Bear's Blog
Blessing your food is an ancient ritual, a spiritual and religious practice of gratitude. Saying a prayer before we eat actually drops us into Being – the “rest and digest” mode of the parasympathetic nervous system (versus the sympathetic “fight or flight”). A moment of mindful prayer actually prepares our body to digest food. So many spiritual practices actually have practical value as well!
So take a moment to appreciate the food you are about to eat. This can...
Continuing the theme of chakras - and communication - from my last few articles, here’s a great resource to work with these dynamics specifically for children.
As a spiritual, and possibly religious parent, we try to teach and influence our children about the deeper aspects of life. Morals, compassionate behavior, and a belief in a “higher power” can be taught intellectually. But how do you foster a spiritual or energetic experience? How do you model an orientation to...
Just as there is an “American chakra”, most cultures have a chakra that is predominant - its characteristics define that culture’s worldview. That defining chakra is over-energized, which means that another chakra is usually under-energized. Therefore it defines the strengths, and weaknesses, of that energetic pattern as it manifests in a culture. As I write in “The American Chakra”, the predominance of 3rd chakra energy results in the 2nd chakra being less...
Cultures can be typified as having the qualities of a particular chakra; us Americans have a 3rd chakra culture. The third chakra relates to the rational mind, ego, action… linear thinking. We give more weight to that perspective. It’s what we call “reality”, what we believe and accept as true. Yet it is just one aspect of our reality, and neglecting the rest of our experience has – consequences.
We avoid feelings as being messy and unproductive, and often not...
I recently read this article from the New York Times, "Psychic Mediums Are the New Wellness Coaches". I found it very relevant, touching on a topic that I have been discussing in my classes for many years.
I’ve had an issue with what I do – energy healing – being called “woo-woo.” Hey, I deserve more respect than that! That’s baby talk, and it’s usually said in a derogatory way. I heard a millennial recently call it “being in the woo”....
In my 20’s I was living in Chicago and would drive a short route home from downtown that took me past Cabriini Green, a notoriously dangerous housing project (hey, I was young and invincible! Not to mention naive.) One night I was going home late from work and suddenly got the “feeling” that I should go a different way - through the lively nightlife area Old Town.
In the middle of my drive, my tire went flat!
What if I had taken my usual route, past gangs, drug dealers and...
The presentations were about cutting edge therapies involving genetic therapy, stem cells, epigenetics, biologics, natural substances that do very...
The sweetness of early summer is upon us – fresh growth, flowers scenting the air, and thunderstorms that enliven us. We have our dreams and reveries and plans – for relaxation, easy socializing and a more graceful, less pressured life. And for a great many of us, it is against this relaxed backdrop that there is tremendous change and transformation going on.
I am not an astrologer but have learned over the years how much these really BIG energies affect us. I can easily see...
Some of you are aware I have been on a mini-sabbatical since last fall, only teaching and working with my graduate-level students until the next Energy Awareness and Healing Practicum in April. During my sabbatical, I had the wonderful offer of a cottage in the Scottish Highlands for a month! In my Scottish travels, I ended up doing healing work wherever I went. Along the way, I also used my intuitive skills to tap into some pretty amazing energies. Being able to align my Hara and drop into...
America is rocked, shaken to the core. Our world – or our idea of our world – is broken. Broken for people who are fighting for their survival and exhibiting those base instincts that are generated from that place – fear, anger, hate. Broken for people who were complacent, even smug, that a continual, upward progressive spiral in society’s values was a given. The only given is that there is suffering, and relief from suffering can be sought in cultivating...
"The forms of Zen Buddhism – black robes, chanting, incense and sitting in zazen– seemed all too familiar to me, echoes of many past lives."
I recently became lay-ordained as a Zen Buddhist. I have been hanging around Zen temples since my teens, but was never much interested in studying the literature and linage of the form. Of course I picked up some of those teachings along the way – more than I had thought, actually – but I was drawn to Zen because of its main...
The McKay Method® Graduate Retreat
In addition to the Graduate Celebration, the Retreat is an opportunity to reconnect with The McKay Method® community every year. We typically explore an area we don’t normally cover in classes, such as working with land, plant, animal and mineral energies. This year we communicated with ancient trees and made prayer flags to adorn the graduation tree. Two of the presentations were specifically about plant energies - another was about...