Hmmmm...maybe some of you out there can help me out with this.

I noticed through a mailing from super-coach Cheryl Richardson that tomorrow's Oprah show would be a repeat called The Secret Behind The Secret.  A second show has been taped called "The Law of Attraction: Real Life Stories" and that will air on Friday, June 27th.  

Okay. So I understand the Law of Attraction comes from information via the Entities known as Abraham who Esther and Jerry Hicks channel - am I right so far? Okay. So would you please tell me why in God's name these entities on the spirit plane care so much about us mortal folk acquiring material goods? It seems to me that the Law of Attraction is about acquiring, if I can remember from the documentary, a new necklace or a brand new car. Okay? Now a certain spiritual figure whose name might ring a bell with some of you called the Buddha taught nonattachment to, among many things, material goods. This always - to me - seemed to me to be the way to go to realize oneself spiritually. Would somebody tell me what's with the material stuff?

Also, I would really like to know why not one of these entities was perhaps a scientist on the Earth plane and can possible channel forth some really useful information such as a cure for AIDS maybe?!

I think some people think because it's well known I espouse certain "New Age" ideas and enjoy things like tarot cards, that I also go along with this Law of Attraction business. I do not. Can anyone out there give me a good explanation for why I should?

Okay, I promise to lay off of personal coaches after this (I swear I don't have a vendetta against them and I really do have coach friends) but I received an email from one whose subject line was too bizarre to ignore. Without singling out who sent it, the subject line was "Do Not Be Realistic!" Now, call me quirky but I do like to reside in the Real World from time to time so I found this a bit disturbing.

When I read the email, I couldn't quite follow the logic but it was (a) geared towards women and (b) apparently seemed to employ the Law of Attraction to some degree. The example used was a financial one.

I don't see how we women sticking our collective heads in the sand about economics can do any good. There are sobering statistics out there - for example, these from the National Organization of Women.

In 2005, women's median annual earnings were only $.77 for every $1.00 earned by men. For women of color, the gap is even worse - only $.71 for African American women and $.58 for Latinas.

What I like is the reference to the path of least resistance, which I believe is the lowest energy course. We hear so much about feeling passionate about your life and your work, being dynamic, to go for it! I've even heard that "if you're not scared enough, you're still in your comfort zone." I'm all for personal growth, but what's wrong with staying in your comfort zone? :)

I ended my last blog post with the above paragraph, and have found that these are the words that piss off life coaches everywhere. Well, not everywhere. But I got two - well, one and a half - spirited responses to this where I posted in one of my other blogs where I rarely get comments at all.

Apparently, saying it's okay to stay in your comfort zone is enough to threaten to topple the tenets of personal coaching in one single-handed swoop. At least it seems anathema to whatever the program it is that these personal cheerleaders have gotten with. Don't get me wrong - some of my good friends are coaches. It's just this scaring-yourself-business to keep reaching out of what must be perceived to be a dangerously nullifying "comfort zone" has gotten out of hand, in my opinion.

When a baby learns to walk, it obviously is moving beyond his or her comfort zone. However, I don't see terrifying itself as part of this. Determined to take steps, yes. Even happy. Let's move beyond this frankly weird idea of frightening yourself to achieve personal growth. Certainly, growth must take place more organically as well. There! - "organic growth." I like it!

I was listening to a physics lecture today and heard the most fascinating thing. The universe wants things to be stable. It wants things to be at their equilibrium.

Every time that you are unstable, the universe wants to correct it. It wants to go back to being stable. That's what it likes. It likes its own course to be very set. And that's the lowest energy course.

(The professor actually made a reference to the television series, Lost, and the idea of course-correction. Since I don't watch much television and have never seen the show, I don't know how and if that applies.)

However, I love the notion that things will only be unstable for so long and then it's the universe's natural way to stabilize them. If you can stay out of your own way. This is very hard for folks to do! I've seen that in others as well as myself.

What I like is the reference to the path of least resistance, which I believe is the lowest energy course. We hear so much about feeling passionate about your life and your work, being dynamic, to go for it! I've even heard that "if you're not scared enough, you're still in your comfort zone." I'm all for personal growth, but what's wrong with staying in your comfort zone? :)

I'm always surprised when a person hasn't heard of Squidoo. It's a great way to create a lens about something you're passionate about. A lens? Yes, that's a page. They are quick to put together. And it's free!

I just threw together a lens about my tarot reading. You can see it here. It tells a little story about how I came back to reading cards in a roundabout way.

Oh! And also why "What can I learn from this situation?" is a great question to pose to the cards.

Have fun Squidoo'ing!

What a nice weekend I had! Three days off from working. Yes, I know next weekend is the official Memorial Day three-day weekend. But I encountered a technical glitch that made it impossible for me to work on my project. That turned out to be a very nice break for me.

The first few months of this year were busy. Very busy, and yet when I look back, oddly stagnant at the same time. There was a huge sense of me spinning my wheels. Among many things that fell by the wayside because I couldn't find the time to do them were my book reviews. I felt like I had lost my focus.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes says to lose focus means to lose energy. You can probably guess which book this passage comes from:

The absolutely wrong thing to attempt when we've lost focus is to rush about struggling to pack it all back together again. Rushing is not the thing to do...sitting and rocking is the thing to do. Patience, peace, and rocking renew ideas...Take the idea and rock it to and fro. Keep some of it and throw some away, and it will renew itself. You need do no more.

So I read this weekend. And I did tarot readings for myself, too. I felt very restful, just like the way I felt when we were up at the country at our friend Jimmy's house, only I was here in the city and we hadn't gone anywhere at all. And a book review was written, just like that. Which I promptly sent to my editor. I told him he could expect more.

Baby steps, these are. But they are welcome signs of life, life after burnout.

As I mentioned a few blog posts ago, I am currently reading Angeles Arrien's The Second Half of Life. The cycle of descent and ascent is discussed, as this is a theme that can be found within all spiritual traditions.

Many traditional and indigenous societies regard the Upper World as the place to receive guidance, blessings, and ecstatic experiences, and view the Lower World as the place to which one journeys to retrieve one's lost soul and bring it back for re-integration in the Middle World - this world. The process of descending and ascending is a universal human experience, where the heavens and hells in our nature are completely revealed.

I am reminded of a fascinating teleseminar I had downloaded a few weeks back, which featured Emily Hanlon discussing The Myth of the Descent of Inanna and the Powerful Journey of the Feminine. Inanna, a Sumerian goddess, travels to the underworld where she encounters seven gates (interestingly, Arrien's book's subtitle is "Opening the Eight Gates of Wisdom.") At each of the seven gates, Inanna must give up another aspect of her persona until she is stripped bare of artifice, dies to her old self and ultimately undergoes a resurrection. "The myth of Inanna shows us how to go deeply into the dark and find the hidden gift of the suffering," says Hanlon - as ultimately it is in the dark where ideas can germinate and be reborn. Recommended listening, for sure.