It’s not about relaxation. It’s about awakening. Meditation often conjures up lukewarm ideas in the mind of the public: deep relaxation and vegetable soup. If this is what you think, be ready for surprises: meditation can be a dramatic raising of the voltage of consciousness  awakening. For many people, sitting still doesn’t sound all that exciting, and the term ‘enlightenment’ is vague at best. People want less stress and to ‘be more’. But how? We all find our own paths. Mine involved joining a summer building program with a meditation school located in the Australian Outback. In the midst of jackhammers, skilsaws and the untamed song of kookaburras, meditation moved from a philosophy into a call to awaken. Working from the third eye and building energetic subtle-body muscles (such as the hara or lower dan tien of martial arts), meditation became useful, applicable and dare I say..sexy. The Clairvision

It’s that time again, where the air is turning a little crisp, after the warmth of the afternoon sun fades away. The hi octane summer energy is still here, but we can all sense whats on the horizon: an invitation to slow down. What wonderful inspiration to find nourishment through our green friends, in the form of a warm cup of tea. The art of tea preparation can be a simple pleasure to engage the senses and the mind in a ritual of nurturance. When using the tea plant, Camellia sinensis, such as white, green, or fermented (black) tea, a short steep is required ranging from seconds to several minutes. Proper water temperature is another factor to consider when using various preparations of the Camellia plant, and I will dive into the specifics of this another time. When using an herb to make tea, bring the water to a boil

men sharing deeply Men, Vulnerability and Power By Tom Fuller, M.A. I’ve been leading men’s groups in Portland for two years and what continually keeps coming up is the topic of vulnerability. Sometimes I bring it up and sometimes other men bring it up, but it seems to be what men want to be talking about. Many men are coming to understand that healthy vulnerability yields some lost key to inner balance and well-being. There are two components to this process. One is the increased emotional well-being that a man experiences when he makes friends with parts of himself that have been previously defended against or hidden from view. The other is that men find so much more richness in relating with each other when they are open then when they are relating in closed or defensive ways. What’s driving this is that men want to be closer with other

What can help us survive the holidays with our mental and physical health intact? Celebrate the HolyDays, rather than the holi-daze. Let’s remember what we’re here for. The year is winding down into the dark times. Our bodies are asking for more sleep, warm food, cuddling with our loved ones. Can you feel it? As Mary Oliver puts it ‘… let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.’ Sometimes we can interpret that as certain types of food or other comforts, but what are these comforts representing? Often they are replacing more basic needs that we may have lost touch with. The need for touch. The need for story time with our community. The need for quiet and reverence. The need for  intimacy. Not sex. Intimacy. The need to cry and laugh as a release for the tensions built up in this stressful world we live in.

There is an itch that many men live with that is really hard to scratch. There is a disconnect between who we feel ourselves to be in our deep nature and how we find ourselves acting in the world. A lot of times, even the things coming out of our mouths feel like they are not really coming from us! In order to create more congruence in ourselves, we need to become more familiar with who we are deep inside. Once we do that, our words and actions will make more sense to us. We will be living closer to our core! This discrepancy between who we are and how we act can contribute to confusion in relationships between couples. There are two ways to go about fixing this: one is to have discussions with your partner, and the other is to have discussions with yourself. It is generally good