Category Archives: Renewal

Renewal The Non-Ordinary Reference Pages

Abraham-Hicks (Jerry and Esther Hicks) (1986?-to present). The science of deliberate creation. www.abraham-hicks.com All right, it’s about channeling and that’ll put a lot of people off. And I’ll admit that it’s mostly known information re-packaged. But so what? Is there really anything new under the sun, including what I’ve written? Sometimes it takes old information […]

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Renewal Seventy : Postscript: “First The Gesture, Then The Grace” (Sarah Ban Breathnach)

While the greatest percentage of this work was written within the four months following my mother’s death and the breakup of my third intimate relationship, at this point it is just after the start of the New Year and more than 10 months after those facts. This was the first time I have not had […]

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Sixty-Nine : Timeless Beings In Temporal Bodies

There is nothing new in any of this work about renewal. As I said previously, the heartbreak, the understanding, the knowledge, it has been there for all the ages, told in stories, written in books, acted in plays, sung in music, lived in life. There are no secrets, only those who do not seek. But […]

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Renewal Sixty-Eight : Sacrifice Is Not The Issue, Temperance Is

Maybe I may know something about how freedom and determinism interact, and how awareness is the way we set the basis for the nature of that interaction, but patience is not my speciality. This temporal/biological existence seems to demand a lot of it. Thoughts can take one to many locations and to many ideas in […]

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Renewal Sixty-Seven : OBEs, IBEs, And Human Experiences

(For a look at the principles of volitional evolution, go to: Chapter 24: Resetting The Compass. For a look at the role and function of the mind, go to: Chapter 26: It Is Not So Easy Feeling Good.) I ran across a newspaper article recently about research into the connection between the brain and the […]

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Renewal Sixty-Six : Imprint Turned Prophecy

In my early teens it had seemed to me that I would always be single, that there would never be a woman for me. It was very clear, felt on very deep levels. It never occurred to me that it was a creation, it seemed far too much like a discovery, a destiny. I fought […]

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Renewal Sixty-Five : Allowing Love Instead Of Hurt

Not only do we not know how to create critical periods intentionally, we also don’t seem to know how to do them without pain. I previously mentioned that critical periods could arise through such things as the death of one close to us, the death of a relationship, psychotropic drugs, disease, etc. These are not […]

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Renewal Sixty-Four : Be Careful What You Give Life To, It Can Develop A Life Of Its Own

I used to think that being honest and straightforward with the person I was engaging at the moment was the best I could do. I’ve been in a few relationship circumstances in which this deluded concept got me into some strange situations. It took me awhile to realize, however honest I was being, that engaging […]

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Renewal Sixty-Three : The Paradox Is Complete, Creation Continues

I’ve spent much of today feeling very precarious about the necrotic energy spots on the human energy field, not to mention the earth’s energy field. This has really manifested itself in my re-examination of relationships (work, family, personal). Did I do the best I could? Am I doing the best I can? Certainly I’ve been […]

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Renewal Sixty-Two : Allowing Energy To Freely Move

The effect of our individual and collective attempts to bend energy out of sync with its natural propensity, which is to freely flow, has not only resulted in misshapened spots on our own energy body, but on that of the earth’s as well (the Gaia effect, whether it’s a positive or negative effect). Playing with […]

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Renewal Sixty-One : We Are Wealthy Beyond Our Wildest Dreams When It Comes To Finding Things To Laugh About

Except for my impatience, today was a good day. I accomplished a lot, getting entirely prepared for the summer session, nearly two weeks before it starts. I also prepared all of the material necessary to revamp a course in the fall. I will work some more tomorrow morning, take care of some shopping, attend the […]

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Renewal Sixty : Sometimes There May Be Learning After All

Yesterday I went out of town just because I needed to get away. I will leave later this evening and head back as I have work to do and because I’ll attend graduation on Tuesday. Though I’ll start summer school two weeks from tomorrow, I think I’ll have to pack up and go somewhere the […]

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Renewal Fifty-Nine : The Mutable Immutables

(For a more detailed look at the principles of volitional evolution go to: Chapter 24: Resetting The Compass. For a look at thoughts about assessing the energy in our lives and the Big Rip instead of the Big Bang, go to: Chapter 55: The Best Answers Arise In The Space Between Thought And Deed.) I […]

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Renewal Fifty-Eight : May Honest Feelings Bring Great Peace

The feelings of yesterday, and especially last evening, carried over into my dreams and into today’s morning. I’m looking afresh at my role and my perspective in the events of my life, which is part of what the object of this journey was to begin with. Regarding women, it would be too easy to just […]

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Renewal Fifty-Seven : Uncertainty Has A Certain Kind Of Ring To It

I finished up giving finals today, including the paperwork. It was not easy, things broke and I had to get creative about figuring out the appropriate end runs. My landscaping business taught me a lot about getting the job handled even when the tools are broken. It is sometimes difficult to hand out grades. I’ve […]

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Renewal Fifty-Six : The Template-less Template

Things are back to moving in slow motion again. I think that the amount of energy yesterday required, plus how much such conversations remind me about how slow I am in creating what I want, all just slammed broadside into me sometime last night. I woke up this morning, after a fitful night (up at […]

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Renewal Fifty-five : The Best Answers Arise In The Space Between Thought And Deed

(For a more detailed look at the principles of volitional evolution go to: Chapter 24: Resetting The Compass. For futher thoughts about the nature of energy as both mutable and immutable, go to: Chapter 59: The Mutable Immutables.) A friend of mine, whom I’ve known for nearly 30 years, came over to the house today. […]

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Renewal Fifty-Four : Volitional Evolution Revisted

(For a more detailed look at the principles of volitional evolution go to: Chapter 24: Resetting The Compass. For a look at thoughts about assessing the energy in our lives and the Big Rip instead of the Big Bang, go to: Chapter 55: The Best Answers Arise In The Space Between Thought And Deed. For […]

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Renewal Fifty-Three : With Great Humility And Great Dignity, Wholeness Has Its Way

I went to see my son yesterday. We talked, went to a movie, and had dinner. I like him, always have and always will, though we have been annoyed with each other at times. Those annoying times are rare and don’t really matter. Yesterday, like the majority of the time, it was good to be […]

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Renewal Fifty-Two : The Strength And Fragility Of Hope

I was looking at pictures yesterday and was struck by how much my mother’s looks changed after she had the stroke. The pictures from the last couple of Christmases were very dramatic, she was clearly not entirely present, especially her last Christmas, lost somewhere between life and death. Somehow I can feel her consciousness as […]

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Fifty-One : Our Job Is To Not Make Love Work So Hard

Today is going to be a bit casual, I so intend it. I do have some work to attend to, but it will not be intense. There will be time enough for that. I finished my run before 9 a.m. this morning and the temperature in the shade had hit 80 degrees already. It was […]

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Renewal Fifty : The Guard Dogs Got Old

Today was the last lecture of the spring semester. Saturday begins finals and by Friday of next week, I’ll be finished. That may be an unfortunate word, as I’ve contributed my two-cents worth to a resolution that the Academic Senate will vote for or against on Monday about whether to send it to the Board […]

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Renewal Forty-Nine : Drama, Hormones, Or The Stars?

Perhaps it is only my sense of drama, but I seem to be in a turmoil about what feels like some decisions coming my way I’m not sure I want to deal with. It is a funny thing about wanting something and putting oneself out there–there is likely to come a time in which the […]

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Renewal Forty-Eight : Line Of Sight Versus Instrument Flight

Two more days of lecture before the start of finals. This has been a jammed packed four months and I am out of steam, but sort of holding up. I think I will not be talking much until the start of summer school the third week of June. There is not much rest however, as […]

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Renewal Forty-Seven : It Is Not The Shedding Of Blood That Brings Us Together Or Preserves Our Freedom, It Is Forgiveness And Humility

My father was in Corregidor in the Philippines in 1942 and was captured by the Japanese, becoming a prisoner of war and enduring the infamous Bataan Death March. He was not freed until the end of the war, one of about 4,000 survivors out of the approximately 12,000 who were originally captured. These things I […]

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Renewal Forty-Six: Just Another Visitor To The Galactic Bar

After a somewhat tumultuous evening with my youngest daughter, and a couple of upsetting incidents with my son over the last week, I find myself sitting in the Jacuzzi staring at my cat. Many years ago I did not care for cats. It was not much of a neutral issue, I really didn’t like them. […]

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Renewal Forty-Five : No One Part of Us Should Run The Show, But No Part Should Be Left Out

I am struggling in this sense of loss to recognize how I’ve embraced the victim role. It seems especially ironic as I have a philosophy that is not about being a victim, I have a history of overcoming any such role when it comes to work. I even have overcome that role just to be […]

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Renewal Forty-Four : The Problem With Cycles

I woke up feeling a little melancholy this morning (ahhh, those rhythms). I suppose that all of the outpouring of emotions has had its impact. I remembered my mother’s last days and the way she, my siblings, and I all felt the agony of it. I started doing the old scenario about what if nothing […]

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Renewal Forty-Three : It Takes A Space To Create

This has been an exhausting week. I have worked, processed, and released much (though I’m sure I’ll create more that needs to be worked, processed, and released). The emotions that I’ve been feeling do not seem toxic, even if they are passionate. It all feels right, and I notice that I again seem to be […]

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Renewal Forty-Two : Confusing Our Mission

Though settled down, I still have been thinking about my second love’s comments on Monday, and about her influence on my former lady friend. My ex-girl friend’s comments a few weeks back about my control over her had the second woman’s stamp all over it. This second woman recently commented about developing a spine about […]

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Renewal Forty-One : It’s A Two-Million-Year-Old Nervous System

Well, that was quite a tirade. But it seems to me that, for the most part, I have been exactly who I said I was, and that was exactly what these women said they wanted. It seems to me that I didn’t trust them because none of them seemed to know who they were, though […]

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Renewal Forty : It’s Hard To Hold Another’s Heart If You Don’t Know Your Own

Okay, I don’t have problems like a lot of people, though they’re still problems to me. I have trouble with the power plays and leverage and favoritism at work. But, as a friend of mine wrote me about a book she had been reading, imagine being Victor Klemperer, a Jewish professor in Germany during Hitler’s […]

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Renewal Thirty-Nine : Riding A Barrel Over The Falls

It’s nearly 6 p.m. and I’ve managed to get my work accomplished for today. I may even try and grade some more papers just to make tomorrow a little easier. About three more weeks and I’ll be able to take a small break. Somehow, I have to figure this out. There just has to be […]

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Renewal Thirty-Eight : What Goes Up May Come Down

Maybe I just came down today, or maybe I slept in a weird position, or maybe I have just been living so much of a Lego-blockTM life recently (every block of time has to fit together just right with every other block of time or the entire structure is malformed and unstable) that my mood […]

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Renewal Thirty-Seven : Getting An Honor Is Getting Humble

Tonight I received a Teacher of the Year award at the college where I am employed, an award voted on by the students. We have three multi-discipline departments, the one I belong to being the largest. It is a small campus, with about six thousand students in a district with approximately 30 thousand students. I […]

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Renewal Thirty-Six : Fewer Obligations, More Nurturing

I actually slept through the night and woke up feeling pretty rested and positive. The feeling held through the day, though it was a busy one and not without its ups and downs. In fact, for no apparent reason that I can tell, other than creating some sort of fantasy, I feel that something good […]

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Renewal Thirty-Five : Why Carry A Cross Silently?

Well, I was awake at 2:30 this morning, a bit of a switch. Actually I felt pretty good since I had gone to bed earlier. I drifted back and forth between sleep and useless ponderings until I went in the Jacuzzi about 5:30. Then back to bed to drift and ponder until I got up […]

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Renewal Thirty-Four : Sometimes Not Believing In Ourselves Is A Good Thing

Years ago I developed a habit of taking care of business. I also developed a habit of not resting too easily until I had taken care of business. In some cases, I was satisfied when I had done as much work as was humanly possible for that day, even if there were still many things […]

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Renewal Thirty-Three : The Last Page In The Book Of Wisdom Is A Mirror

Yesterday on my walk in the hills, I sat for awhile on a rock overlooking the valley below. The wind was rushing up the slope of the hills providing quite a force. I had to stand carefully on my perching rock. I started thinking about power and clarity and how getting away from whatever constitutes […]

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Renewal Thirty-Two : Nurturing Day

Today is Mother’s Day. It is the first Mother’s Day that I have not had a living mother. I think I spent the first part of the day ignoring it. At least I didn’t think much about it. I had lots of work to do and spent my time doing the work. But when I […]

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Renewal Thirty-One : No One Lives Or Dies In Vain

In thinking about my mother’s illness, her complaints, her loves, and her passing, I wonder what she knew about getting what she wanted. It appears that her stroke was inevitable given how she chose to ignore the potential ill effects of her lifestyle. Yet her life style was one of the things that made her […]

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Renewal Thirty : Sometimes It’s Easier To Sleep

Despite being exhausted, I had coffee and talked with this lady last evening. She can laugh easily and honestly, and she is open and attentive to her surroundings. I liked her. We laughed all right, and more than once. There is a lot to laugh about. However, it finally dawned on me during our conversation […]

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Renewal Twenty-Nine : Dancing With Prediction And Control

Some days it is mostly about survival, pure and simple. With only about two hours of sleep last night, I’m working strictly on reserves. And at 54, those reserves don’t become replenished like they used to. Every once in a while my mind just overwhelms the rest of me. Last night it did just that. […]

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Renewal Twenty-Eight : Being Top Dog Is Not Absolute

Just before I quit smoking cigarettes in early 1976, I went on a one-week smoking binge. It was deliberate, as was my intention to quit. I pretty well did myself in, but it did provide me early momentum. When I did quit, I was so toxic that I had no interest in cigarettes. Admittedly, since […]

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Renewal Twenty-Seven : Learning Takes A Lot Of Rest

Somehow, it’s as though I’ve danced with a lot of familiar feelings lately. The process is very interesting. So is the sorting it all out. I’m finding it very difficult to not fall back into a sense of dread about what is going on around me. And of course, I’m contributing to it in some […]

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Renewal Twenty-Six : It Is Not So Easy Feeling Good

(For another look at the use of the mind, go to: eThoughts: The Mind and the Evolution of Evaluation.) Movement is an often overlooked part of awareness. Since this is an inquiry about renewal, movement is necessarily part of the consideration. The brain and movement–at least beings becoming ambulatory–probably evolved in tandem. Apparently a central […]

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Renewal Twenty-Five : Transforming Affliction Into Vision

Intention is not new in human existence. We have long attempted to affect ourselves, others, and our environments. And part of that intention is deciding what we want. We have surely left our mark upon the planet so far, whatever happens in the future. Though it has been argued that human drives and human intention […]

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Renewal Twenty-Four : Resetting The Compass

(For an additional look at integrating biology and experience, go to: Chapter 67: OBEs, IBEs, And Human Experience. To see thoughts about the role and function of the mind, go to: Chapter 26: It Is Not So Easy Feeling Good. For a look at thoughts about assessing the energy in our lives and the Big […]

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Renewal Twenty-Three : We Actually Do What Works For Us

All right, all right, back to the issue about focusing on what one wants and about paying attention to the body. If one’s intention is so diffused they cannot tell the difference between what they think they want and what they really want, that’s a problem. I suppose this diffusion can occur if one is […]

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Renewal Twenty-Two : Our Guidance Doesn’t Fail Us, Our Fear Does

It is strange how we attract things into our lives, things we often don’t even want. It is like giving an obnoxious child candy to shut up, we inadvertently reinforce a behavior we were in fact trying to avoid. We put our energies into things we don’t want and we seem to get exactly that, […]

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Renewal Twenty-One : The Journey From Insanity Is Likely To Seem Insane

Again, though I have no particular reason to explain it, I still feel all right. It seems true that there is no particular end to this period of change in sight. And my gut still does not like the disenfranchised feeling that I now constantly carry with me. But some part of me suspects that […]

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Renewal Twenty : Being A Fool With Dignity

The emotional and cognitive meanderings of yesterday continues, though work took up a great deal of the energy to ponder things. This was another incredibly busy Tuesday, as all Tuesdays and Thursdays are when I teach–at least for the last three years. Again though, I seem to feel pretty good. And I went out on […]

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Renewal Nineteen : Perhaps Freud Missed A Defense Mechanism

A funny thing happened on the way to today’s depression and withdrawal. On the surface, it seemed like even more depressive evidence. But my body seems to be reacting differently. I had maintained that I loved all three of the women I’ve been involved with. The first one I was involved with for quite a […]

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Renewal Eighteen : Awareness Comes Along With Irony

When I was approximately 18 and working in a gas station (in the days of full service), I had two elderly gentleman customers come in within about a week of each other. It was bizarre how they each, in their own ways, envied my youth and my future. I noticed them watching me, and since […]

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Renewal Seventeen : False Positives Keep Us Bound, False Negatives Keep Us Busy

This issue of control is an interesting thing. The first two women (the language doesn’t mean that I owned them), post breakup, claimed that I had serious control issues. The second claimed that I had damaged her. Though now in the same camp as my previous two loves, when we first got together, my former […]

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Renewal Sixteen : We Don’t Make Truth Or Love

And then again, once again… Well, I was set up pretty good and I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. For once, I went to someone I know and asked for their view. Normally, I just thrash it through, twitch, fall on the ground, and look like an idiot. Fortunately I do this on […]

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Renewal Fifteen : One Does Zen To Not Do Zen

On the other hand… Given about 24 hours, even though I didn’t get my running in, I had the thought that I might have a bit of a silver lining here, at least relative to a relationship with a woman. I haven’t been doing very well, but I may be getting it a little faster. […]

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Renewal Fourteen : We Are Both The Gatekeeper And The Internee

This is just plain aggravating. This juxtaposition of a timeless soul and a temporal body thing appears to be more of a challenge than I’m capable of handling. I can’t stand it. It is as though I’ve stepped out of the everything into the specific, cannot bear the separation, yet forgot to leave a breadcrumb […]

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Renewal Thirteen : The Hamster Wheel of Our Existence

Realization is a wonderful balm—for a while. Yesterday it was cathartic, today it doesn’t help. One of the most common human behaviors is our internal dialogue. We create stories in our head and soon our bodies are affected, which then feeds back to the stories in our head. Or, we can begin the internal dialogue […]

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Renewal Twelve : Not Having A Choice May Actually Be The Beginning Of Freedom

I get it. I have been here before. I recognize the depression–breaking up does that. But this time was different, it had a different bodily feel to it. I was in withdrawal. But withdrawal from what? I was not addicted to any substances. But I knew this feeling from changing behavioral patterns before in my […]

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Renewal Eleven : It Is Difficult To See That One Cannot See

And then there’s the personal life–again. My former lady friend’s young son visited me recently, staying overnight. I had been nervous about it and wasn’t exactly sure why. I suppose it was because of the reminder. He seemed very happy about it all, forgoing television in favor of talking, bowling, and going on a night […]

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Renewal Ten : Be Aware–Education At Work

I suppose this entire line of inquiry began at a meeting in which there were some tense moments. I have tried to avoid these things, but somehow, despite some successes, I’ve still managed to find myself embroiled. Sometimes I find myself at odds with administration. This is not something that is particularly obvious, I do […]

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Renewal Nine : We’re Learning What?

I like teaching, mostly because I’m learning. I have no idea if students are, but I know I am. In fact, I’m very uncomfortable with either the word teacher or student, the hierarchy seems at least partially artificial. The implication that is often derived from the distinction is that teachers are smarter than students. At […]

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Renewal Eight : Love As Promises, Bargaining, Sales, And Consumption

I heard from my former lady friend today. She left a message about her 11-year-old son coming to visit me tomorrow. He had called last week and wanted to come out and spend the night. She asked me to call back and leave her a message confirming that I had received the information. I did […]

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Renewal Seven : Asking For Support

All this philosophical ranting and raving eventually has to give way to the behavioral manifestations in our lives. And so it has. I had a particularly hard time with my daughter yesterday. Though nearly 21 and soon to be a senior in college, I suspect that I’ve been overly protective. She has become an expert […]

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Renewal Six : Choice Eventually Limits Choice

(For another look at the idea of choice, go to: Freedom, Choice, and Enlightment in eThoughts.) Innocence is something that we seem to admire and protect. It is that openness, those eyes, that trust, the radiant luster that is attractive because it is easy to deal with. We don’t have to figure someone out. We […]

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Renewal Five : Closing Down Is A Hard Way To Open Up

Boundaries are an interesting area in relationships, marking the ecological distinctions between entities. These physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual ecologies are energy in flux, yet highly organized into their given patterns, especially in beings who have been at it for awhile. Like music, in which harmony has to do with the relationship between notes and […]

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Renewal Four : Stories With Sharp Teeth

Renewal Four : Stories With Sharp Teeth After all of these recent changes, the loss of my mother and an intimate relationship, there is a dullness that seems to pervade me, like I’m some thick, gelatinous blob that is moving infinitely more slowly than my intention to move. Still, I hear

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Renewal Three : Polishing Both Sides Of The Coin

Renewal Three : Polishing Both Sides Of The Coin My mother was an interesting character. A strong and opinionated Scorpio, she passed away on Friday, February 15, 2002 in the same hospital my father passed away some 32 years earlier. It was a premature death, despite the fact she was 84 or 85 (the year […]

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Renewal Two : Critical Periods

Renewal Two : Critical Periods After the death of my mother and another relationship, both of which occurred in tandem, I find myself relentlessly bouncing between a broad range of thoughts and feelings.

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Renewal: One : Chasing Our Tails

One : Chasing Our Tails (For thoughts about being in the present moment, go to: More About the Now in eThoughts.) Somewhere in the foothills of Southern California, a young man stood desperately trying to practice what he had been taught to practice: attention to surroundings, critical analysis, synthesizing information into a cohesive unit, connecting […]

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Introduction to Renewal

Introduction to Renewal One problem inherent with the process of inquiry is that it may touch the intellect, but it often tends to leave much of the rest of the body out of the process. Of course the idea is to organize our experiences and provide a cohesive framework from which to direct our lives,

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Preface to Renewal

Preface to Renewal Are we products of creation or creators? To what extent are we free to create and to what extent are our beings and our lives determined? How much does intention matter?

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