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Creativity.  It is one of my favorite things in life.  I’m not speaking about artistic creativity here, but about creating in our lives.  In fact, I was drawn to the liberation theology of New Thought, and specifically, Science of Mind, because somewhere along the line I learned that the philosophy taught one how to create one’s life.  Or how to recreate one’s life.  At the time, I was also searching for a god that wasn’t a religious god, and in Science of Mind I found both.  From the first class I took, I was off and running into a new way of life that continues to support me, reward me and fulfill me, each and every day.  Every day I create anew.  I do this by connecting and by examining my beliefs and thoughts, and changing them when necessary.

It gets pretty heavy does it at times.

So I’ve learned that it is important for me to regularly play.  Just play.  Play is why I have rocks in my life.  Play is why I have a garden in my life.  Play is why I have horses in my life.  Play is why I have dogs and cats in my life.  

Play is a big part of creativity as well.  Play can help us lighten up and change our perspective.  Changing our perspective is what coaches call reframing.  It simply means we view an event in our life differently, so that we can heal and move on and, well, play more.  

In the book The Creative Act: A Way of Being, by Rick Rubin, he says, “In play, there are no stakes. No boundaries. No right or wrong. No quotas for productivity. It’s an uninhibited state where your spirit can run free.”

How do you play?  Play is part of living Fearlessly Feral you know.  Gotta have the play time in there.  If you think you don’t know how to play, watch a little kid play.  Then go outside and do what that little kid did.  Kids play.  They just play.  It is suggested that we be as little kids.  Not all the time.  I’m not suggesting immaturity.  I’m suggesting regularly taking time out to play in and with something that you enjoy. For me it’s rocks and horses and gardening and dogs and cats.  For you it might be something entirely different.  Some folks like to build model airplanes.  Some folks like to take old cars and restore them.  Some folks like to make stuff out of wood.  Find or create your playground and go play in it.

As we approach the end of one year and the beginning of another, I believe it to be quite natural that we turn to a bit of reminiscing and review, along with contemplation and setting of intentions.  

For me, on the outside, 2023 was filled with 9 talks, 5 workshops and 45 weddings.  My podcast had 368 downloads last year, and I produced 10 new episodes in 2023.  I also had the privilege of serving another community as Interim Minister, wrapping up that assignment in June. 

I entered my first shooting competition this year and won a prize!  

I spent six months in 2023 venturing into the world of online dating.  I went on a lot of dates, met a lot of interesting people, and learned that I am no longer willing to settle.  Still single over here and happy with that.

I have been working on my third book for a couple of years now and quite frankly, I was stuck.  The book began life as a daily reader and it just wasn’t coming out.  I had an epiphany while cleaning the horses’s stalls one day, and realized I needed to change the focus and emphasis of the book.  A few edits and tweaks later and now the book is coming along nicely.  It will be called “How to Live Fearlessly Feral” and will be a deep dive into spiritual practices and principles.  Complete with monthly recommendations for leaning into, embodying and applying a different practice and principle each month.  It will have four main sections, and I’m happy to report the first three sections are complete!  

I think my greatest accomplishment this year has been in horseback riding.  I got diagnosed with PTSD when I got sober at 32 years old, and while I have experienced years of symptom free living it reared its head after a series of major changes and it has affected my horse back riding more than anything else.  And no, it has nothing to do with the horse and everything to do with PTSD.  I had symptoms in other areas as well, but they were strongest with the horses back riding.  With the patient and excellent work of an equine coach, I have been able to progress to the point where I am once again enjoying riding.  I’ve gone from not being able to even get on to being able to ride again with joy.  And that is wonderful.

One cannot do spiritual practices on a daily basis without having inner shifts and I experienced several of those.  I am grateful for all of them and today I live life more confident and feeling whole.  And I am grateful for that as well.   

Now comes to good part:  creation of 2024.  And here is where we leave the past behind.  We move forward into the future and use the practices of self awareness, connection, contemplation and setting of intentions to create what we want to create in the coming year.  Meditation is good for clarity if you are unsure as to what you want life to look like in this coming year.  Those practices exist for a reason and you can use them to your benefit.

This is the beauty of this teaching called New Thought.  We are at choice.  We are powerful.  In fact, another name for New Thought is Liberation Theology and I love that!  Use those spiritual practices.  Do them consistently and persistently and watch your life become liberated from limitations like fear and shame and guilt and all that other nasty stuff.  Do those spiritual practices persistently and consistently and watch your ability to create grow.  

We create by being at peace with the old and being able to leave it behind.  This creates a void, and we use spiritual practices to decide what we want to create.  I mentioned them already.  Self awareness, connection, contemplation and setting of intentions.

None of this New Year’s resolutions stuff.

By the way, those spiritual practices I keep mentioning?  They come in handy in other ways as well.  Yes, we have power.  Yes, we are at choice.  But none of what we teach guarantees that shit won’t happen.  It can and it does.  And it does so not because we thought it into existence.  Sometimes shit just happens.  Don’t go all shame based and blame yourself because shit happened.  That’s where our power comes in.  

Back to the future (see what I did there?). We get to set things up the way we want to set them up. Mary Oliver asked, “what is it you want to do with your one wild and crazy life?”  When you know the answer to that, also know that you can create that.

On tap for 2024:  publication of my third book, continued podcasting, giving talks and doing workshops.  More horse back riding, more competitive shooting. More speaking out against Christian nationalism, racism, misogyny, and politicians who believe in those things, including and especially that orange menace that is threatening our very democracy.  I have some exciting things on tap for 2024 and I can’t wait to see how it all unfolds!

This is the perfect time of year to begin anew.  To release the past with gratitude and forgiveness, if necessary, and to start fresh with new ideas and dreams, knowing you have within you a power that you can use.  I can’t wait to see how it all unfolds for you as well.

And I leave you with this quote by Hunter S. Thompson:  "Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in one pretty and well preserved piece, but to slide across the finish line broadside, thoroughly used up, worn out, leaking oil, and shouting GERONIMO!!!" 

This is the perfect time to move within and create a new consciousness of compassion, faith and unconditional love.
You can use this affirmation yourself. Remember that thought plus feeling equals power, so when you are thinking these words, or speaking them to yourself, recall what it feels like to experience compassion for something, and feel that. Recall what faith feels like, and feel that. Recall a time in your life when you have experienced unconditional love for someone, and feel that.

And so ends another month.  As we move closer to the end of 2020, I sense a new hope, a new light, coming into the consciousness of the human race.  I see evidence of this everywhere: some people are putting up their Christmas decorations early; others are speaking positively about the future.  Kindness is returning, compassion is being renewed.  There is a thing called consciousness, and it refers to our entire being:  our beliefs, values, attitudes, which lead to our words and actions.  The thing about consciousness is that it is much bigger than you or I.  Because we are all connected, there is a group consciousness.  A human race consciousness.  And everything begins within.  As within, so without.  What we think about expands.  All action is born in thought.  And this is true on an individual level as well as on a group level.  This past year, I’ve gone into hiding.  The consciousness I saw emerged, I will confess, frightened me in ways I never thought I could fear again.  I became greatly disillusioned with my fellow human beings.  My trust in the basic goodness of humanity was damaged.  Yes, I lost faith and I lost hope.  And I know that others felt the same.  In this way we succumbed to the group consciousness.  But with this new hope and this new light, together we can renew our faith, enlarge our hope, and move once again into knowing that love is stronger than hatred.  Some of you have joined me in November for an annual spiritual practice of deepened gratitude, listing 10 different things each day for which we are grateful. I have heard from some of you, who have reported that it was difficult to come up with 300 things for which to be grateful.  Some of you have reported difficulty in being grateful for the things that truly matter, those inner things like faith and compassion and trust and hope.  I too experienced this difficulty.  I’ve never experienced this kind of difficulty with my gratitude practice, and I’ve been doing this annual practice for decades.  Part of it is the natural process of grief that comes with loss.  The truth is there has been much loss for me in the last seven years.  But most of my own difficulty with the practice came from my own loss of trust in my fellow humans to do the loving compassionate thing. I’ve persevered. I’ve persisted.  I know enough to know that consistency and persistence in spiritual practice always pays off.  It is like one of my old meditation teachers told me once:  we sit, no matter what.  So I persisted, no matter what.  And slowly, surely, my own consciousness is once again morphing back into something I can live with.  And greater.  Because now I’ve seen things.  I’ve witnessed with horror what my fellow humans are capable of.  So my new consciousness, my new faith and trust and hope and love and compassion that is emerging is greater than ever.  I’m still cautious.  Maybe I’m not only grieving the loss of my husband and all the other physical losses, but also the loss of a certain sort of innocence.  What I know is that the new consciousness that is being born in me will result in a new person.  A wiser one.  A more peaceful one.  A more compassionate one.  And because we are all connected, I know that this new consciousness is also being born in you, and in our neighbors.  For Christians, this is the beginning of Advent, a time of joyous expectation.  In the New Thought world, this is, or can be, also a time of joyous expectation.  A time to expect a return to compassion, because we are compassionate ourselves.  A time to return to trust because we ourselves are trustworthy.  A time to return to unconditional love, because we love ourselves that way.  A time to once again simply know that all is well and all will continue to be well.  Because of the group consciousness, if enough of us do this thing, this changing of our own consciousness, together we will change the consciousness of the human race. So this December, my spiritual practice will move from a daily gratitude list to daily affirmation of love, trust, hope, faith, compassion and joy.  Won’t you join me?
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November closed out with 10 weddings, two of which included photography.  One wedding cancelled due the bride getting COVID.  December brings with it 7 weddings, 3 of which include photography, and a return to more ministerial work:  I will be giving one talk in December, and opening negotiations for my next Interim Ministry assignment, to begin sometime in early 2021.  The end of a sabbatical for me.  You can expect podcasts to resume as well.


I believe life was meant to be enjoyed.  You know that phrase in the Bible, where it says to be as a child?  I take that to heart.  No, I am not speaking of hanging on to immaturity.  I am speaking of enjoying life as children do.  They move through their days in awe and wonder and joy.  Sometimes I look at my life and the awe almost brings me to my knees.  I move through the day and appreciate the beauty of whatever is surrounding me.  I feel joy that I can do the things I like to do. A friend told me I could have fun inside a paper bag, and I can.  That is joy.  I have the ability to find the joy in anything because I have cultivated that joy.  But sometimes finding the joy becomes a bit difficult, and that’s what this post is about.  It’s about the reasons why you might also be finding it difficult to find the joy, and what to do about it. 
I know why it is difficult for me right now to feel the joy.  Let me see if I can explain it to you.  It has to do with a phenomenon called group consciousness.  This phenomenon states that since we are all connected, part of a great whole, the trend of our thinking will affect others, and their thinking will affect us.  I learned about this phenomenon while studying a spiritual and philosophical way of life called New Thought, which developed by this very phenomenon of group consciousness back in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  All of a sudden people in separate parts of the world were all speaking and writing about the same concepts without ever connecting with each other. One of the concepts those early New Thought pioneers were speaking and writing about is Oneness.  They were convinced that we are all connected on very deep levels, part of a great One.  Ernest Holmes was one of those pioneers and created a New Thought teaching called Science of Mind.  It is one of several, and it just happens to be the one I follow and teach.  Ernest Holmes is the one who came up with the term group consciousness, but he isn’t the only one who has studied, and strived to prove, the concept.  Science has proved it.  I will never forget the excitement I felt when I took my first quantum physics class in grad school and discovered that what Holmes had been saying had been proven true by science.
Quantum physics is one of those sciences and they have proven it in repeated experiments.  If you don’t believe me, look up the observer effect.
Another item of proof:  you may have heard of the hundredth monkey effect.   Way back in the 1950s some scientists did a study and discovered that if a certain learned behavior reached 100 monkeys, all of a sudden that behavior jumped across the water and monkeys on nearby islands, who never had physical contact with the first group of monkeys, began doing the same behavior.
One more, this one from an author named Terry Patten, in his book called a New Republic of the Heart:  “The popularity of ideas like the “tipping point” or the hundredth-monkey stories are not simply tall tales. As already mentioned, Ken Wilber has pointed to the claim, rooted in the historical evidence of the late 1700s and the American Revolution, that when 10 percent of the population grows into a genuinely higher structure of consciousness, the nature of public agreements and power exchanges can be restructured according to a higher set of (postmonarchical, constitutional, democratic, meritocratic, free-enterprise) rules.”
Unfortunately, that phenomenon works both ways, higher consciousness and lower consciousness.  If 10% of the population is living a lower state of consciousness, guess what?  We are going to experience evidence of that.  Such evidence looks like anger, judgement, close mindedness, rigidity, polarity.
I believe we in America are in a lower state of consciousness right now, and those of us who are aware of such things and believe in group consciousness feel it.  
It may feel like grief.  I’m sure you’ve felt grief before.  All those things you feel when you experience a loss.  Things that Elizabeth Kubler Ross identified as stages of grief:  Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.  I know I’ve felt all of these in the last couple of years.  I bounce around these feelings like one of those giant beach balls being tossed about by people who don’t seem to care where the ball lands or what, or who, it bounces off of.  
Now, you may be thinking that this all sounds sort of victimy.  To be subject to the consciousness of the populace?  Yep, victim.  Fortunately, we are at choice as to how to respond to this.  We can choose not to buy into the polarity, the judgement, the rigidity, the anger and the close mindedness.  
If you are anything like me, you might wake up some mornings just feeling wrong.  No apparent reason for it.  Just wrong.  There is a reason, it’s the group consciousness.  Here’s where we can, and should, choose differently. 
I believe we have a responsibility to choose differently.  Because to give in to the group consciousness means to accept the shit that is going on, and that I will not do.  And neither should you.  If you believe that life is meant to be lived in joy, then you will also take responsibility for being one of the hundred monkeys.  Or one of the 10%.  Do not buy into the group consciousness.  Refuse to live from a base of fear.  Instead contemplate what it could be like, feel like, to live a life based in love.  Refuse to wrap yourself in a cocoon of suspicion.  Instead, realize that all that suspicion simply shuts out any possibility of joyful living, and strive to be vulnerable.  Yes, I said vulnerable.  There is a way to be vulnerable without opening ourselves up to harm.  The vulnerability I’m speaking of is a sort of open mindedness.  A willingness to explore a different way to be, so as to experience a better life.   Refuse to judge, condemn, belittle.  Instead cultivate compassion for yourself and others.  Deny the sadness that you feel and replace it with happiness.  Refuse to judge anyone, for anything.  Refuse to shame other people.  Refuse to claim a side.  Refuse to be angry.  Refuse to be close minded.  Instead, cultivate compassion.  Nurture open mindedness.  Actively pursue an attitude of gratitude.  Explore different ways of communicating so that you can have healthy conversations with people who think differently than you do.
If enough of us do these things, we can and will change the world.  

Yesterday was Chinese New Year. It is the year of the pig. Unfortunately I have no pig photos for you. I even know a pig. His name is Winston. Winston apparently likes his belly scratched, but he is also a bit wary of strangers, so I have yet to experience the pleasure of scratching his rather large belly. The last time I saw Winston, his mama had put him on a diet and Winston was not a happy pig.

However, it is said that most pigs are happy, as well as good tempered, kind hearted, positive and loyal. And prosperous. I guess that accounts for Winston needing to go on a diet. He has an abundance of food!

If you are wondering whether this is going to just be a rambling about pigs, not to worry. I’ve got a point; two actually. It’s just taking me a while to get there. First point: You get a do-over. It is New Year’s all over again. How are you doing on those resolutions which never work? Take the do-over. Or did you take my advice and set intentions instead of resolutions?

Either way, you get a do over. Thank the Chinese for it.

The other point of my post is the prosperity piece. Pigs are a symbol of prosperity. Now, I did a bit of research, as I like to do, and discovered that this prosperity thing only applies under certain conditions. If if you were born in a year of the pig, watch out. Apparently, not so much prosperity coming for you. What are those years you say? According to Wikipedia, they are: 1947, 2031, 1995, 1971, 1923, 1935, 2007, 2019, 1983, 1959. Don’t ask about the 2031. I have no clue.

But here’s the thing. I’m a Science of Mind New Thought kind of person. This means I believe in the power of thought and the Law of Attraction. This means that if we set an intention for prosperity, then prosperity we shall have. Of course, there is a lot of other stuff that goes into that, but I’m just going to leave that right here for you.

Today, you get a do-over on New Years, and you can rely on the pig. Go for it. Prosperity.

I've had so many people ask me about a workbook or class to accompany my book A New Thought Journey through the 12 Steps. I've done numerous workshops on the key elements, but nothing I've done up to this time is as thorough as this workbook.

Designed to do either on your own, or with a group, this workbook will facilitate within you changes that lead to freedom, joy and happiness in your life, unlike any you've ever known before.

Get the workbook, get the book if you don't already have it, and begin.

And let me know what you are thinking and feeling as you move through it!

Live Wild and Free is the online educational arm of Center for Spiritual Living Carson City.  LW&F features podcasts, videos, online classes, self directed classes and live online discussions about practical applications of spiritual principles.

You can support LW&F in several ways:

  1.  Do you have a New Thought book?  If so, submit it for a future interview!
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I hope  you enjoy the interview!

All around me people are announcing that mercury is in retrograde.  Admittedly, I'm not hearing  these announcements, I'm seeing them in print.  But the impression I am getting is that if they were saying this, it would be said with the same feeling tone as that old ditty:  "THE SKY IS FALLING!  THE SKY IS FALLING!"

I wasn't sure why, so I looked it up.  Now I know why I didn't know what it meant that mercury was in retrograde:  it's astrology.

Now, before you think this is going to be an attack on astrology, it isn't.  I think the human habit of attacking something we don't believe in or disagree with is abhorrent.  But that is the subject for another blog post.

I've never been a fan of astrology, even though I know a lot of people who are.  Here is why I've never been a fan of it:  because it is one more example of basing our decisions on something outside of ourselves.  I feel the same way about anything that tells us to ignore our own truth and instead follow the dictates of another.  Traditional religion as it is currently taught does this.  So does most of the New Age stuff.  I love New Thought because it teaches us to go within, know our own truth, and proceed accordingly.  And by the way, I love candles, scented oils, and even crystals and all sorts of other New Age gimmicks.  But I'm not going to base my decisions on them.  They are just nice things.  And sometimes excellent reminders of my own truth, which I discovered by going within.

Back to this current retrograde Mercury thing.  Instead of just ignoring it, I decided to ask, what is it all about?  And got this link for an answer:  https://www.astrologyzone.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-mercury-retrograde/

I read the article.  Seems we aren't supposed to make important decisions, sign contracts or have elective surgery during this time.

Sigh.  Really?  Ok.  Here's the deal about important decisions:  I know that I shouldn't be making them under duress.  In other words, don't make decisions when angry, grieving, sad or excited.  Settle down, go within, meditate, know your truth.  Then make the decision.

Here's the deal about contracts:  If it is time to sign a contract, I am certainly not going to tell the other person involved in the deal that I need to wait until mercury is out of retrograde to sign it.

And I don't believe in elective surgery, so that is a no brainer for me.

My point here is this:  We have an entire culture of people who seem to base who and what they are on outside things.  Everything from doing what your peers do to blindly  following religious dogma to allowing what the planets are doing to effect your life.   I love the empowering message of New Thought:  go within...find that part of yourself that knows...and be and do that.

Everything I do, from my ministry to my counseling, from workshops and retreats to my book (www.newthought12steps.com) is a variation on this one thing:  I teach people tools that they can then use to go within and find their own truth.

Bottom line:  I'm not going to base my life on someone else's interpretation of something outside myself, including whether or not mercury is in retrograde.  How about you?

imageRecently I heard a story that I've been thinking about....a lot.

I just finished teaching a class called Prosperity Plus at the Center for Spiritual Living in Carson City.  This incredibly powerful material was put together by Mary Morrissey, and my students experienced many shifts in their thinking, some were subtle, some were more like the "wack-upside-the-head" variety.

I also experienced a shift that I want to share with you.

As a minister in New Thought, one of the things I get to do is take ancient wisdom, such as the Bible, and translate it metaphorically so that people can hear and understand the lessons, and apply them in their lives.  The Bible was written by many people, in the language of their times.  Back then they taught in metaphor.  The Bible was never meant to be taken literally, the mistranslations have not served us well.  I'm not an expert on the Bible, I learn new things all the time, and I learned something new in this class.

Mary Morrissey told us about the David and Goliath story in the Bible. You know, the story of the little shepherd and the giant?  David ended up slaying the giant, but what isn't often told is the inner process he used to do that.

See, we live in what is called a "condition based world."  This means we place more importance on our outer conditions, and we base our decisions and our actions on those conditions.

It's backwards.

There is an inner world, which is so much more important than the outer.  This is the world of our thoughts, beliefs and dreams.

David was able to slay the giant in spite of the outer conditons:  Goliath was huge, powerful, mean and had a lot of weapons.  He was also arrogant.  David was small, had only one weapon, and he refused to buy into the common fears of the time, that the giant was too big to slay and he certainly couldn't do it with his one little weapon, a sling shot.

But David wasn't into condition based thinking.  He knew the power of his thoughts.  He had heard that the king would give a castle, freedom from taxes and the princess to anyone who slay the dragon.  David heard about the princess and kept his eye on the prize.  All he could think about was the princess.  He kept his eye on the prize.  He would listen to the naysayers who told him it couldn't be done.  He kept his eye on the prize.

And he slayed the dragon.

Have you ever had anyone tell you it can't be done?  I have.  Very recently as a matter of fact.  I listened to them tell me it couldn't be done, for a little while, then I told them I didn't want to hear it anymore.  See, I've got my eye on the prize and someone telling me it can't be done is not the direction I want to take my thoughts.  I've got my eye on the prize.

Conditions would indicate that what I am trying to do can't be done.  But I don't live in condition based thinking.  I keep my eye on the prize, and my thoughts are more powerful than conditions.  So I keep my thoughts tuned to the prize.

And I know that if I keep doing this, what some told me wasn't possible will happen.  It already is beginning to happen!  I just need to keep my eye on the prize, just like David did.

Are you living in condition based thinking?  Do you think you can't do that because you were told, or because conditions would indicate you can't?  Or are you keeping your eye on the prize, knowing that your thoughts are much more powerful than any conditions?

I'd love to hear your stories about how you got the prize!