Decision Makers' Corner

As I write this, I am participating in the Centers Gathering of 2012, being hosted by the Findhorn Community in northern Scotland. This year features an inspiring collection of 27 centers from 17 countries on all five  continents. And the 2012 gathering is little extra special, because it marks 50th anniversary years for two of the world's best-known centers -- Findhorn itself and the Esalen Institute of Big Sur, California.

The 2012 conference includes many other established holistic centers and communities, including Open Center of NYC, Harbin Hot Springs of Northern California, Indralaya of Orcas Island Washington, Kalani Oceanside on Hawaii's big island, The Haven on Gabriola Island in the Canadian San Juans, Auroville of India, and Oregon's own Breitenbush Hot Springs and Retreat Center. The 2012 gathering includes representatives from Laos, Vietnam, Russia and Kenya, Africa. The Global EcoVillage Network was in attendance. The formation of intentional communities and ecovillages seems to be picking up some steam as a worldwide trend.

I am here representing the Divination Foundation, which supports a number of these centers directly or indirectly (via Pathways podcasts,



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On my way to represent the Divination Foundation at a "Centers Gathering" conference at Findhorn, Scotland—one of the original spiritual teaching centers, during this its 50th anniversary year—I am passing through the city of beauty, art and romance—Paris, France. I love this place.

For all of the modern excesses of romance addiction and fairy-tales (as discussed in a previous blog), the French experience of life teaches a lot about the positive side and value of romance. It  infuses everything about this place, including the gently flirtatious way people socially relate to one other ... even the language is sensuous!

Even though there are countless museums and galleries containing the world's greatest  treasures of art, you don't have to go indoors to find beautiful art. Just go to the parks (or cemeteries), where elegant statues abound. Or just note the exquisite stylization of buildings, the metro, the streets themselves. Above all, the sensuousness of the cuisine and its artful presentation!

Parisians seem to understand that romance is the spice of life and—like the best use of all spices—they indulge it in moderation, while never forgetting to give it the





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Valentine's Day 2012 ... and if I still bought into the premise of it, it could make me feel depressed. In fact, our annual celebration of romantic love brings up longing for most people. This feeling of lack makes good lyrics for love songs by restimulating our bottomless craving for happily-ever-after romantic fantasies. A lot of suffering is also caused by this longing for a perfect love.

Constant craving for the fulfillment of a dream is desire gone wild and, just like the 2nd noble truth of Buddhism predicts, the result is suffering, psychological suffering—feeding feelings of loneliness, jealousy, failure, inadequacy and insecurity.

The idea that there is one special person out there who is your perfect match is what I call "the soulmate trap." From an energetic point of view, it is quite an uncertain proposition—this idea that the only way to achieve intimacy is to find someone to fall in love with who falls in love with you at the same time. What are the odds of that? (Hint: They get worse as you get older.) Putting all your eggs in this magical basket is enough to make anyone feel insecure!

But we are too brainwashed with our culture's romantic ideology, like





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Getting older is unavoidable, but is it possible to avoid the symptoms of aging? Can our choices about what we think and feel—and how we live—propel us into a long and healthy life? It seems there’s more to the question of aging gracefully than just the new fad diet or designer supplement.

Recently, I had the good fortune to interview Dr. John Kalb, a holistic chiropractor and world-class nutritionist, on my Pathways radio show (podcast on Divination.com). Dr. Kalb reminds us that “Aging is required, but symptoms are optional,” and that aside from good nutrition and reasonable exercise, we need purpose and inspiration to live a fulfilling and truly healthy life.

Like myself, Dr. Kalb is a spiritual person who has been known to use the I Ching to help him stay spiritually synchronized, be more creative and make better decisions. You should hear what he has to say about the spiritual dimension of health, as well as the true place of supplements, the “Happiness Project” and the wisdom of the elders. Thank you, Dr. Kalb!



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In my last blog, I pointed to testosterone as being half of the reason for male horndoggedness, the other half being emotional in nature. Some women had trouble accepting the vast testosterone differential, and the part this hormone plays in desire for both genders, but a massive difference between the sexes is established scientific fact that has been studied and proven extensively (though men's testosterone levels have been going down over the last 40 years). This next part of my thesis is more experimental and almost completely overlooked.

I submit that a big part of the reason males are so interested in physical intimacy is their need for emotional intimacy. A little background: in patriarchal societies around the world, boys are pushed off their mother's lap around age 4 or 5 and quickly trained to become "little men." If dad isn't around -- which has generally been the case in post-industrial societies -- the boys quickly fixate on fantasy or sport heroes as a way to develop some sense of identity (however shaky that might be). Now Mom's not even around in an increasing numbers of cases.

What this scenario essentially means is that, even though they are



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For thousands of years, human beings have used divination systems such as astrology and tarot to inquire about relationship and compatibility issues.  But an intuitive approach cannot resolve such problems all by itself. While we often try to attribute our passions to a conscious decision of the mind, our desires are also driven by biological and emotional drives that we are only now beginning to understand. It behooves us to also use logic and consider what we are learning from biology and psychology.

In another blog, I mentioned that men need women not only for sex, but also for emotional nourishment. Several women responded that women want sex too. Yes, of course, most do, but just not as insistently as men. Even though women may have an even greater capacity for sexual fulfillment than men, the average woman's desire is not nearly so insistent as the average male's.

It's a biological fact that the hormone testosterone plays a major role in sexual interest -- for both sexes. The avg healthy male has 20 to 30 times the testosterone of the avg healthy female ... actually, it ranges from 10x to 100x. Women have much, much less, and their level fluctuates wit



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As I often do, I have been pondering general questions, such as the changing dynamics of intimate  relationships (specifically hetero, my orientation). Ever willing to ask dumb questions, I wonder: What, if anything, do modern women feel they need men for at this point?

Generally speaking, men have tended to look to a mate to satisfy sexual and emotional needs. In general, women have less urgency in getting these particular needs met from men than the other way around (of course, women need and want these things also, but they don't have as much testosterone/craving for sex and can get a lot of their emotional nourishment from girlfriends, while men are often poverty-conscious in both departments, even if they deny it).  Historically, women's selection priorities had been more about a male partner's ability to physically provide for and protect her and their children.

Generally, men's needs have not changed, and men seem just as dependent upon women for sex and emotional nourishment as ever. But these days women don't have as much need for protection and provision and, in many cases, no need at all. (And now we have sperm banks!)

Around 1980, there was a bumper s





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Mars Hill, near the Parthenon, Athens, Greece.

The other day, during my first visit here, I took a tour of the Acropolis, the hill on which the monumental Parthenon, symbol of the glory of Greece, still stands, huge and magnificent. Close by is the much smaller hill of the god Aries -- a mound of solid marble with beautifully carved steps leading up to its flat top.

There, civic leaders of democratic Athens would meet to take evidence and hammer out decisions . . . or to conduct selected trials -- including all murder trials, which were required to be held outdoors, because the Greeks feared contagion from extreme evildoers if they were enclosed with them.

Paul of Tarsus, the prime stimulus of Christian orthodoxy as we still know it, asked for a Mars Hill meeting with the democrats of Athens to present his case for a new God, one who had incarnated in human form. Now, this Paul was a crafty zealot . . . he had noticed that the Greeks had one statue dedicated to "the unknown god" -- kind of like the "tomb of the unknown soldier" -- because, in their liberal way, the Greeks were willing to consider there might be some god(s) they didn't know about yet. Paul saw an opportunit





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My recent guest on my Pathways interview show, Michael Beck, is an executive coach who, among other things, helps entrepreneurs and people in general achieve what they want. He thinks we humans are all actually excellent manifestors … much better than we know … in fact, we are successfully manifesting all the time! That’s how good we are — the only problem is that we are generally manifesting things that we DON’T want!

The problem with manifestation techniques like “The Secret” is the illusion that all we need to do is visualize and exercise our wishful thinking a little harder. Well, yes, it certainly does help to focus on our target rather than all the things that can go wrong, but increasing our feeling of attraction is not going to change our general thinking habits which are probably — in our corrupted society — all too much about things that we fear.

So … we are excellent manifestors! In fact, we are doing it constantly and effortlessly. As we dwell (sometimes obsessively) on anxious or worried thoughts, our subconscious makes sure things actually don’t turn out so well as they could. We make bad decisions, alongside our faithful vis



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Recently, I interviewed Geneen Roth, author of the new book Lost and Found: Unexpected Revelations about Money and Food (podcast on Divination.com). Hers  is the moving story of how, after decades of struggling with (and overcoming) eating disorders, she discovered that the same dynamics were also present in her unconscious relationship with money, and causing her as much psychological pain.

In Ms. Roth's case, the trigger event that led her to realize her dynamics around money was losing her family's entire life savings of 30 years to the swindler, Bernie Madoff -- a fascinating wake-up call of a tale in itself. The book swings between her true story and the profound learnings that came out of it -- lessons that actually apply to most of us.

People deal with money the way they deal with food, she says. Diet and binge translates to scrimp and splurge. No matter how much is available, we feel and act as if there is never enough and we worry about running out. Financial advisors report that even the very rich want to have twice o



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