This is a Guest Post written by Stephen Simon and reprinted with permission.

I am proud to be a voting member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that nominates and then votes each year for the Oscars^®. However, I do have a conceptual issue with the notion of “Best” film, actor, etc. Art is way too subjective to be making objective distinctions, so I feel much more comfortable using the phrase “favorite film.”

When considering my favorite films for the year, I ask myself: Do I feel better about being human after having seen the movie? This personal qualifier is certainly not a part of the Academy voting rules, but it is an essential one for me.

Here are my 2011 favorites:

1.The Tree of Life Terrence Malick’s mind-blowingly original The Tree of Lifeis so majestically and subjectively emotional that seeing it feels more like a deeply personal and spiritual experience than the viewing of a film. One gets the sense that each of us in the theater embarks on our own internal journey during the film.The plot of the film? Life, death, spirituality, nature, evolution, God, parenthood, childhood and everything in between. Truly, the film has no historical antecedent in its imagery or storytelling and thus simply defies traditional description.Brad Pitt’s performance in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button firmly established him as a brilliant actor. Now, in The Tree of Life, Mr. Pitt has elevated his craft to a new league of brilliance as he gives one of the most nuanced, evocative and haunting portrayals of a father in recent memory. Because of its dazzling originality, deep spirituality and sheer artistry, I would not be at all surprised to see The Tree of Life take on Citizen Kane-like status in the decades to come.

2.The Descendants Writer/director Alexander Payne, who made one of my all-time favorite movies Sideways, hits another character-based home run here with The Descendants. George Clooney (who is absolutely pitch-perfect) plays a man whose wife is in a coma after having been critically injured. Utterly bewildered as he is called upon to care for his two daughters in a way he never imagined, he finds out that his wife had been cheating on him. How he and his daughters deal with those wildly conflicting emotions is the heart and soul of the film.Set in Hawaii, the film is a beautiful and ultimately a triumphant family drama that is filled with love, compassion and hope, illustrating how “life is what happens while we’re making other plans.”

3. Hugo Director Martin Scorsese’s Hugo is a magnificent and loving tribute to The Old Hollywood and movies themselves. The story of the film surrounds an orphan boy in Paris who searches for a key that will unlock the mystery of a humanoid device that was left behind by his father. As the boy (played wonderfully by young Asa Butterfield) searches for the right parts to bring the device to life, he encounters a bitter old man (Ben Kingsley) who at first becomes a nemesis and then transforms into a friend.

4. The Artist The Artist is a brilliant, innovative salute to The Old Hollywood. One of the bravest movies of the year, The Artist dares to be a black-and-white silent film. An actor (played with incredible flair and depth by Jean Dujardin) named George Valentin is a huge silent film star with a glamorous, movie star life when he befriends Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo), a young woman working as an extra on one of his films. He helps launch her career just at the time talking movies are replacing silent films. The Artist is a delightful love story between a man and a woman, between the audience and the magic of movies themselves, and, oh yes, between a man and his dog. Can’t beat that!

5. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Extremely Loud and Incredibly Closeis a heartfelt film about childhood loss, adventure and triumph. The movie focuses on the son of a man (played by Tom Hanks) who is killed in the twin towers on 9/11, a challenging subject matter for filmmakers. The film mostly takes place a year later as the ten-year-old boy searches for a key (literally and figuratively) that connects him to his father.Under the incredibly sensitive and human direction of Stephen Daldry (The Hours and Billy Elliot), child actor Thomas Horn is brilliant, compelling and relatable as we join him on his search for healing and understanding.

6. We Bought a Zoo We Bought a Zoo is to 2011 what The Blind Side was to 2009: a feel-good-about-being-human film. Writer/director Cameron Crowe (Jerry Maguire and Elizabethtown) makes movies with compassion and empathy for real human beings who take on life challenges that ultimately open their hearts.The always-wonderful Matt Damon plays Benjamin Mee, a widowed father of two young kids who buys a new home that includes a dilapidated animal park. Through the experience of putting the zoo back in working shape (aided by an understated and naturalistic Scarlett Johansson), Benjamin and his children transform their lives. As an audience, we leave uplifted and happy in the knowledge that we humans can be pretty wonderful creatures, too.

7. Win Win Win Win is a moving reminder of the crushing financial stresses and moral dilemmas those pressures present today. Paul Giamatti, one of my favorite actors, stars in the film and brings to it his trademark wit, intelligence and decency. His portrait of a man who compromises his own integrity is so real and compelling that it takes on the aura of a common moral and societal predicament in this age of economic upheaval. How far would we go, how much would we blur or even erase the line between our own integrity and our commitment to support our family? What happens when those lines intersect is the essence of Win Win.

8. Midnight in Paris Woody Allen’s whimsical Midnight in Paris is an inspiring film about a man who yearns to live a simpler life in a different time and, through time travel, manages to experience just that. Owen Wilson’s character in the film has become so disenchanted with his life that he literally can no longer live in his old persona. What a wonderful message to all of us. Be real. Be ourselves. Trust. Love. Listen to our hearts.

9. Everything Must Go Everything Must Gois a dramatic and deeply moving character study of a man (played by the brilliant Will Ferrell) who has literally thrown his entire life away because of his addiction to alcohol. Will Ferrell infuses his portrayal with a deep sense of humility, humanity and heartbreaking honesty. It is unfortunate that great comic actors are often completely ignored come Oscar time when they venture into drama, even when they give phenomenal performances.Incredibly life-affirming, Everything Must Go is an absorbing film that has much to say about how resilient we can be.

10. Dolphin Tale Dolphin Taleis an enchanting, inspirational film that is based on the true story of Winter, a dolphin that was washed ashore in Florida after becoming tangled in a fishing cage. Through the loving care of the Florida Marine Aquarium and two young children, Winter (who plays herself) learns to swim without her tail and later receives a prosthetic tail.Beautifully directed by veteran actor Charles Martin Smith, Dolphin Tale is much more than just heart warming and uplifting. Winter’s aquarium has become a haven for children from around the world who also have prosthetic devices. Winter gives us some great lessons here in life and love…

So, that’s my list for 2011. What’s on your list? Join the discussion on Facebook.

Here’s to a great 2012…both at the movies and in life!
Warm regards,

The following excerpt is adapted from the new book Wabi Sabi Love: The Ancient Art of Finding Perfect Love in Imperfect Relationships by Arielle Ford. Reprinted with permission of HarperOne. ©2011.

While some experts might tell us not to sweat the small stuff, we all know it is the little things that can chisel away at even the best of relationships. Before those granular irks lead to the Big Bang in our partnerships, we need to develop relational safety nets to catch us before we fall. You can consider these strategies to be a quirk-turned-perk energy shift, if you will. A key aspect of Wabi Sabi is learning to move our focus from what makes our partners so annoying to what makes our partners so unique.

At its heart, this transition is about gratitude. Gratitude can be a marriage-saving emotion, especially if you tend to easily slide into feelings of annoyance about your partner’s daily habits. Little rituals of thankfulness can sustain you as you struggle with the thing he or she did—again.

For many years I began each day with a prayer as a way to center myself and receive divine guidance. I would make a gratitude list that often looked like this: Today I am grateful that I have fresh air to breathe and clean water to drink and for the many friends and family members who love me.”

So far so good. Then I got married and my prayers changed.

Dear God,
Help me. I have married a man who refuses to answer the phone, but he will walk across a room to hand me the phone so I can answer it.

Okay. I’m stretching the truth just a bit here, but like all couples, Brian and I each had quirks and odd behaviors that we had to learn to love and appreciate. A daily practice of offering prayers of gratitude (whether you believe in a higher being or not) for your beloved mate—flaws and all—will keep your mind open and your heart receptive to remembering how much you love him or her. For it’s really the cracks in our partners that we will someday miss the most.

Mrs. Lee’s Story:

This story is based on a YouTube video that can be viewed at www.wabisabilove.com/video It could not be determined whether this is based on a true character or not. The truthfulness of Mrs. Lee’s words, however, overshadows the detail of fact or fiction.

The cool, quiet room was overflowing with the grieving faces of friends and family as the funeral director invited Mrs. Lee up to the podium to speak. The petite, elegant widow walked slowly to the front of the small chapel and calmly began her eulogy.
“I am not going to sing praises for my late husband. Not today. Neither am I going to talk about how good he was.” Mrs. Lee’s eyes flashed.

“Enough people have done that here.” She took a deep breath, allowing the air to fill her lungs before she continued. “Instead, I want to talk about some things that will make some of you feel a bit uncomfortable

Several people stopped fanning themselves and sat up a little straighter. “First off, I want to talk about what happened in bed.” She paused dramatically, shifting her weight from side to side. “Have you ever had difficulty starting your car engine in the morning?” She carefully studied the faces about the room. With a loud, grinding sound, she snorted and rumbled, violently shaking her tiny frame.

“Well, that’s exactly what David’s snoring sounded like.” A cough rose up from the center of the audience. “But wait,” she continued. “Snoring wasn’t the only thing.” “There was also this rear-end wind action as well. Some nights it was so forceful, it would wake him up.” A child giggled into her hand while her red-faced mother stifled a grin.

“ ‘What was that?’ he would ask.

“ ‘Oh, it’s the dog,’ I would say. Patting his back and smoothing the covers, I would urge him to go back to sleep.” She touched her hair as if remembering the way her hands felt as they placed themselves on her husband’s gasping body. “Oh, you might find this very funny,” Mrs. Lee offered the whisper of a smile..

“But when his illness was at its worst, these sounds provided comfort and proof that my David was still alive.”

Silence washed over the room. Even the birds outside seemed to be listening. Mrs. Lee looked heavenward as her voice began to crack.
“What I wouldn’t give just to hear those sounds one more time before I sleep.” A single tear wandered down her face, landing noiselessly on her lapel.

“In the end, it’s these small things that you remember the little imperfections that make them perfect for you.”

“So, to my beautiful children,” Mrs. Lee swept one hand toward the front row, “I hope that one day you, too, will find yourselves life partners who are as beautifully imperfect as your father was to me.”

Mrs. Lee’s eloquent tribute to her husband left the entire audience in tears. With just a few heartfelt words she summed up the mystery and magic of a lifelong marriage built on the foundation of love, imperfection, and acceptance that knows no bounds.

Wabi Sabi Love is … the practice of accepting the flaws, imperfections, and limitations— as well as the gifts and the blessings—that form your shared history as a couple. This is sacred love, not infatuation, or love that is convenient. …

Can you imagine what the world would look like, feel like, be like if the foundational premise of romantic love and deep intimacy were based on the art of loving one’s imperfections rather than the illusionary fantasy that your relationship is fabulous only when each person is acting perfectly? Imagine a world in which imperfection is the accepted norm and is actually cherished.

Anyone who has found this highest level of Wabi Sabi Love knows that it comes in one way and one way only: through exploring, embracing, and actually falling in love with the cracks in each other and ourselves.

♥♥♥

Arielle Ford has spent the past 25 years living and promoting consciousness through all forms of media. She is the author of the international bestseller, THE SOULMATE SECRET: Manifest The Love of Your Life with The Law of Attraction. Her new book Wabi Sabi Love: The Ancient Art of Finding Perfect Love In Imperfect Relationships offers a groundbreaking shift in perception showing couples how have a deeper, more loving, and more fulfilling relationship. She lives in La Jolla, CA with her husband/soulmate, Brian Hilliard and their feline friends. www.wabisabilove.com

For many of us it may feel as though we just rang in the New Year and wished our loved ones a happy 2011, but once again, the holidays have snuck up and are right around the corner. With the celebrations come the joyous festivities of sipping hot chocolate, penning letters to St. Nick, waiting under the mistletoe…and of course crowding around the living room to watch Christmas films with our families. So because of the theme of the impending season, a classic movie to reflect upon as we hang the stockings with care is a beloved and favorite to all: It’s a Wonderful Life.

In this 1946 American drama, Jimmy Stewart plays the role of George Bailey, a troubled man who believes that the world would be a better place without him in it. After spending his entire life giving himself to other people and taking care of his family and his town, a series of unfortunate events cause George to contemplate suicide as the best option for his future. On the edge of a bridge and ready to end it all, George meets his guardian angel, Clarence Odbody (Henry Travers), who intervenes in an attempt to save George’s life. Clarence gives George a glance into the world if he had never been born. When George is faced with what could have been had his existence not come to be, he sees the impact his life has had on touching the many lives around him. George then begs God to live and realizes that it really is a wonderful life.

It’s a Wonderful Life sends the message that each person has the capacity to change the world. One of the most important spiritual themes to take away from this movie is that everything you do matters because your actions and thoughts have a ripple effect—despite how small you may think you are in this great big universe. Your life, actions and thoughts impact the lives of every person in yours.

Think about the ripple effect like this: should you pass on a good deed to someone, there is the chance that they will be moved by your act of kindness and be inspired to share a good deed of their own with someone else. When you emit positivity, you attract positivity in return and it washes like a wave over others. Those who are overcome with negativity are more likely to pass on the effects of their bad attitude. As spiritual human beings, we must believe that everything has a point of origin—be the point of origin to make a difference in the world and spread joy. Before every decision made, consider how it will affect those around you.

Use this classic film as a template for living. Try to approach every encounter as if it is a part of your spiritual contract and an opportunity to do good for others. You never know when your call to service might come—that’s one of the things that make life so thrilling. Understand that there is a bigger reason behind even the most seemingly insignificant or minor events. Wherever you go give someone a smile, pass out thoughtful compliments and spread your laughter. Everyone you meet is facing their own struggles—for all you know your smile at that stranger on the street may have made all the difference because it came at the lowest point in their life when they thought all faith in humankind was lost. Don’t ask why, instead just trust that the universe is guiding you to the right place, at the right time, where you are meant to be.

Watch It’s a Wonderful Life, reflect upon the spiritual questions it triggers and let it inspire you…not only this holiday season, but every day of your life. Make it wonderful.

Ellie Stevens is a guest post author contributing this movie review and spiritual analysis of It’s a Wonderful Life. In her free time, Ellie also composes articles focused on dating and relationships for senior dating websites.

This is a guest post written by Jeff Brown reprinted with permission…

I want to share a weekly inspiration that I recently wrote for ABC’s Good Morning America. Called ‘Schmaltzing my way to God’, this piece speaks to the inextricable linkage between the opening of the heart and the opening of the portal to the Godself. In Soulshaping, I make no distinction between our emotional and spiritual lives, and this piece explores that linkage. In a survivalist world, we all too often mischaracterize the majestic nature of an enheartened path. Thanks to Elizabeth Lesser for her contribution to this piece:

To see the original piece, go to GMA Website

On my spiritual journey, I searched for God everywhere: the yoga studio, the holistic workshop circuit, the shiatsu mat. A well-practiced head tripper, I hunted for God in my thoughts, somehow certain that God would arise in the form of a concept. During my materialistic phases, I imagined God a slick car, large house, a Hugo Boss suit, as though God himself wore Gucci. And for some time, I looked for God on the skyways of self-avoidance, mistaking the short-term benefits of the ungrounded bliss trip for enlightenment itself. I went down this road for some time, seemingly joyous on the outside, but a bubbling cauldron of unresolved feelings and memories in the deep within.

I looked everywhere, but in my heart. Conditioned as an armoured male warrior, it never occurred to me that God could arise through the feeling heart. I had grown up in a warring family, and adapted my consciousness to the battleground before me. Through my well-defended lens, opening my heart was a dangerous path, one that threatened to distract me from my necessary vigilance. When I opened my heart too wide, I was vulnerable to attack from warring factions. When my first intimate relationships threatened to open my heart, I fled them. The closer we got to bridging the heart with the genitals, the faster I ran. With no template to stand in the heart-fire, I preferred the safe confines of my lone wolf lair to the perils of vulnerability.

Consistent with my conditioning, I studied to become a criminal trial lawyer. Shortly after being called to the bar, I delayed the start to my law practice. Something in the deep within had another agenda for my path. As part of my process, I went to the courtroom to watch trials and consider my life’s direction. It was here that the first chinks in my armour appeared. Images of old suffering began to flood my courtroom visits-my mother’s unhappy face, my father’s acts of violence, hiding under my bed while the battles raged. As I sat focused at the back of the courtroom, tears poured out of my eyes and drenched my warrior armour at will. My inner world soon became like a series of beaver dams, each with more painful memories lying in wait behind it. Every time I cleared one dam away, another wave of feeling arose. The heart, it spoke.

Thereafter, I returned to my habitual range of e-motion, the armoured way of being that I knew so well. But something had shifted. There was a crack in my armour where the heart got through. Oddly enough, the crack revealed itself at the video store where I found myself repeatedly renting sentimental love stories- Serendipity, Out of Africa, Horse Whisperer- in an effort to crack my heart back open. I would lie down on my couch and watch the same schmaltzy film like a mantra, crying a little deeper with each viewing. I dared tell no one, but I loved it.

Oftentimes, my schmaltzy movies took me places well beyond my imaginings. Like a depth charge, they chiselled away at the walls of my emotional holdings, shaking my heart-strings loose. The more I chiselled, the more profound my experience of the moment. As I wept, little doors flung open, inviting me deeper into unity consciousness. As the schmaltz opened the gateway to my heart, the Godself stepped on through, revealing himself a little bit more with every deepening. Sentimentality wasn’t just a release, it was a gateway to divinity. By emptying the vessel, I had unknowingly created space for God to enter. In these moments, I saw no distinction between the emotional and the spiritual bodies. It was all God.

As my spiritual journey unfolded, schmaltzy films became my spiritual practice. An elixir for whatever blocked me, I would creep back to the couch whenever I needed to re-open. When I would come back from a difficult work day, the couch. When I got lost in over-analytic patterns, the couch. When life disappointed me, the couch. Pouring a little schmaltz on my wounds now and then re-started my heart. As it turns out, it wasn’t beginner’s mind I sought. It was beginner’s heart- the freshness of appreciation that comes through the open heart. I didn’t want to wait until my deathbed to finally wake up, safe in the knowledge that my vulnerability was time-limited. I wanted to wake up now.

In the presence of another, I touched the heights of this practice. Just before she died, my 90 year old grandmother and I would watch sentimental movies together. Our hearts opened in unison, crying like babies at sentimental endings. Where before I saw my Bubbi as a silly romantic, I now saw her for who she really was- a paragon of enheartened courage. A sentimentalist to the core of her being, she knew that vulnerability was not a sign of weakness, but a sign of life. Better hurt than hardened.

Schmaltz has been given a bad name for far too long. Leaving aside its etymological origins as chicken fat, it is often characterized as excessive or banal sentimentality. As a rule, we don’t bow to schmaltz as a path to God. We throw it in the trash with the rest of the gooey stuff. Its’ negative characterization reflects a long-established cultural tendency to diminish the value of the awakened heart. This pattern was birthed in a survivalist landscape, one where repressing emotions was deemed necessary to social protection and structure building. Better to survive by our wits than risk the wild beast of deep feeling. How much we have sacrificed to build a foundation for our eventual re-opening.

It is high time that we honoured the high and deep feelings of the awakened heart. Enlightenment is not a head trip, its’ a heart trip, gusts of God blowing through the portal of the heart, the aortic love valve merging with the love that courses through the universal vein. Through an enheartened lens, schmaltz is God’s door opener. It is his release valve, his armour buster, his healing balm, his saving grace. For those of us who have forgotten how to feel, schmaltz excavates our holdings and brings us back to life. At their heart, repressed emotions are unactualized spiritual lessons. If we want to expand our spiritual consciousness, we have to shake our heart tree often. Opening the heart unlocks the heart of the universe, and we see what is always before us.

As we shift from survivalism to authenticity as our operating principle, a penchant for schmaltz will serve us well. Although the world rewards insensitivity with the spoils of war, it takes more chutzpah to surrender than to numb. This is not a weakened form of surrender, but one that is emblazoned with courage. Most recently, I have turned to schmaltz whenever my love relationship goes awry. Like a call back to the Godself, I watch Serendipity whenever my heart threatens to close. By the time John and Sarah lock eyes again on the ice rink, I am again dancing with the Godself. No need to meditate to find God, just lay on the couch with a box of Kleenex and she will come.

This article is a guest post contributed with permission from Jeff Brown. A former criminal lawyer and psychotherapist, Jeff Brown is the author of “Soulshaping: A Journey of Self-Creation,” recently published by North Atlantic Books. Endorsed by authors Elizabeth Lesser and Ram Dass, “Soulshaping” is Brown’s autobiography — an inner travelogue of his journey from archetypal male warrior to a more surrendered path. You can connect with his work at www.soulshaping.com

This post is a guest post by Jane Shanti.

Dear all, I would love to write about the DVD from Dr. Roy Martina, called the missing link” it is not really a movie, but his presentation about that missing link, that is also about “The Secret”. He does it very well, the presentation, the information and he is really great. And that DVD is more than helpful. But there is still something missing, even after you study that missing link and practice the meditation he does guide with a lot of love. And there are endless other books and DVD’s and meditations existing, thousands of self-help books that people read every day – but how comes people did still not arrived where they wanna be ?

Yes, there is still something missing. And they search for answers, for love and for connection outside of them. So, I will make it short, because no need to continue to turn around and around about that “big secret”: The answers, the love and the connection humans are searching for, is within their hearts and within their reconnection with their own Soul (and with God for sure). It is so simple.

Now, why does it seem to be so hard, so difficult to reach that point of divine bliss and peace ? Good question, and not easy to answer… if I could write in German, would be a little easier maybe. The point is that now, around that famous year 2012, in all humans on this planet is happening that reunion between the human self and the divine self. This is one important point to understand and to open to. Why so many struggle with it ? because in the moment you connect with your divine self (no, you cannot really control this process but you can open to it, it is happening anyway in its own rythm ), your brain does receive new information and he does not yet know how to handle them. The body will go to a kind of process of adaption too… so… to go back to the missing link: humans forgot who they really are. What is missing? Their divine Selfs, their friendship and love connection with their own Soul, that is missing!

No matter how many studies you did, workshops you did or whatever you searched for, it is all good and very helpful, but you will be able to use all this in an expanded way once you are one with yourself again. The missing link is the link to your Soul, your divine Self. On that way, all illusions will dissolve… and you will find real true Love once you go within your own heart and reconnect with your own Soul.

That is where all the answers are, this is where your truth you is: in your heart. All you need to do is to go there, go within your heart and claim your Soul, claim yourself back home. Be patient, with every day, it gets lighter and easier to connect.

You will feel different, you will think different. No more power struggles, a lot more joy and a lot more love. It does not happen within 3 days, it is a process that takes time. It is cleaning and healing. And you will free yourself from all that you don’t need anymore. The result is a different life, a new you. The result is You as the one you really are – the one you have always been, but as human you forgot…

Love and light, Jane
http://janeshanti.homepage.bluewin.ch/

This post is a guest post by Dr. Jean Houston reprinted with permission.

As I travel around the globe speaking and training, I have consistently found that most people ask me the same question, ‘how do I discover my purpose in life?’ In the past, who you became was determined by your family and circumstances. You didn’t have much choice. But now there is an open moment in history where you have the chance to tap into the soul of your purpose.

Millions of people right now are experiencing a yearning and desire to awaken to their unique gifts and offer them in service to the world—while living a life of joy and fulfillment. It’s a surging of the human spirit, a virtual global awakening, at a scale that no one has ever seen before. Simply put, people are longing to finally feel fully alive and to fulfill their unique purpose in life.  So then why is living a life of meaning and purpose so difficult? It is because our current social systems have not been set up to prepare us to live a life of true purpose. That’s because today’s culture exists not to nurture our highest aspirations, but to ensure our basic survival.  Our educational system is designed to create good workers who will slot into jobs and careers later in life—not to empower fiery, creative people who are forging the path ahead together.

Our social contracts exist to perpetuate the status quo—not to encourage our highest potentials to blossom. Is it any wonder why so many people’s best attempts to evolve themselves and our culture fall short of the goal? We simply haven’t been trained in how to bring the possible future into the present.

It’s not that they don’t have the talent or interest to live purposeful, meaningful life. The issue is far simpler. People struggle to activate their “purpose code” because they haven’t woken up to–or are only partially awake to–our situation as a human race. Most people hold on to old, limiting beliefs of themselves and our human story. Overwhelmed by all the changes in the world around them, most people live their lives within a “small story,” and therefore confine themselves to a “small self.” That’s why so many people feel that they don’t have a purpose, or that they aren’t able to actually *live* the life they were born to live.

There is a saying that “What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.” I believe that it is butterfly time. Just as the guidance cells in the mush that is the caterpillar in its cocoon suddenly begin to activate the transformation of mush into butterfly, so too this is the time when we realize that the guidance or imaginal cells of our bodies, our communities, and, yes, even of the cells of our planet are calling us to come together in all our parts to form something gorgeous, interdependent, living lightly on the Earth, cross pollinating cultures, ideas, spiritual forms, glowing with the light that suffuses us, becoming transparent to transcendence. And to rise out of the mush we have been caught in these many hundreds of years and to take flight in the air of the new story which is emerging in our time.

For the fields we traverse, the many flowers of mind states and soul knowings we now enter are those that belong to the whole, earth, to many cultures, to what I am calling PanGaia. And as the butterfly pollinates and cross pollinates from place to place, flower to flower, so do we also if we have the will and the willingness to discover our purpose and be part of this extraordinary moment in time.

Three Keys to Empowering New Beliefs

The first key to activating your life’s purpose is to hold new beliefs about yourself and about your role in the Great Story of where humanity is headed.

Living a great life, requires that you understand the challenges and opportunities of our moment in history. To understand this for myself, I’ve gathered information from my work in over 100 countries and 40 different cultures and what I’ve discovered has served as a sure guide on my path. Specifically, I have found five great shifts in our understanding of the story of our time that are affecting everything we do today. I believe that awakening to the power of these shifts will help you cultivate your sense of compassion and of the infinite possibilities of this moment.

The five shifts are:

• Our understanding of who and what we are and what we need to become in order to be able to deal with the complexity of our time is evolving.
• Human societies are in the process of re-patterning. Social constructs are dissolving and whole new stories are trying to emerge, such as the rise of women to a full partnership with men across the globe, and many others.
• How we conduct business and governance is shifting in the midst of vast ecological and financial changes. This is perhaps the most important social event of the last five thousand years, because these issues impact almost everything in our lives.
• The rise and fusion of different cultures–we are swiftly moving towards a planetary civilization that accentuates the uniqueness of each culture while blending them together. Think of the great fusions of food and of music and of beliefs.
• Whole new orders of spirituality are emerging that are not about religion. The new cosmologies are giving us a view of ourselves that we never had before. For the first time ever, we find that we don’t just live in the universe, but that the universe lives in us.

This journey begins by letting go of old beliefs and patterns to make room for the new beliefs and capacities that will empower you to awaken to and live your higher purpose.

The Second key allows you to discover and realize the vast field of inner intelligences—using multiple means of knowing and being in order to gain insight into life at a level to which that most people rarely have access.

These skills are to be found on four levels of your human capacity, sensory-physical, psychological-emotional, mythic-symbolic, and unitive-spiritual. As you learn how to utilize the extraordinary capacities to be found at each of these levels you literally move into new ways of being. For example, you will learn how to play with time in such a way as to take five minutes and experience it internally as hours—these are “hours” you can use to develop a skill or move a project forward.

You will learn to access “inner experts”, willing helpers or personas that will help you navigate the complexity of life with elegance and confidence.

The third key gives you the means to break free from unconscious, habitual ways of reacting to life that were born thousands of years ago, and embrace higher ways of being for a new era.

You will discover ways to move through life with ebullience in your bones and an appetite for celebration—seeing everything as an expression of the Creator. You will move through life, motivated not by guilt or obligation, but by gratitude and an abiding zest for doing the things that are called forth by living out of your higher purpose.

Dr. Jean Houston is presenting a FREE 75 minute downloadable audio seminar entitled 3 Keys to Discovering and Living Your True Purpose Available Now at www.DestinyandYou.com .

Dr. Jean Houston is a Scholar, Philosopher and one of the foremost visionary thinkers and doers of our time. She is considered one of the principal founders of the Human Potential Movement. A powerful and dynamic speaker she has served as consultant to several agencies of United Nations including UNICEF and the UNDP. She has worked in over 100 countries training leadership at every level to enhance skills and purpose so as to bring a new mind to bear upon challenging issues. A prolific writer and author of 26 books including A Passion for the Possible and The Mythic Life, Dr. Houston has recently joined the faculty of Evolving Wisdom, today’s fastest growing global e-learning company specializing in transformative education, to provide her wisdom online in a cutting edge format.
www.DestinyandYou.com

Quickly first: I have studied physics, bio-energetics, wisdom traditions and depth psychology my whole adult life. Inquiry has been (and is) my portal on the path of “re-membering”. In observing myself over the course of maturing, as well as observing others who have come to work with me later in life as my own depth has matured, I have watched this play out:

There are indeed universal laws of mystical Truths (lets call them “the Secret”). They are not actually “secret” so much as they are continually misused though misunderstanding and spiritual immaturity. That’s why religions and belief systems, that are molded from a founding wisdom of those who have entered Truth, become so contorted and misguided.

Whenever we strive to “take, have, control, manipulate” universal laws and “use them” in order to “get, have, own”….then we are still operating (if you really look at it) from fear, from superstition, and from an ego-centric need. All belief systems are fear—self—separate needs to try and control vs. open to Life.

It is a tricky business, the truth of energy, intention and co-creative power. It’s been secret not because it is a secret but because it takes a certain depth and fluidity with paradox to not be actually a dangerous mis-service in the immature hands of one who is still on the wheel of self seeking, needing, desiring.

Outwardly this “secret” seems like it is empowering and of service to people to help them manifest great things. But underneath (unless the person has a
deep reaching conscious awareness) it insidiously can breed greater belief systems (always counter to true universal law which is steeped in paradox and fluidity).

I found the movie “The Secret” to be a very sad misuse of universal principles that seem like they are of service to “the masses”, but really only prepare the unprepared to want more and to use it to bolster up their props of “getting, having, controlling” vs. the deeper call of Life to open into the Divine Mystery by shedding fear and the beliefs it engenders…and thereby come to be true co -creative partners in the miraculous dance of the Lover and the Beloved.

Deepak Chopra, for example, walks this difficult line quite brilliantly. He knows how to appeal to the mass mind of desire and yet not use the tool
there …but rather transform the person’s seeing to the higher meaning where this secret has a far different meaning.

The real secret of universal law is that it calls us to actually shed all of our fear-control-selves to find our true power that rests in a much deeper pool of listening and stillness from which “spontaneous right action”
(thanks Deepak) occurs. Always the paradox is the deeper truth. Those not ready to see this, can only use a tool to try and bolster the mind-self need. Wrong direction by a subtle mis-take.

So I consider the movie “The Secret” a disservice to those seeking. It actually leads the unprepared farther away from true universal truth via a positionality that promises self-fulfillment.

Most bluntly, I’m afraid I found the movie “The Secret” to be a poorly conceived and irresponsibly delivered hype geared to take advantage of the $-bandwagon of selling the “millionaire secrets” and used to further bolster a cultural appetite for using what can’t be used. It lacks integrity on both the deepest and most common meaning of that word.

This article is a guest post by Ronda LaRue. Author/Teacher Ronda LaRue, offers a radically healing, transformational, non-denominational, and deeply self-responsible spiritual approach to being fully alive and inspired in every day living. Rated one of top 10 Spiritual Retreats in the world for living breakthrough, http://www.CenterForSoulArts.com

This article is a Guest Post about the spiritual insights in Finding Nemo
contributed by Larry E. Coleman, from Crowner-Coleman Publishing.

“Watch Finding Nemo and then journal about the pain and suffering in your life,” my instructor said.

I was taking a spiritual development course and couldn’t understand why my instructor would tell a fifty year old man to watch an animated film, but she was masterful, intuitive, and she saw things my ego wouldn’t allow me to see—and that’s what we were working on at the time—my ego, my shell for covering up all the hidden fears I had.

Yes, there was a reason why she wanted me to watch Finding Nemo, a reason why the film won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2003, and why the film has gross nearly $900,000,000 worldwide. Yes, there’s a reason why it still remains one of my all time favorite spiritual movies—and the animation is only a small part of it.

Finding Nemo’s worldwide appeal is the story, and hidden within the story are so many wonderful spiritual insights that it is nearly impossible to watch the movie and not take hold of at least one of them. Let me give you a few examples of how I interpreted some of the messages in Finding Nemo. But first, let’s supply a little backdrop of the movie in case some of you have forgotten it or have never seen the movie before.

1. Nemo’s mom and his unborn siblings were eaten by a barracuda.
2. Because of this traumatic event, Nemo’s father, Marlin, promised that he would never let anything happen to Nemo, who was the lone survivor.
3. The trauma of losing his family caused Marlin to be overprotected (fearful).
4. Marlin’s overprotection was compounded by his view that Nemo had limitations
because Nemo was born with one short fin. (Nemo call it his ‘lucky fin.’)

Here’s what I personally came away with by watching this wonderful inspiring story, and the lessons I believe my instructor wanted me to glean from it.

1. The ego perceives limitations by what it sees in this physical reality and couples this belief with fear. The fear then acts as a catalyst to bring about a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In other words, Marlin’s fear that something might happen to his son came to fruition. He got exactly what he tried so desperately to avoid; his son being captured.

My instructor was trying to get me to understand that I was drawing many negative circumstances into my life through my own expectations, and my expectations were shrouded in fear.

2. The ego is often energized by fear. It does this under the guise that it knows what’s best for itself and other individuals.

That is to say, Marlin tried to project his own fears into the life of Nemo but Nemo rebelled against his father’s notion of fear and limitation. In other words, Marlin attempted to use fear to control his son’s journey by pointing out his limitations, but Nemo chose to follow his own course instead.

Again, my instructor wanted me to see that my attempt to control situations, events and the people around me only made life more difficult. In other words, ‘strength sets up resistance.’ She was telling me to relax and learn to go with the flow of life—a lesson all of us could learn.

Perhaps the moral of the story in Finding Nemo is this: Peace can only be achieved by following your own current downstream. Dory, a wonderful fish character in the movie, puts it this way: “When life gets you down just keep swimming.”

I think I’ll follow her advice.

This article was written by Larry E. Coleman. For more information on Larry, please visit his blog at http://womenmastermindgroups.blogspot.com/, which focuses on holistic business success for women.

You can purchase Finding Nemo on Amazon by Clicking Here

I went to the theater with high hopes and low expectations: A movie about the afterlife from mainstream Hollywood? How much could I expect? I loved the movie. It was almost more than I could have hoped for: a solid cast, brilliant director, and understated realism. Hereafter didn’t fall into the sensational traps that make stories about the afterlife either ridiculously spooky or impossibly sentimental. It was, like its subject, real. The leading characters encounter the ridicule and rejection that seem to come up whenever the subject of life after death is broached. So the millions of family members, hospice workers, and ordinary individuals who experience such phenomena keep silent, just as Matt Damon’s protagonist in Clint Eastwood’s film did. They keep the secrets to themselves.

The astonishing thing is that we put up with this conspiracy of silence. The experiences of forgiveness, hope and healing that emerge from contact with the afterlife deserve to be shouted from the roof-tops. This is the good news we long to hear: My brother who has died forgives me from the Other Side; I can still say the things I need to articulate to someone I love who has passed on.… Our lives do not end with the death of the body. Why have we been keeping silent about these things?

I have a little theory that the conspiracy has been brewing for a long time. Yes, we are a materialistic culture whose system of consumerism depends to a great extent on fear and dissatisfaction to fuel the addiction for more. But there’s another thing that happened right around the Second World War. We baby boomers can remember. Our fathers didn’t talk about their war. They’d gone from the Great Depression to the Great War and when it was over and our nation was faced with a new future, the veterans and their generation wanted to create something entirely new. The Madmen of Madison Avenue, Donna Reid and My Three Sons…. They were on a fast elevator to a world with endless new gadgetry to bring ease and pleasure, and nobody wanted to look back to the sad days of depression and war. Who needed ancient customs and beliefs when the television gave us a magic reality of happiness and plenty?

What I’m driving at is that between the miracles of technology, newfound affluence and mass enculturation we lost something BIG. We lost the ability to relate to loss and see it through to the other side. In fearing that the grief would envelop us we lost the gift of healing into wholeness. We learned to compartmentalize. Death was the unspoken. Grief was hidden; the old and infirm were institutionalized. We could create eternal life and happiness right here in consumer heaven.

But we’re still not satisfied: that’s the thing. The remedies aren’t working. We’re still longing for our lost wholeness. All we need to do is to sit by the bedside of a dying friend or elderly relative and see, in the midst of the grieving, a special light, and a warm presence, to be reminded that there is really nothing to run away from so fast and furiously. Death, the Bogey Man, can be a portal into unspeakable wonders and unimaginable frontiers.

So I’m really on board with this new movie. I’m forgiving Clint Eastwood his formulaic ending because he’s given us back a vital piece of ourselves: the knowledge of the wonders that await us beyond this life. My only objection to Hereafter, the movie, is that it could go so much further. Maybe there will be a sequel – one that will draw from the thousands of stories and descriptions that have come from the Other Side. Those are the stories the world is hungry to hear. For those who’ve experienced communications from the afterlife there’s an endless fascination. Here’s the secret: the Holy Grail is right under our noses after all.

This article is a guest post written by Jane Smith Bernhardt. Jane is an artist, performer and writer. She is a graduate of the interfaith Guild for Spiritual Guidance. Her book, WE ARE HERE: Love Never Dies, chronicles an extraordinary period of three family deaths and many miracles of joy and forgiveness. This “Beyond Hereafter” piece was originally written for the ABC/Good Morning America spirituality web page. For more information see www.janebernhardt.com.

The Tree of Life Movie Review by Stephen Simon

When I was 22 years old, the last 15 minutes of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey introduced me to a cinematic concept of the vast wonder of the cycle of life and death that I had never even imagined before. At that time, I thought no one would ever again attain that kind of symbolic representation of spirituality on film.

And then I saw The Tree of Life, which is so mind-bogglingly original and breathtaking that it truly defies description and categorization. The film is so majestically and subjectively emotional that seeing it feels more like a deeply personal and spiritual experience than it is the viewing of a film. One gets the sense that each one of us in the theater embarks on our own internal journey during the film and, as such, we experience the images on the screen in a completely individual manner.

Contrary to some other reviews, while the style of the film is indeed groundbreaking and dazzling, there most definitely is a story at the core of The Tree of Life. In it, Brad Pitt plays the father of three young boys growing up in Waco, Texas in the 1950s. His relationship with his sons (and his wife, played with great humanity and compassion by Jessica Chastain) is one of extreme complexity, love, strict discipline, affection, reproach, fear, respect, and rebellion. Mr. Pitt’s performance in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button firmly established him as brilliant actor. Now, in The Tree of Life, Mr. Pitt has elevated his craft to a new league of brilliance as he gives one of the most nuanced, frightening, evocative, and haunting portrayals of a father in recent memory.

The true magic of the film, however, does indeed lie in the imagination, spirituality, and visual artistry of its reclusive and visionary writer/director director Terrence Malick. The word “genius” is thrown around so much in film nowadays that the word unfortunately loses some of its power when the real thing comes along. And Mr. Malick is unquestionably the real thing…to the Nth power.

Amazingly, The Tree of Life is only Mr. Malick’s fifth film since Badlands, his brilliant 1973 debut. Mr. Malick does not give interviews and does no publicity for his films. Even when The Tree of Life was given the distinct honor of being the opening night presentation (and ultimately winner of the Palme D’Or Award for best film) at the recent Cannes Film Festival, Mr. Malick was nowhere to be seen or heard. In that, he shares an eerie kinship with Stanley Kubrick who directed 2001 and really wanted his films to speak for themselves. The Tree of Life certainly does do that.

The style and images of the film (including the very birth of life itself) are so unique and awe-inspiring that words truly cannot describe them. In a way, that lack of appropriate words is the entire key to the film and its title. How can anyone truly describe in words a spiritual experience of the very essence of nature, life, and death? Visually and emotionally, The Tree of Life propels us headlong into that journey in such a deeply pervasive way that I do feel the need to say here that the film is most definitely not for everyone.

While I was personally exhilarated and mesmerized by The Tree of Life, I can also completely understand and respect those who have said that they found the film to be depressing and even deeply disturbing. In Cannes, for instance, most audience members reportedly stood and cheered at the end of the screening there, but there were also a substantial number of people who booed mightily. As such, I strongly suggest that those who have real misgivings about seeing the film should respect those feelings and indeed stay away. If, however, you feel drawn to the film, you are in for the visual, emotional, and spiritual experience of a lifetime.

The Tree of Life is truly one of the most profoundly original, moving, and engrossing films that I have ever seen.

This is a guest post written by Stephen Simon, co-founder of Spiritual Cinema Circle. Spiritual Cinema Circle is the only DVD club dedicated to the heart and soul of cinema. For more information, please click here .