Drizzly November in the soul

November 2, 2009

“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong […]

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Happy All Saints Day

November 1, 2009

While Halloween traces its root to the Celtic harvest festival, which also was a “feast of the dead” where the dead came back to life to celebrate with the living, the notion of “carnival” (which Halloween very typically is) links to “carne” or meat (as in carnivore).  One of the functions of carnival in medieval […]

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The ghost of parenting past

October 31, 2009

It was a dark and windy night at the old farmhouse as we all found bedrooms and went off to get warm and go to sleep.  I had been to my friend Carina’s eighteenth century amalgam of charming rooms spilling onto other rooms, creaking staircases and a big country kitchen all sitting in a remote […]

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Grrrrr! When mom is the Red Barron

October 30, 2009

Okay, today I’ll give it to you straight… my mom told me that in a past life we were both WW I pilots and either she shot me down or I shot her down.  She remembers bearing down on me, guns blazing all around and then she locks on my eyes—definitely my eyes, and then as […]

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Sometimes love means watching “Paranormal Activity”

October 29, 2009

My younger son turns thirteen today.  Up until me made me stop saying it, I would frequently call him “The Buddha” because of the beaming smile of serenity with which he entered the world.  I had been around a good number of newborns, but had never seen such a great and wise smile. While he […]

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Vampires: chick magnet, mirror or animus?

October 28, 2009

“Animus” is a Jungian term for the masculine aspect within the feminine.  Its counterpart, “anima” is the feminine within the masculine (for more on the anima see “The Animas in their summer dresses” http://tiny.cc/eaccp). While “animus” is just a word it points to a concept that, when not integrated, contributes to everything from abuse in […]

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Wicked stepparents

October 27, 2009

Why is it that the words “wicked” and “stepparent” so often go together?  Certainly back in the days when the Brothers Grimm were gathering their tales, divorce rates were nothing like they are today, and thus the “step-parent” was a less common occurrence. Nevertheless, in fairytales we rarely encounter kind stepparents.  Cinderella is plagued by […]

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My scariest teacher

October 26, 2009

Given that this is Halloween week, I though we might focus on things scary and spooky—and so the story of my scariest teacher ever. As luck would have it, I was assigned to my scariest teacher at a point in my life when I was already virtually terrified. I had just returned from my second […]

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Brainful parenting begets mindful parenting

October 25, 2009

In a five part NPR series about spirituality and the brain, Barbara Bradley Hagerty explores issues ranging from prayer, to health to near death experiences.  In the third segment she touches on research that strongly suggests that just a few minutes of daily meditation for just a couple of months can have strong positive effects […]

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The sewers of Mumbai

October 24, 2009

We often tell our kids that money doesn’t buy happiness, and then break a cold sweat as we open the Visa bill. I was thinking about parenting, money and happiness when a story I heard came back to my mind.  I was at a social gathering where I ran into a man, a colleague of […]

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