AUTOCRACY

Posted on August 23, 2025

Today’s media platforms reveal that America’s three-legged democracy stool is missing its third leg. Economics and politics are alive; and the missing third leg, morality, rears its head daily. In the rear-view mirror are values, virtues, ethics, compassion, leadership, character, decency, common good, honesty, integrity, and common beliefs. Witness suppression of voting rights, helping others turn political, media untruths, cyber and space warfare, infrastructure decay, inequitable wages, healthcare and childcare shortcomings, systemic racism and casts, LGBTQ rights questioned, abortion rights removed, environmental degradation, untreated mental health, home grown terrorism, immigration overload and inhumanity, DOGE rampage, thriving white supremacy, education state-of-the art and funding deficiencies, insane gun control, deterioration of government credibility—SCOTUS, Congress, and Office of the President—and the list continues. The danger is continued and deepening division, fear, autocracy, privatization, and fascism. The opportunity is to improve common good, helping others, serving others, caring about others, and loving others; and merge and participate in interactive dialogue and collectively manifest the missing third leg of the stool, morality, or common good and caring, for America, Americans, and the globe. As Jonathan Sacks offers in Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times,

Recovering liberal democratic freedom will involve emphasizing responsibilities as well as rights; shared rules, not just individual choices; caring for others as well as for ourselves; and making space not just for self-interest but also for common good. Morality is an essential feature of our human environment, as important as the market (economics) and the state (politics), but outsourceable to neither. Morality humanizes the competition for wealth and power. It is the redemption of our solitude. (20)

Authoritarianism has gotten us where we are; and unless we do something different, we will stay where we are and eventually destroy ourselves. In The Passionate Mind Revisited Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad offer, “Authoritarianism has two basic traits: a person or ideology that claims to know what’s best for others; and second, the authority is unchallengeable-not open to feedback and change when shown to be wrong.” (15) If the old, traditionalist worldview wins there is little likelihood the species will survive.

Yes, it feels like the country is a mess and that post truth, and consequently mistrust, is bubbling with conspiracy, spins, lies, partial truths, and more lies! Simply unhealthy ego, work-in-process human condition and shortcomings that are offering platforms for tomorrow’s challenges, opportunities, and evolution. An analytical glance reveals a least common denominator to be polarization, nurtured by festering, unhealthy selves that unleash pain and suffering in many forms.

Digging deep into the dark side of the psyche, contemplation coupled with meditation, and collective, interactive dialogue offer a breath of evolutionary optimism and hope for Americans. Subsequent results can offer productive, interactive, authentic dialogue to build coalitions; teamwork; creation of evolutionary beliefs and values; nurturing and building visions for generations of children; and experiences of compassion as the antibiotic to confront a nasty infection. No one needs to suffer, and no one wants to suffer. We need to transcend and include and not undermine the human desire to evolve and survive.

Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad offer,

Humanity has displayed great creativity in most domains, except for relationships. Most of our problems are a function of unworkable relationships between people, groups, religions, regions, and countries, and humanity’s relation with the Earth. Because killing, or the threat of it, is and has been the bottom line of power, and has given the nature of power and wealth to coalesce and expand, and given that children need lengthy nurturing, humanity has not yet constructed a social system that can sufficiently promote the general wellbeing of large populations…We need an evolutionary leap in relationships to match our extraordinary recent leaps in science and technology and the resulting juggernaut taking us we know not where. Developing our relational and social capabilities must include the global dimension by replacing traditional unlivable, authoritarian ideals with more viable pan-cultural values that can flexibly meet accelerated change. We must learn how to be global social animals at last, through deepening, exploring, and building on the untapped potential in our nature, broadening our awareness, and emotionally maturing-all of which are possible if we care enough about surviving. (357)

Simply, we all need to grow our individual and collective mindfulness, awareness, and self-restraint and put “care” into all we think, say, and do. As good leaders understand and practice, transcending, including, and evolving implies a willingness to listen to and accept those who are different and have belief processes that are different.

 

 

 

MOM

Posted on August 16, 2025

Some memories never fade!

It was May 16, 1955, early morning, and my dog, Chum, was barking, non-stop. As the family slept, my Pekinese Chum’s bedroom had always been in the kitchen by his food and water on a leash with the red hand loop around the doorknob of the kitchen-basement door. Chum’s non-stop barking was not the norm!!

From the North, upstairs bedroom, I sped quickly downstairs to discover that the kitchen light was on, and the closer I came to the kitchen door, awareness screamed that there was a problem. On the kitchen cupboard counter to the right of the refrigerator was a half full glass of milk, the refrigerator door was open, and Mom, in her nightgown, was lying on her right side on the floor in spilled milk with her head resting against the counter door and the bottom ledge of refrigerator door opening.

Immediately, I beckoned Dad, moved Mom to the middle of the kitchen, and began artificial respiration.

Dad went immediately to the telephone and called an ambulance; and, as the two of us traded turns doing artificial respiration and checking Mom’s pulse, we knew it was too late. Dad’s wife, love and partner, and my mom had passed away, suffering a pulmonary embolism. She was 46.

Dad cancelled the ambulance and called the coroner; and when a hearse arrived, Mom was taken to Carlson Funeral Home. At the time, my brother, Dan, was 10, I was 15, and Dad was 46. Life would never be the same for the three of us. Reflecting on the transition after Mom’s death, it has always felt like there were too many things that needed to be done and grieving would come later; or, perhaps, we did not know how to grieve.

My grieving process would not begin for some 20 years later, 1975, at the Personal Arts Center, Golden, Colorado. Visits to the Personal Arts Center had been initiated during transition when my seven-year-old daughter from a previous marriage had come to live with my current wife and me. The topic for one evening was grief. To start the session, participants were seated in a circle and our facilitator requested that we each share an experience of grief. My sharing was of the death of Mom some 20 years ago; and the facilitator immediately detected the anger in my voice about Mom’s death. His request was for a volunteer female participant to play the role of my mom and for Mom and me to have a conversation. In front of the group Mom and I sat on a couch, and with the help of the facilitator, Mom and I began a conversation with her in the casket and while she was doing the Tuesday weekly, family ironing. Wow is all I can say! This conversation had waited for 20 years and was well overdue; and the grieving process concerning Mom’s death was underway; continues today; and the frequent conversations with her are therapeutic and offer a sense of peace and comfort. I miss her physical presence; however, it always feels like she is here with me. Today it feels like proper, timely grieving is essential for peace-of-mind.

In 1987 a work associate shared the SARA grief cycle at breakfast. The associate openly admitted that he was grieving because I had been selected for a position that he felt should have been his. Our conversation was quite moving as he shared that the “S” was shock, the “A” was anger, the “R” was rationalization, and the last “A” was for acceptance. As one grieves, we cycle, and recycle, through the four emotions, each in our own way and each in our own time, often moving from shock to acceptance or from rationalization to anger, and the other combinations of SARA. Awareness of the process and being with emotion experienced is critical for grieving, simply sit in the flames of the tortuous emotion being experienced.

Mindfulness and awareness of the personal nature of the “slinky-like,” SARA grieving process has been fruitful for Mom’s death and other lost ones. Whether it is shock, anger, rationalization, or acceptance, the objective is to be with the experience of the created emotion. Sit in the flames, face everything, fear nothing, and do it in your own way and in your own time. SARA works! Grieving is definitely individual, process, and essential.


200 DAYS

Posted on August 9, 2025

With 200 days behind us, we are witnessing a concentration of authoritarian power, simply the creation of a cult by Donald Trump and his associates. Gone are truth, statistical data, facts, law, honesty, gratitude, trust, compassion, courage, prudence, and integrity.

As a senior elder, gone are the days of the West Point Honor Code, “I will not lie, cheat, or steal, nor tolerate those amongst us who do;” Bill Coors during his Adolph Coors Company leadership team addresses, “Honesty, integrity, and morality;” Coors Senior Vice President of Finance, Max Goodwin, coaching, “Be objective, not self-serving, and make decisions in the best interests of the Company;” and Hyler Bracey, President of The Atlanta Consulting Group, “Commit to 100% Responsibility, life happens because of me, not to me.”

It feels like the 250-year history and ethical character of the country has disappeared!

Integral Ethics, like any decent ethics, is the art of being a good person. It’s the practice of goodness in our everyday lives and includes all the ways of being truthful, authentic, caring, and courageous that continue our basic integrity. Integral Ethics also refers to the dimension of our lives where we must make difficult and complicated choices and nuanced judgments about what is right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable, and quite often, unavoidably ambiguous. It’s where we must grapple with moral dilemmas, in politics, sexuality, health, relationships, work, money, and sometimes life and death situations… The short-term costs of unethical behavior are unhappy, contracted, and unskillful states of mind and emotion. The long-term costs of unethical behavior are worse—a vicious cycle of lies, self-contempt, and denial that erodes the foundation of our integrity and virtue.  (Wilber, Patten, Leonard, Morelli, Integral Life Practice: A 21st Century Blueprint for Physical Health, Emotional Balance, Mental Clarity, and Spiritual Awakening, 2008, Boulder, CO: Integral, 255)

Terrence Real offers relational counsel,

FIVE CORE SELF-SKILLS, relational skills, for a well-adjusted, well-functioning person.

  • Self-Esteem

Dysfunction: shame; grandiosity.

  • Self-Awareness

Dysfunction: disassociation; perfectionism.

  • Good Boundaries

Dysfunction: too porous (reactive); walled off (disengaged).

  • Interdependence

Dysfunction: overdependence; anti dependent; needless; wantless.

  • Moderation

Dysfunction: immature (too “loose”); super mature (too “tight”).

(Terrence Real, How Can I Get Through to You, 2002. NY, NY: SCRIBNER, 203-204)

Ethics is an opportunity for joy, happiness, empathy, and freedom. And it is not a matter of recasting the entrenched sense into dutiful obedience. Synchronize the heart and the mind and reach out for others in a heartfelt, caring, helping, serving, and loving manner. Quality relational skills matter, and gratitude, trust, hope, and compassion can become a way of life. Life is simply practice and every experience has a purpose.

 

EIP

Posted on August 2, 2025

An emotionally immature person (EIP) is the President of the United States; and he has associates who are EIPs. For an 85-year-old U.S. citizen, U.S. Army veteran, two-year Vietnam War combat veteran, United States Military Academy graduate… “I will not lie, cheat, or steal, nor tolerate those amongst us who do…”, spouse, dad, grandpa, and great grandpa, it is disgusting, depressing, and embarrassing to bear witness to this EIP behavior for a Commander-in-Chief of the military services, in addition to his daily decisions for this great country…immigration, Epstein files, foreign relations, Medicare, Social Security, education department, et al.

Dr. Lindsay C. Gibson offers the following about EIPs,

EIPs often use flattery to coax you into going along with whatever they want. They act like you have all the answers or are uniquely strong and capable of fixing their problems. They tell you they don’t know what they would do without you. (My guess is that they would soon find someone else more willing.)

 EIPs offer a spectacular relationship deal: if you want to do what they want, then you will be everything to them. However, the fine print says that you are only as good as the last thing you did for them. In this distorted arrangement, you can be everything one minute and nothing the next. This is because they have an extremely self-preoccupied way of looking at relationships. You are either wonderful or useless to them-with nothing in between.

 EIPs’ flatteries can be very seductive to anyone. We all want to feel special. Who isn’t intrigued by someone who acts like you are the answer to their prayer? It’s easy to forgive them anything as soon as you feel like everything to them again, even if they ignore or disrespect you the rest of the time. You might put up with a lot as long as the EIP sometimes makes you feel important, lovable, and special. This use of flattery is well known in con artists, cult leaders, dictators, and other exploiters to help get their foot in the door. They know people need to feel special, and they use it to cement their power…

 …Wouldn’t you prefer genuine people who show you kindness and sincere interest, not puffery they bestow because they’re in a good mood and about to get what they want? (Lindsay C. Gibson, Recovering from Emotionally Immature Parents, 2015, Oakland, CA: New Harbinger, 68-69)

 Yes, as a Dr. Spock raised child, am certain EIP rubbed off from Mom and Dad, and Gpa and Gma; and have no doubt that after a 50+ year commitment to self-awareness and self-development, my parenting skills would be much improved today. Looking inside, the shame, rejection, aloofness, headiness, and perfectionism still need work. Nevertheless, to be witness to the EIP at the helm of our country is distressing and needs to be changed. As Terrence Real reminds us, the place to start is with our own relational skills:

Five core relational skills for a well-adjusted, well-functioning person:

  • Self-Esteem

Dysfunction: shame; grandiosity.

  • Self-Awareness

Dysfunction: disassociation; perfectionism.

  • Good Boundaries

Dysfunction: too porous (reactive); walled off (disengaged).

  • Interdependence

Dysfunction: over dependence; anti-dependent; needless; wantless.

  • Moderation

Dysfunction: immature (too “loose”); super mature (too “tight”).

(Terrence Real, How Can I Get Through to You, 2002. NY, NY: SCRIBNER, 203-204)

Let’s get this improvement work done and move forward absent the chaos, confusion, and hate. We need peace-of-mind with purpose and connections created on a foundation of compassion.


ETHICS

Posted on July 26, 2025

Where has the practice and learned art of being a good person gone? Wilber et al contend,

Integral Ethics, like any decent ethics, is the art of being a good person. It’s the practice of goodness in our everyday lives and includes all the ways of being truthful, authentic, caring, and courageous that continue our basic integrity. Integral Ethics also refers to the dimension of our lives where we must make difficult and complicated choices and nuanced judgments about what is right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable, and quite often, unavoidably ambiguous. It’s where we must grapple with moral dilemmas, in politics, sexuality, health, relationships, work, money, and sometimes life and death situations. (Wilber, Patten, Leonard, Morelli, Integral Life Practice: A 21st Century Blueprint for Physical Health, Emotional Balance, Mental Clarity, and Spiritual Awakening, 2008, Boulder, CO: Integral, 255)

Every day the headlines scream about the serious lack of ethics being clearly displayed by President Donald Trump and associates in the political arena. Most recently, the Epstein Files have dominated news media, simply unethical behavior by many folks…DOJ meets with Epstein associate for second day; Attorney General Pam Bondi told Trump his name appears in the so-called Epstein files during a May briefing; White House pushes back after reports Trump is named in Epstein files; The Epstein Files timeline raises real questions for Trump; House Democrats launch bid to subpoena Justice Department for Epstein files; White House tightens its grip on Jeffrey Epstein messaging; A timeline of how the Epstein controversy became a headache for Trump…and the unethical saga goes on…distractions, cover ups, lies, conspiracy, self-serving and certainly not ethical behavior, and simply not a single peep that will benefit the country.…

Wilber et al, offer,

The short-term costs of unethical behavior are unhappy, contracted, and unskillful states of mind and emotion. The long-term costs of unethical behavior are worse—a vicious cycle of lies, self-contempt, and denial that erodes the foundation of our integrity and virtue. (Wilber et al, Integral Life Practice: A 21st Century Blueprint for Physical Health, Emotional Balance, Mental Clarity, and Spiritual Awakening, 2008, Boulder, CO: Integral, 273)

Terrence Real offers relational counsel,

FIVE CORE SELF-SKILLS, relational skills, for a well-adjusted, well-functioning person.

  • Self-Esteem

Dysfunction: shame grandiosity.

  • Self-Awareness

Dysfunction: disassociation; perfectionism.

  • Good Boundaries

Dysfunction: too porous (reactive); walled off (disengaged).

  • Interdependence

Dysfunction: overdependence; antidependent; needless; wantless.

  • Moderation

Dysfunction: immature (too “loose”); supermature (too “tight”).

(Terrence Real, How Can I Get Through to You, 2002. NY, NY: SCRIBNER, 203-204)

Ethics is an opportunity for joy, happiness, empathy, and freedom. And it is not a matter of recasting the entrenched sense into dutiful obedience. Synchronize the heart and the mind and reach out for others in a heartfelt, caring, helping, serving, and loving manner. Quality relational skills matter, and gratitude, trust, hope and compassion can become a way of life. Life is simply practice and every experience has a purpose.


RELATIONAL SKILLS

Posted on July 19, 2025

Epstein Files, Reopen Alcatraz Prison, Florida’s Alligator Alcatraz, Masked Arrests by ICE Agents, National Guard and Marines in Los Angeles, Southern Boarder Military Zones, Gun Rules Gone, these have been recent headlines. And, as a proud member of West Point’s Long Gray Line and proud U.S. Army veteran, including two years of combat during the Vietnam War, it saddens to be witness to the destruction of the pillars of the country. A pleasant reminder are Terrence Real’s relational, SELF SKILLS for a well-adjusted, well-functioning person:

  • Healthy Self-esteem…Dysfunction: Shame. Grandiosity.
  • Self-awareness…Dysfunction: Disassociation. Perfectionism.
  • Good Boundaries…Dysfunction: Too porous (reactive). Walled off (disengaged).
  • Interdependence…Dysfunction: Overdependent. Antidependent/needless/wantless.
  • Moderation…Dysfunction: Immature (too “loose”). “Supermature” (too “tight”).

(How Do I Get Through to You, NY, NY: SCRIBNER, 260)

Quite simply, we need to empathetically offer the truth to ourselves and others! Cultural masculinity and femininity can get in the way of honesty and competency. Peace-of -mind is created with purpose and connections built on a foundation of empathy and compassion. And the battle for the country can only be won if we each have passionate intent; commit to 100% responsibility (Life happens because of me, not to me.); face everything, fear nothing; and accept a process perspective…healing our country will take time and genuine, inspired, honest effort. Every experience has a purpose; mindfulness and awareness offer insight into reality; and life is practice. Let us be relationally sound and grateful, have trust and hope, be compassionate, have courage, be honest and prudent, and have integrity. We each can make a difference and recover the damage that is being made to the pillars of our country by striving to be well-adjusted and well-functioning. Have a great day and spread kindness and love.

 

 

 

 

GLOBAL CITIZENS

Posted on July 11, 2025

Let’s evolve with a full burst of transcend and include others, and love and nurture global citizens. Ken Wilber, Terry Patten, Adam Leonard, and Marco Morelli contend,

INDIGO is the first truly transpersonal worldview, meaning a person’s self-awareness extends beyond the personal. It goes beyond an exclusive identification with the personality, while including the personality in its signature uniqueness. By its very nature the Indigo worldview begins to transcend the separation of the subject from the object. Both are seen to arise in an interconnected unity. This level is also marked by a shift to a highly intuitive, flexible, and flowing relationship with experience and phenomena. In the Indigo worldview, existence is seen as a radically interconnected fabric, an ecology of flows of light, life, mind, matter, energy, time, and space.

 Wholes are seen in intuitive flashes…Indigo just sees wholes without having to string things together. Systemic and transpersonal wholes are simply apparent, including ecological, political, and cultural wholes that transcend the individual. The personal self-sense opens into these larger systems, identifies with them, and often feels a profound sense of oneness, particularly in the wake state and the gross realm.

 The Indigo worldview not only sees through but also lets go of the gross related ego-self as the center and anchoring reference point from which the complex dance of relations, processes, and experience is always seen. This relaxes the tension or stress between individuality and interconnected unity. Life is viewed on a radically elastic time scale, ranging from minutes to years to lifetimes to millennia to deep time to radical timelessness or pure eternity. Indigo individuals feel rested in the Kosmos, in the natural flows of birth, growth, aging, death, joy, and suffering. (Ken Wilber, Terry Patten, Adam Leonard, and Marco Morelli, Integral Life Practice: A 21st-Century Blueprint for Physical Health, Emotional Balance, Mental Clarity, and Spiritual Awakening, 2008. Boulder, CO: Integral Books, 96-97)

Evolving to the Indigo worldview is a challenge and opportunity and will require passionate intent; a commitment to 100% responsibility—life happens because of me, not to me; facing everything, fearing nothing; and embracing process perspective. And the process needs to start with our kids. The Dalai Lama, who just had a 90th birthday, contends,

The only way out of this drunken stupor is to educate children about the value of compassion and the value of applying our mind. We need a long-term approach rooted in a vision to address our collective global challenges. This would require a fundamental shift in human consciousness, something only education is best suited to achieve. Time never waits. (Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama, The Book of Joy, 2016. London: Penguin, 273)

Jasmine Star Horan offers,

Early childhood is the most precious, important, vulnerable, potential-filled time in which our personalities and core issues, attachments, and foundations are formed…Children are the seeds of hope for humanity and they need to be cared for tenderly, watered with love and attention, invested in, and nourished as the fruit-bearing trees that they will become. By planting seeds of love and respect early on, we can nourish the children, as I believe they are the source of healing for our world. (Jasmine Star Horan, The Gazebo Learning Project: A Legacy of Experiential & Experimental Early Childhood Education at Esalen, 2020. Big Sur, CA: Silver Peak Press, 332-333)

Working with our 2-6 year old kids offers a wonderful mindfulness and awareness foundation for the globe; and growing the mindfulness, awareness, and self-restraint of our beautiful kids offers a plethora of fruitful experiences for kids, parents, and facilitators…social skills, social awareness and social interaction, comfort and discomfort, from which growth occurs, and emotional connection; neurological and physiological development, awareness of senses, groundwork for successful academic learning, and self-reliance; independence, exploration, curiosity, and slowing down, watching, and observing their environment with sensitivity; vestibular, proprioceptive and kinesthetic movement; meditation—mindfulness and awareness; balance, mentorship, time structure, and hand-eye coordination; calculated emotional risks, caretaker of mother earth, indigenous wisdom, and environmental care; PLAY, mind-body connection, peace-of-mind, pottysville, dance, and music; weeding, watering, tools, seeds, flowers, and planting; 1st aid, health, wellness, and wellbeing, and respect for nature, animals, and humans; responsibility for the environment, birth and death awareness and responsibility, and putting stuff away. (Noted while reading Jasmine Star Horan’s The Gazebo Learning Project: A Legacy of Experiential & Experimental Early Childhood Education at Esalen, 2020. Big Sur, CA: Silver Peak Press)

Let’s evolve with a full burst of transcend and include others, and love and nurture our global citizens! Mindfulness and awareness differentiate folks. Recently, the “mind chatter” and “heart flutter” have been alive with thoughts about helping kids by supporting potential parents, marital partners and partners who are planning to have children, and parents who have children. Let’s take a quick look:

  • As Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, recommended several years ago, potential parents, i.e., young folks who are thinking about marriage, and/or becoming partners, and having children, need to learn, understand, and experience the challenges and opportunities associated with having children and raising children in today’s world. The country needs literature and programs to facilitate this learning process for potential parents before they get married, or become partners, and before they opt to get pregnant and have children.
  • Folks who opt to get pregnant and have children need to learn about and understand how to quiet the mind-meditation is a must-and engage, hook-up, emotional/feeling empathy and compassion before the kids arrive. For happiness and authenticity, peace-of-mind is essential, and one’s purpose and connections need to be created on a foundation of empathy and compassion.
  • Potential parents and soon to be parents need to learn, understand, reflect upon, experience, and practice how to coach kids through processing positive and negative emotional/feeling-experiences at the time of the experiences. Simply learn to become a first-class, on-the-spot facilitator for their kids. This emotions/feelings processing will help the kids be authentically male or female and not grow up like the culture dictates, i.e., as a masculine or feminine presented self.

 

HELPING PARENTS and KIDS

Posted on July 3, 2025

Wow, what a journey…from playing with an orange road grader in the sand pile under an apple tree in the garden; to perfectionism, self-awareness and self-development, and performance-based self-esteem; to funk; and back to playing with an orange road grader in the sand pile under an apple tree in the garden.

As a kid growing up in Northwest Ohio—Sherwood, Ohio—hours were spent playing in the sand pile under an apple tree in the garden. A beautiful memory is playing with the orange road grader that was a Christmas present. Adjacent to the sand pile became the burial place for Tony, my beautiful, gold Persian cat who had been killed on U.S. Route 127 (Harrison Street) that motored North and South in front of the house that Dad had built and that Little John was taken home to after he was born in Defiance Hospital, Defiance, Ohio. The sandpile became a thing of the past when the two backyard hot rods needed a racetrack on the skirts of the garden and apple trees…however…

As working in Dad’s store, becoming an altar boy, and school became early priorities, A’s were rewarded with money and the need to perform and get stuff right became a way of life. Consequently, perfectionist, “heady,” emotionless, presented masculinity of the existing culture, and performance-based self-esteem became companions for many years of this wonderful gift of life’s journey. And the change-transition from this achievement driven life to retirement has been a monster, personally, for a dear intimate partner of fifty-three years and counting, for kids, and others. The word choice for this transition period from the military service and corporate America to retirement is “funk,” which, at times has felt mentally, emotionally, physically, energetically, cellularly, and spiritually never ending.

What is the current transition? The change from that “funk” of a learning, reflecting, experiencing, and evolving several years to an eventful return to the sandpile under the apple tree in the garden, simple presence with what is and that “… everything is an experience with a purpose.” (See Davey’s quote below.) Today it feels like a new beginning has begun to materialize, help parents help kids and help kids. Let’s peek by starting with a story from a former student, Davey, noted in The Gazebo Learning Project: A Legacy of Experiential & Experimental Early Childhood Education at Esalen. (Jasmine Star Horan, 2020, Big Sur, CA: Silver Peak Press, 144.) Davey offers,

I believe that I am a rare and lucky person in that my grandmother (Penny Vieregge) has taught at Gazebo for much longer than I have been alive. What I know about the philosophy, I know from the ways in which my ‘Nana” treated my brother and me. EVERYTHING IS AN EXPERIENCE WITH A PURPOSE [The capital letters are the BLOG author’s!]. For example, if we were to garden with Nana, my brother and I would dig the holes, we would plant the seeds, we would be responsible to water and maintain the beds, we would nourish the plants until we got to enjoy and share strawberries. We were able to understand the whole process and gain an understanding that our actions (that we can do on our own) can have a beneficial impact on our world around us. By doing and understanding we become capable and conscientious.

Pema Chodron, American Buddhist nun and mother, author of Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living, et al, offers,

We work on ourselves to help others, but also, we help others to work on ourselves. The whole path seems to be about developing curiosity, about looking out and taking an interest in all the details of our lives and in our immediate environment. (The Gazebo Learning Project: A Legacy of Experiential & Experimental Early Childhood Education at Esalen. Jasmine Star Horan, 2020, Big Sur, CA: Silver Peak Press, 171)

Lucy Horan Drummond, a former Gazebo student, contends,

Kids were learning to be in touch with their emotions— (feel them)—and slow down and express them. We…learned good behaviors because we learned how to be in touch with emotions and feel our emotions; we grew up learning skills that other people had to relearn as adults. (The Gazebo Learning Project: A Legacy of Experiential & Experimental Early Childhood Education at Esalen, Jasmine Star Horan, 2020, Big Sur, CA: Silver Peak Press, 181)

All this boils down to the glaring, screaming, pleading need to help our children grow AWARENESS because degree—level— of AWARENESS differentiates folks. From this parent’s perspective, the more awareness for our kids, the better the prospects for overcoming the country’s confusion, chaos, conflict, terrorism, and nasty headlines. The obvious question: How can we help our young folks grow AWARENESS?

Step number uno is helping them learn to become present in the moment…simply learning to be mindful and present in the moment grows awareness for the child and the facilitator, parent, teacher, coach, or enabler. Folks are different and successful beings because of the degree of respective awareness and the level of awareness can grow and evolve with facilitation, help, enabling, and coaching, not directing, dictating, pontificating, being “heady,” and critical. Be present with the child, participate in what is going on in the moment, ask the right questions, grow the awareness for both parties…simply learning and reflection moved to experience and wisdom, consciousness, recognition, realization and knowledge of a situation…evolving and growing for both facilitator and child via process and patience, self-awareness and skillful dialogue. Jasmine Star Horan notes,

Rather than avoiding difficult feelings and situations…education can be used to experience and express the full spectrum of emotions, allow for productive conflict and communication, and to grow through self-awareness and skillful dialogue. (The Gazebo Learning Project: A Legacy of Experiential & Experimental Early Childhood Education at Esalen. Jasmine Star Horan, 2020, Big Sur, CA: Silver Peak Press, 181)

Some folks will watch what happens. Some folks will wonder what happened. Some folks will make mindfulness, awareness, and self-restraint education become reality for parents and kids. A multitude of resources can be found in The Gazebo Learning Project: A Legacy of Experiential & Experimental Early Childhood Education at Esalen, Jasmine Star Horan, 2020, Big Sur, CA: Silver Peak Press, 337-340. Together, let’s make this happen for our kids and the globe!


CULTURE DICTATED MASCULINITY

Posted on June 28, 2025

Terrence Real offers,

Our interconnectedness to nature, and to one another, can no longer be denied. We live in a global economy. We share global resources. We face global threats. The paradigm of dominance must yield to an ethic of caretaking, or we simply will not survive…The dynamic of dominance and submission, which has been at the heart of traditional masculinity, can play itself out inside the psyche of a man as depression, in his interpersonal relationships as irresponsibility and abuse, in one race’s contempt for another people, or in humanity’s relationship to the earth itself. We have abused the environment we live in as if it were an all-giving and all-forgiving mother, an endless resource…the addictive defenses must be confronted and stopped, then the pain beneath them must be allowed to surface. Finally, the skills and responsibilities of the true intimacy— “stewardship” as (Al) Gore, among others, calls it—must be reestablished. The boy must become steward, husbandman. The earth is not our mother; she is our wife. We are married to her and, if we do not take care, we may soon be divorced. (I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression, 374-76)

With the recent bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites, the “mind chatter” and “heart flutter” have been alive with thoughts about nurturing kids by supporting 1) potential parents, marital partners and partners who are planning to have children, and 2) parents who have children. Let’s take a look:

  • As Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, recommended several years ago, potential parents, i.e., young folks who are thinking about marriage, and/or becoming partners, and having children, need to learn, understand, and experience the challenges and opportunities associated with having children and raising children in today’s world. The country needs literature and programs to facilitate this learning process for potential parents before they get married, or become partners, and before they opt to get pregnant and have children.
  • Folks who opt to get pregnant and have children need to learn about and understand how to quiet the mind—meditation is a must—and engage empathy and compassion before the kids arrive. For happiness and authenticity, peace-of-mind is essential, and one’s purpose and connections need to be created on a foundation of empathy and compassion.
  • Potential parents and soon to be parents need to learn, understand, reflect upon, experience, and practice how to coach kids through processing positive and negative emotional/feeling-experiences at the time of the experiences. Simply learn to become a first-class, on-the-spot therapist for their kids. This emotions/feelings processing will help the kids be authentically male or female and not grow up like the culture dictates, i.e., as a masculine or feminine presented self.

We are witnessing in today’s headlines folks who have grown up and are behaving and making decisions based on culture dictated masculinity and femininity norms. For us to evolve absent overwhelming hate, chaos, division, and confusion, these norms need to change; and the beginning of this changes needs to be with our children as they are growing up and experiencing emotions and feelings. These experiences of feelings need to change from culturally dictated norms to what is being experienced and processed by children as they are felt. This is a huge coaching job for parents and much needed for the country to evolve past reading headlines as we are noting daily, simply culturally dictated masculinity via unhealthy ego and position power. Three nice resources are The Gazebo Learning Project: A Legacy of Experiential & Experimental Early Childhood Education at Esalen (Jasmine Star Horan, 2020, Silver Peak Press: Big Sur, CA); Create an Emotion-Rich Classroom: Helping Young Children Build Their Social Emotional Skills (Lindsay N. Giroux, 2022, Free Spirit Publishing: Minneapolis, MN); and Creating True Peace: Ending Violence in Yourself, Your Family, Your Community, and the World (Thich Nhat Hanh, 2003, Free Press: NY, NY).

 

COACHING KIDS

Posted on June 21, 2025

Washinton D.C. military parade; 2000+ protests and demonstrations planned across the Nation on Trump’s birthday; United States Marines carry out detention of civilian in Los Angeles; 4000 National Guard troops and 700 United States Marines deployed in Los Angeles; and Trump made millions on guitars, bibles and watches with his name on them…these have been media headlines. An analytical glance will establish the least common denominator to be President Donald J. Trump and his administration.

There are several actions one can take to counter the chaos, power, and dictatorship of this administration. 1) Start your own peaceful protest or demonstration; 2) Participate in planned peaceful protests and demonstrations in local communities; 3) Organize and/or participate in campaigns to change elected individuals during 2026 mid-term elections; 4) Organize and/or participate in campaigns to change elected individuals during the 2028 Presidential Election; and 5) Help parents help the kids learn and experience how to show up authentically. Helping parents help the kids takes some explanation.

Recently, the “mind chatter” and “heart flutter” have been alive with thoughts about helping kids by supporting potential parents, marital partners and partners who are planning to have children, and parents who have children. Let’s take a quick look:

  • As Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, recommended several years ago, potential parents, i.e., young folks who are thinking about marriage, and/or becoming partners, and having children, need to learn, understand, and experience the challenges and opportunities associated with having children and raising children in today’s world. The country needs literature and programs to facilitate this learning process for potential parents before they get married, or become partners, and before they opt to get pregnant and have children.
  • Folks who opt to get pregnant and have children need to learn about and understand how to quiet the mind-meditation is a must-and engage, hook-up, emotional/feeling empathy and compassion before the kids arrive. For happiness and authenticity, peace-of-mind is essential, and one’s purpose and connections need to be created on a foundation of empathy and compassion.
  • Potential parents and soon to be parents need to learn, understand, reflect upon, experience, and practice how to coach kids through processing positive and negative emotional/feeling-experiences at the time of the experiences. Simply learn to become a first-class, on-the-spot therapist for their kids. This emotions/feelings processing will help the kids be authentically male or female and not grow up like the culture dictates, i.e., as a masculine or feminine presented self.

We are witnessing in today’s headlines folks who have grown up and are behaving and making decisions based on culture dictated masculinity and femininity norms. For us to evolve absent overwhelming hate, chaos, division, and confusion, these norms need to change; and the beginning of this changes needs to be with our children as they are growing up and experiencing emotions and feelings. These experiences of feelings need to change from culturally dictated norms to what is being experienced and processed by children as they are felt. This is a huge coaching job for parents and much needed for the country to evolve past reading headlines as we are noting daily, simply culturally dictated masculinity via ego and position power.