habitats.

These are just a handful of the environmentalists whose ethics and activities recall to mind Francis’s efforts to consider all God’s creation sacred and worth preserving.

And here’s a poem that is often set to music, Make Me a Channel for Your Peace, also called the St. Francis Prayer:

Make me a channel of your peace
Where there is hatred let me bring your love
Where there is injury, your pardon Lord
And where there is doubt true faith in You
Make me a channel of your peace
Where there is despair in life let me bring hope
Where there is darkness only light
And where there’s sadness ever joy
Oh, Master grant that I may never seek
So much to be consoled as to console
To be understood as to understand
To be loved as to love with all my soul
Make me a channel of your peace
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned
It is in giving to all men that we receive
And in dying that we are born to eternal life
Oh, Master grant that I may never seek
So much to be consoled as to console
To be understood as to understand
To be loved as to love with all my soul
Make me a channel of your peace
Where there’s despair in life let me bring hope
Where there is darkness only light
And where there’s sadness ever joy

In keeping with the spirit of St. Francis, we encourage you to take the time and explore which environmental cause really speaks to you. Whether it’s animal-related, global warming, whatever it may be…research which non-profit organization you think is worthy of your support and donate. Even if it’s a small amount. If we all play our part, together, we will move the needle forward.

Divine Feminine Divine Masculine

4 Individuals Who Balance the Divine Feminine and the Divine Masculine

by CelebritiesDivine FeminineFeatured

The Divine Feminine. Our nurturing, caring, championing Goddess force lives within all of us, beating as a beautiful source of warmth and love throughout our veins. She is wisdom. She is timeless. And she is present within all of us.

The Divine Masculine. Our protection. Our valor. Our wisdom that grants calm and gravitas through all of us, pulsing as divine light throughout our neurons. He too is wisdom. He too is timeless. And he is present within us all.

All of us have the ability to tap into our Divine Masculinity and Femininity. How? Perhaps by first seeing who among us has brought their own Divine Masculine or Feminine to the forefront. Let’s follow the path of those who radiate divinity.

Here are some examples of those that emanate these qualities.

  1. Malala Yousafzai

    Malala Yousafzai is a tireless advocate for women’s education, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, and a survivor. Raised in Pakistan, she chronicled her experiences living under the Taliban for the BBC – a fierce and brave voice against a repressive force of darkness. As she raised her voice, and with it the disinfectant of sunlight, darkness against her rose. Death threats became frequent. She remained undeterred. In 2012, she was shot after taking an exam. She was treated in Peshawar and the United Kingdom, where multiple surgeries saved her life.

    After the attack, she doubled down on her activism, opening schools for young women and creating education initiatives such as “books, not bullets.” For her activism, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014. Malala radiates the nurturing, empathetic drive to educate that is the hallmark of the Divine Feminine. And she carries the lion’s strength of the Divine Masculine. She is a tenacious and remarkable woman.

  2. Lin-Manuel Miranda

    Playwright, actor, musician, activist – Miranda is a multi-dimensional artist who uses his voice to raise up those who are underserved. His mega-musical Hamilton retold the story of America’s Founding fathers through contemporary rap and hip-hop music, casting minority actors in roles historically held by white men and women. Through this transformative act, Lin-Manuel Miranda allowed Black and Latino Americans of all ages to see their part in the American story.

    Additionally, Miranda has been a tireless activist for Puerto Rico, raising millions of dollars to help the island rebuild after hurricanes Maria and Irma. It’s clear that the fire of the Divine Masculine, and the wisdom of both divine energies flows through him, galvanizing him to champion those who need championing.

  3. MacKenzie Scott

    MacKenzie Scott is a philanthropist. Perhaps best known as the ex-wife of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, MacKenzie Scott has committed to giving away the majority of her wealth.

    What makes MacKenzie’s philanthropy remarkable is the speed at which she has initiated her philanthropy. In a single year, she donated 5.8 billion dollars to over 400 individual charities, partnering directly with these organizations to disburse much-needed funds. This stands in contrast with slower, more bureaucratic giving foundations which dole out funds slowly and publicly. MacKenzie, on the other hand, has shown that she will use her gifts for good, and she will do so with speed. Her zeal for philanthropy and fire of empathy are beautiful hallmarks of the Divine Feminine. I am excited to see what good she will continue to do!

  4. Greta Thunberg

    This woman is a fighter. She is a fierce, relentless voice for climate activism in a world that would rather drag its feet on the subject. She challenges politicians directly, shaming their attempts to conduct business as usual rather than face the existential threat that a changing climate presents. And she walks the walk – or sails the seas. Instead of flying, Ms. Thunberg has committed to climate-neutral transportation, using solar-powered sailing craft to cross the Atlantic.

    Her spirit reflects the Lion’s heart of the Divine Masculine, and also the urgent nurturing instinct of the Divine Feminine. She urges us to tend to the wounds of our mother – Mother Earth. And we should heed her words. Gaia, our Mother Earth, bears our scars. To reconnect with the light, we must heal the wounds we have wrought upon her.

 

The Great Divinities, Masculine and Feminine, are present in each of us in different proportions. We can all call upon their strengths and attributes to help us navigate our own tumultuous waters. More than that, we can call upon their strengths to help us help others. Just as the Divine shows us the way, we too can share the light to our brothers and sisters, helping the whole of humanity move forward into the light.

I’m so excited about our course on Awakening the Divine Feminine, and I am eager to share her mysteries with you. Click here to join us now to learn how you can activate this ancient and wondrous energy within your own being.

Woody Allen Family

The Arc of Justice

by AdvocacyCelebritiesDomestic AbuseFeaturedRelationshipsSocialTrauma and ViolenceWomen

Woody Allen indicted in the court of public opinion

I can’t imagine watching a Woody Allen movie these days.

Everywhere you look, there are fingerprints of a finely-hidden monster, scrawled like graffiti tags, pulsing in the background of every film.

Barely ten minutes into his old comedy, Bananas, he makes a joke about “advanced child molesting.” And that’s not the only instance, not by a longshot. His scripts are peppered with disturbing and obsessive jokes about abuse, sexual and familial. It’s a real red flag.

I can’t watch his movies anymore, but I did watch Allen v. Farrow – the new HBO docuseries that takes a much-needed critical eye to the story of Woody Allen’s abuse of Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow.

Now, many of you may not remember, but news of Woody Allen’s abuse hit the press back in 1992. At the time, this was a strange and salacious case, filled with “he said’s,” and “she said’s,” and “oh, she’s been coaching her,” and “this is blown out of proportion,” until the whole thing became a weird, unresolved footnote.

Woody Allen kept making movies and winning Oscars. Mia Farrow dropped out of the public eye. Then, in 2014, Dylan Farrow published a letter in The New York Times, pressing her case that Woody Allen had abused her. Again in 2018, she went public, detailing Allen’s abuse and asking, “Why hadn’t #MeToo come for Woody Allen?”

Now, three years later, here we are, with a withering documentary that strips away all of the “he said’s” and “she said’s” to reveal a stark and unflinching view of Woody Allen as a predator and a master manipulator. This is a chilling story of much more than rapacious pedophilia; it’s the story of the unbridled abuse of power.

It starts with Mia.

As I watched the documentary, I was struck by how insidiously Woody Allen dismantled Mia Farrow’s agency over their relationship. Over their thirteen years together, Woody cast Mia in thirteen of his movies. At first glance, that sounds innocuous. But then you realize that Woody Allen was Mia Farrow’s boss. He was writing and directing these movies, which meant he could nix her at any time. He changed her working arrangement so that his agent represented her. Think about that: her husband was now her boss, and she was required to use his agent.

He effectively had her under his thumb. Any money Mia Farrow made was through a Woody Allen project. This is a classic tactic of an abuser: cutting off independence.

Of course, as we know, it doesn’t stop with Mia Farrow. Through the documentary, it is clearly shown how Woody abused Dylan and then orchestrated a clever and forceful PR campaign to hamstring the investigation. To pre-empt the story of child abuse, Woody went public with his relationship with Soon-Yi Previn – Farrow’s other adopted daughter. This PR coup allowed Woody to reframe the abuse allegation as a form of retribution by Mia Farrow: the “spurned woman” who was trying to get revenge against Woody. For having sex with his other daughter. Seriously.

Look at that: Woody Allen turned an abuse allegation against himself into a weapon to hurl back at Mia Farrow. This is abuse of power on steroids.

It is difficult to parse out all of the wrinkles and turns in the investigation, but it becomes quite clear that the vaunted Yale-New Haven Hospital report, which proclaimed that Dylan Farrow was not a credible witness, was a sham. Nine times, a seven-year-old girl was forced to be interviewed by investigators about Woody Allen’s abuse to determine if her story had “any inconsistencies.”

Nine times!

If the story matches nine times out of nine, they cry “coaching.” If anything is inconsistent, they cry “she made the whole thing up.”

Tellingly, all the notes from each of these interviews were destroyed – something very much out of the ordinary. As this part of the documentary aired, it became quite clear that there were serious missteps in the execution of this report. While the documentary hints at potential cover-ups and potential political pressures by the Dinkins mayoral administration in New York City to quash the Allen inquiry, we don’t have the evidence . . . yet.

Woody Allen weaponized this Yale-New Haven Hospital report. He wielded it like a cudgel, suing Farrow for full custody of their children, and suggesting Farrow had coached Dylan and was an unfit mother. The judge, thank God, would have none of it; the court confirmed Mia as a fit parent and said Woody was a threat to Dylan Farrow’s safety.

Look at that. When Allen’s smoke-and-mirror defenses were put before a court of law, they came crumbling down. Which is why it was so disturbing that Woody Allen has never been tried and convicted. For the last thirty years, he’s used his celebrity power to dodge the court of law and has confused the court of public opinion.

This is why Allen v. Farrow is such an important documentary. Through this unflinching lens, the series dismantles Allen’s defenses on small screens across the country, cutting his defenders off at the knees.

It is said that the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice. Woody Allen has managed to keep that arc at bay for thirty years. But thanks to perseverance from Dylan Farrow, and the investigative journalism of Allen v. Farrow, that moral arc has broken back toward justice. Once again, the court of public opinion has become the court of last resort.

When Mia Farrow and Woody Allen were in the midst of separating, he told her that she’d never work in this country again. He blacklisted Mia Farrow for speaking out against his abuse. To this day, she still fears him.

Now, the truth has finally caught up to him. As a result, he’s not found an American distributor for his recent movies. His publishers have pulled out of book deals. I don’t know if he’ll ever see the inside of a jail cell, but, with this documentary, that’s okay, as sunlight is the best disinfectant. The light of truth is wiping away the obfuscation of his abuses against Mia and Dylan. And in bringing these charges to light, Allen’s power withers away.

I invite you all to watch Allen v. Farrow to fully understand how serious and credible these allegations are. Then shake your head that, once again, we, for a bit, let celebrity trump our own instincts for truth. Now, may the truth heal Mia Farrow and her children.

Bikram #MeToo

Bikram: Me Too Yet Again

by CelebritiesFeaturedMovie ReviewsTrauma and ViolenceWomen

Media moguls, Hollywood stars, Olympic doctors, sports coaches, priests, politicians (left, right, and center), Buddhist teachers, Indian gurus and yogis, are all mighty trees felled by the hatchet of the #MeToo movement in recent times. Strongmen have all wielded their patriarchal power—what they considered their god-given rights—over the lives of women and children (and the earth). But thanks to the growing willingness of women to speak truth to power, a global conversation about sexual violence and gender balance has sprung to life and continues to expand.

The latest of these grimy exposures can be found in the Netflix documentary, Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator, which documents the allegations of sexual misconduct against Bikram Choudhry, the founder of Bikram yoga. In the “paternalistic” yoga culture, it is presumed that the teacher knows what is best for his students, who simply follow whatever the teacher says, even if it means ignoring their own intuition that something isn’t right. Other influential yoga teachers, like Patthabi Jois, Manouso Manos, and John Friend, have all been accused of some form of sexual assault, from inappropriate sexual touching of students’ bodies during class, all the way up to, as in the instant story, rape.

It’s everywhere in the “spiritual world”

These yoga teachers join a long list of “spiritual” teachers who have abused their power and authority, who think that the rules don’t apply to them. 

Amrit Desai, the founder of the Kripalu Centre, had to resign over sexual allegations as the spiritual director of his own ashram. The charismatic leader Osho (Bhagwan Shree Ragneesh) was known as the “sex guru.” Accusations of sex with devotees have cropped up relentlessly over the years about Swami Muktananda, Swami Satchidananda, Swami Rama, Swami Kriyananda, and Sai Baba, not to mention Buddhist lamas and teachers like Sogyal Rinpoche and Lama Norlha. Even more disturbing are rumors swirling about both living and deceased teachers at what was formerly the leading publishing company in the US of all things spiritual. 

Yes, the list of those in my field who well deserve to be in the #MeToo spotlight is long and disappointing. How can so many supposedly “enlightened” spiritual teachers sexually abuse their followers? More importantly for us, however, is how we delude ourselves about abuse when it’s right square in front of us, in our families, in our office, in church, or even happening to us.

Women, still, are relentlessly trained by the culture to allow men the upper hand. “Obey” may have been taken out of modern marriage vows, but it’s still implicitly there. The voice of authority is most often male, and women, if they have any sense, do not routinely confront men head-on.

Perhaps you are new to the spiritual scene, and your expectation is that everyone is pure, holy, a worthy vessel of Spirit—especially your teacher. He oozes charm, claims a special connection to the divine, and inspires devotion. You can just feel the power radiating from him. He is in command, and you listen to what is said, especially to you personally. And if he touches you in a way that makes you uncomfortable, or invites you to maximize your spiritual potential and receive “secret teachings” by sharing his bed, in your zeal to be a good student, to advance, and yes, because it makes you feel special, you capitulate.

So back to Bikram: in terms of the basic facts, Choudhury’s story is all too familiar. He is largely responsible for yoga becoming commonplace in the United States, as he franchised his Los Angeles studio into a global network. At the height of his influence in the last 20 years, he was the darling of talk shows and media in general. His movement was called “McYoga,” as he made a fortune franchising his method.

As he rose to prominence, Bikram franchises became very desirable; Choudhury would hold massive nine-week training seminars around the world. According to litigation on file, he used these seminars as his way of finding, grooming, and forcing himself upon women whom he then raped.

Hopefully, the film will force Jackie Lacey, LA District Attorney, to stand up for women and bring Choudhury to justice, as well as encourage each one of us to confront truth in our own lives where ever we find it.

R Kelly

Hiding in Plain Sight

by CelebritiesEnergy HealingFeaturedMovie ReviewsTrauma and Violence

It used to be that sexual predators had it fairly easy. The culture of “boys will be boys,” the seeming harmlessness of a little pussy grabbing here and there, and the mindset of “she was asking for it” made it so men—especially big powerful men—could satisfy their lust for power. Typically, they enlisted their friends and associates to help procure their victims and then paid off anyone who squawked. All it took was a good lawyer to evade criminal charges and avoid any unpleasant consequences, while trampling over the rights of the women (and children), destroying their credibility, and their lives.

Then came the #MeToo movement. And it began to dawn on everyone that maybe the women who squawked weren’t just after money; that they were telling a sordid tale that needed to be heard, that needed to be believed. That there needed to be real life consequences for those who indulged in this disgusting behavior. And the media began to realize that there was a story here.

The women who came forth and told their stories of sexual assault are finally unmasking the normalcy surrounding abuse. This shows the deep flaws in our society that allow for the devastating trauma of this behavior and the attitudes that help it to flourish.

In just this past year, two documentaries have come out that dive head first into the complex realm of sexual assault and pedophilia. Surviving R. Kelly, Netflix’s six-part series on the R&B singer’s history of grooming and filming young girls for his sexual pleasure, has just recently exploded with its opening on Netflix. And Leaving Neverland, an HBO documentary in two parts, took us through the lives of two of the young boys who were involved with Michael Jackson. It just won a Primetime Emmy for Best Documentary.

In six hours, Surviving R. Kelly takes us through interviews with people who were there since the early 1970s, from the incest of his own childhood, to being nicknamed the “Pied Piper of R&B,” through the infamous sex tape scandal, the child pornography, the accusations, the survivors, the court cases, and lets us know that black girls do indeed matter. And it takes on all those who enabled this behavior. Kelly’s record label didn’t flinch when a videotape emerged and was widely circulated on the internet with their multimillion-dollar talent having sex with and urinating in the mouth of an underage girl. His entourage was complicit. Who was going to make a fuss about black children? As the Hollywood Reporter darkly quipped: “After all, it takes a village to raze a child.”

Women have been trying to come forth with their truth about Kelly for decades, and hard as it is to hear, you see in the documentary how all their accusations of predatory behavior and pedophilia and child pornography managed to slide off his back. Kelly not only got away with ongoing sexual assault, but also managed to have it all ignored by the mainstream media. But now people are listening to the testimonies, feeling the fury and pain, the guilt and self-blame, the regret, and the dogged determination to heal of the survivors. When the jury acquitted him at his first trial (one white male juror commenting that “who could believe [black] girls who dress like that,”) and his behavior got even more outrageous, the public started protesting at his concerts. It is a long overdue effort to validate what his victims have experienced, to let their stories be heard, to be treated with respect and the gravity the situation warrants.

And who now will have sympathy for Kelly? He, like all sexual predators, was once himself traumatized by childhood sexual assault. Just like Michael Jackson was undoubtedly sexually traumatized in his childhood. In all likelihood, so was Bill Cosby. So was I and thousands of innocent survivors that have asked me for help over the years. But we don’t repeat what was done to us, we’ve sought help and worked our way through the memories of those horrific experiences. Note that the men spoken of here are/were major celebrities. And celebrity has its own “get out of jail free” card. These are major talents, and there will always be those who believe the person is as lily white as his gifts. Don’t kid yourself. Talent is never an excuse for hideous behavior; it doesn’t counteract the monster inside, hell bent on devouring its prey.

Kelly is currently in custody, in Chicago, facing multiple state and federal charges of various sexual assault crimes. It’s about time.

Predatory behavior is around, be on guard for it. Parents tell their children to beware of strangers, but how about Uncle Joe, or, for God’s sake, your priest or therapist, or the doctor or coach for your child’s sports team (watch At the Heart of Gold: Inside the USA Gymnastics Scandal, another documentary that premiered on HBO this year). They are hiding in plain sight. And the more that stories come out, and are believed, and are acted upon with real-life consequences, the harder it will be for them to hide.

Join me Thursday, September 26, at 1:00pm PDT on Facebook Live for a panel discussion of this timely topic. Let your voice be heard in protest of this kind of brazen behavior. Let’s all stand up, be heard, and be part of the change!

2018MothersDay

A Thoroughly Modern Mother’s Day

by CelebritiesDivine FeminineFeaturedRelationshipsSocial ActivismWomen

What Mom Really Wants: Peace, Love and Understanding

Bloomingdale’s flagship store in New York City is honoring Mother’s Day with something a little different this year. Instead of the usual spring fashions, their windows will showcase the good works of five New York moms in “Magnanimous Moms, Moms Who Make a Difference and Moms with a Heart.” Consumerism, move over – it’s time for what the world needs right now: the loving activism that mothering is all about.

Honoring activist mothers turns out to be in perfect keeping with the energy that started Mother’s Day to begin with. Contrary to what you might be thinking, Mother’s Day in the U.S. was not founded by the florists, the candy shops, or the greeting card companies. The holiday was first celebrated in 1908 when Anna Jarvis held a memorial for her mother at St Andrew’s Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia. Anna’s mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis, had been a peace activist who cared for wounded soldiers on both sides of the American Civil War and created Mother’s Day Work Clubs to address public health issues. Anna’s campaign to create an official Mother’s Day succeeded in 1914 when Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the second Sunday in May a national holiday to honor mothers.

Giving cards, candy, and flowers on Mother’s Day is sweet, but look deeper into the activist heart of the holiday. What do today’s mothers really want? They want the same thing that mothers throughout time have always wanted—a better world for their children. Each of the activist moms being honored in the Bloomingdale’s window found a cause that mattered to her and took action. Each of them leads a philanthropic organization that they created to make things better.

Bloomingdale’s didn’t have to look far to find these caring mothers: Agnes Gund founded Studio in a School in 1977, in response to city and state budget cuts that were threatening art education programs in public schools in New York. Gund is a legendary arts patron known for supporting a variety of social justice causes.

Chelsea Clinton’s Too Small to Fail promotes the importance of early brain and language development and empowers parents with tools to talk, read and sing with their young children from birth. Christy Turlington Burns founded the global maternal health organization, Every Mother Counts, dedicated to making pregnancy and childbirth safe for every mother. Kim Sweet is Executive Director of Advocates for Children of New York, whose mission is to ensure high-quality education for New York students from low-income backgrounds. Elizabeth Bryan-Jacobs is an upstate New York artist who pioneered her “Spread Your Wings” art-making program at Dell Children’s Hospital in Austin, Texas, where it broke all fundraising records and “brought out the angel in everyone.” Think children in wheelchairs painting brightly colored feathers for an enormous pair of wings!

The possibilities for celebrating Mother’s Day with social activism are truly boundless. One thing about today’s world—there is no scarcity of vital, life-saving work to be done. Whether the realm is health, education, justice, government, environment, animal welfare, the arts and whether the venue is local, national, or global, finding a cause that speaks to your heart is easy. Making a better world is an equal opportunity job with room for everyone. In addition to the local public schools, day care centers, health clinics, libraries, and senior centers that could probably use your in-person assistance, there are national and international organizations ready to welcome your support. Heifer International out of Little Rock, Arkansas, works to end poverty and hunger and build community with donations of farm animals (and bees) around the world. Habitat for Humanity (think President and Mrs. Jimmy Carter) works locally and internationally to build homes for low-income families. Doctors Without Borders provides humanitarian medical care wherever it is needed most. Amnesty International supports human rights efforts. The Sierra Club works to preserve the environment and the World Wildlife Fund? Their name says it all.

Taking loving action in the world seems like the perfect way to warm a mother’s heart and honor the day that is dedicated to mothers everywhere. Everything in this world is connected to and dependent upon everything else. To honor our connectedness is to honor life itself and the Creator of all. Whatever actions you take to provide loving service in the world will send forth pulses of healing energy. When you choose a way to serve that matches your passionate interests, it brings joy to you and to Mom and to all the moms who pray for the health, safety, freedom, and happiness of their children. Think about Ann Reeves Jarvis, Civil War nurse, who did not discriminate between North and South in her healing mission. There couldn’t be a better symbol of the stuff that needs healing today than the American Civil War. Thank you, Ann Jarvis, and daughter Anna, for the loving spirit that inspired Mother’s Day. It’s just what the world needs now.

If you’re interested in promoting feminine values like those you read about in this blog, you’ll love my course, Living Out Loud: Activate your sacred feminine energy and connect to your soul’s wisdom, so you can live a life of beautiful radiance.

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Cosby Conviction a Victory for Women and Men

by AdvocacyCelebritiesEnergy HealingFeaturedSocialWomen

It’s nothing less than a seismic cultural shift, perhaps the greatest our generation will ever witness.

Twelve men and women comprising the jury in a Norristown, Pennsylvania courtroom did the unthinkable on Thursday, convicting Bill Cosby, now 80 years old, of drugging and sexually molesting Andrea Constand in 2004. The verdict was met with cries of relief and joyful celebration. It changes everything, and not just for women, but for everyone. Its significance cannot be overstated, because this is about more than any one man, any one case, or any one movement.

#MeToo will garner much of the credit for changes in attitude that brought the man down. The movement was certainly a catalyst, and deserving of credit, but what’s bigger this time is that it’s about all of us. Understanding it requires putting the man, his groundbreaking life, the broken and shattered lives of millions of women throughout history, along with the movement, into context.

Bill Cosby was nothing less than an American icon; wildly popular stand-up comic that broke ground in the 50’s and 60’s and never stopped. The first African-American to star on a national network’s television series, I Spy in 1965. He won Emmy’s, three consecutively.

“The Cosby Show,” a staple on NBC from 1984-1992, featured America’s first affluent and educated black family. Here he became America’s Dad. With “I Spy” some had called Cosby the Jackie Robinson of TV, and there was truth to that. In “The Cosby Show” he became the black Marcus Welby and during its run there was no bigger star on TV.

Cosby’s wealth and influence grew along with his fame. He was revered, respected, trusted and handsomely paid. His voice could be heard on Saturday morning children’s television, and for years, he was the famous spokesperson for no less an American institution than Jello Pudding.

Now, his name and face are infamous, and he has become a national pariah synonymous with something evil and wrong that has gone on for the past 5,000 years + of patriarchy. Molesting Andrea Constand was no isolated event. Dozens of accusers had made similar charges over decades against the comedian, television star, and professor, that had embodied what we considered good and admirable in our society for over half a century.

Constand’s case, however, was the only one where the statute of limitations hadn’t yet run. She deserves our thanks and admiration for her courage and commitment to finding justice.

And so, last Thursday, in a retrial after a hung-jury couldn’t reach a verdict in a trial last year, America’s most famous dad became America’s most infamous felon.

The thunder of hooves you hear is the stampede of corporations, universities, the rich, the famous, and the rest of us, cutting financial and emotional ties with a man that had been part of American life for most of our lives. The silence is the absence of his sitcom reruns no longer airing.

Women around the world are celebrating and this is proper given the conviction of a man of such stature that did unconscionable evil.

What Harvey Weinstein ignited fueled movements and a meteoric cultural recalibration. Cosby’s conviction is the best worst-case example of how society’s bullet-proof protections for sexual predators have disappeared; perhaps, at last, forever. What was once okay is no longer okay and will no longer be ignored and swept under the rug. At last, a woman’s voice can be heard.

The movement, like the Cosby conviction, should be considered not only a game-changing, needle-moving event, but also a moment and opportunity for national healing.

After experiencing sexual abuse as a child, I’ve worked through it all my life as a writer, speaker, and spiritual teacher. I wrote my first book, Truth Heals, because healing should be our highest priority. Even now. Especially now.

The verdict isn’t just a victory for #MeToo, and it’s much more than a victory for women. It’s a victory for all of us, women, and men, too.

Equality of rights, opportunities and treatment under the law – for everyone.

Perhaps it’s time for #MeToo to consider a companion movement.

We could call it #AllofUs.

We’d love to read your comments.

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It’s Movie Time!

by CelebritiesHealthMovie Reviews

Out West, where I live when I’m not traveling, we’ve been having an unparalleled heat wave. Sneakers are actually melting in parts of the Southwest, and Death Valley (well-named) was at 130 degrees! Experts are predicting some of the hottest weather ever. (global warming in spades for those still doubtful folks) Here in southern California, I’ve found the best solution for getting through this record-breaking heat: go to the movies!

I totally enjoyed White House Down, an action-packed and completely absurd thriller about terrorists invading the Oval Office while the hero (played by Channing Tatum) saves the world single-handedly. It’s great fun watching “president” Jamie Foxx kick a terrorist and shout: “Get your hands off my Jordans!” It’s definitely a laugh-yourself-silly movie, perfect for getting your mind off the weather and whatever else may be keeping you down.

Plus, it’s worth taking a drive to your nearest indie theater to see Unfinished Song. It’s quite possibly the best movie I’ve seen this year (and I see a lot of movies)! Terrance Stamp stars as a difficult old man with a wife, the fantastic Vanessa Redgrave, with cancer who sings with a local group of retirees. Sounds depressing but isn’t: these two veteran actors in their 70’s are at their peak and turn in award worthy performances. Stamp plays with great subtle feeling a man who is so closed off to life that he is beyond numb, while Redgrave infuses her character with khumor and warmth. Break out the Kleenex and be prepared to really feel – all in all it’s a real heart-warmer of a movie and a celebration of life.

Heading out of the heat and into another indie movie, I saw Twenty Feet from Stardom, based on the true story of the backup singers behind some of the greatest musical legends. I love movies with great music, and this is one of them! With a cast that includes Bette Midler, Lou Adler, Darlene Love, Mick Jagger, Sheryl Crow, and all the gal backup singers, how could you go wrong? It is also a poignant examination of the question of why some make it to stardom and others do not.

So kick back and enjoy your summer. And remember there’s nothing like an air-conditioned theatre on a hot afternoon. Hope to see you at the movies!

 

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Shame on Him, Not on You

by CelebritiesSocial ActivismTruth Heals

Powerful men in the public eye seem to think they can have their way and get away with it all. But eventually they get caught, and the litany of their lies and excuses is embarrassing. Just look at the apologies offered by Anthony Weiner, DSK (the Frenchman vs. the hotel maid), John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, Arnold Schwarzenagger, Bill Clinton, and a host of others over the years.

Some broke the law, like Edwards using campaign money to fund his trysts, while others simply lost the public trust and broke their wives’ hearts. These woman had to deal with public humiliation as well as with their private suffering over their husbands’ betrayals.

Read my blog, “Weiner: Shame on Him, Not on Huma,” in the Huffington Post at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-king/weinershame-on-him-not-on_b_873436.html for more on this topic and be sure to comment on it there; would love to bring this shameful behavior more into the open, where it can be healed.