Marianne

If you’re into spiritual studies and you’ve never heard of Marianne Williamson, read on because you should check out this amazing spiritual guru. Marianne’s been on the book-writing and speaker circuit consistently since the early 80’s. Back then I lived in New York City, and she used to speak at the Town Hall theatre every month. Me and some co-workers at my night job would jump on the subway over our dinner break and rush downtown to catch as much as we could of her lecture. Yes, she’s now become pretty commercial and she’s one of “Oprah’s Friends,” but the real treat is listening to Marianne speak. For the past 30 or 40 years, she’s been preaching spiritual concepts from A Course in Miracles – an inspiring and radical book about dissolving the spiritual ego, unconditional love, and universal peace. Marianne has an incredible energy when she lectures. She never refers to any speaking notes and can easily evangelize on The Course non-stop for 60 or 90 minutes straight. When she takes questions from the audience or you hear her on radio Q&A shows, she tells it like it is and cuts right through a person’s ego nonsense. Check out Marianne’s web site to see if she is lecturing near you or you can also hear her on XM radio at different times throughout the day and Sunday mornings from 5 a.m. to 10 a.m. (eastern) — C

Blood Boil

I was watching myself get upset over something my partner did this week and I could see that every time I replayed the scene of his transgression, I got more emotional. It made me think of the expression, “makes my blood boil.” That’s literally what it feels like. A kind of electrical wave pulsing through my system that makes me breath a bit faster, pulse speeds up, and a little angry ego-man forms and rises up in the pot of my boiling blood. But then I realized that liquid only boils when heat is applied to it. The blood doesn’t boil on its own. A dial got turned and started the electrical current. The heat spark was the scene replaying over and over in my mind until the element got hot enough to reach the boiling point. Even if I wanted to turn it off, my ego was there saying, “No, no, don’t turn it off, it feels great! He’s the one who turned it on!”  But I know it’s not true. No one has that degree of control unless I give them permission. There’s a split second moment after someone does something that I’m faced with a crucial choice. I can play the victim–let the heat rise and say it was their hand on the dial–or face the truth and admit to myself that it is always my own hand. –C