Inklings Bruce Sanguin's blog

My friend, Michael Dowd, (rest his soul) sent me a blog post by John Michael Greer, an author who writes on nature, culture, and the future of industrial society from a Druid perspective. Mr. Greer draws a compelling distinction between predicaments and problems. Predicaments, by definition, are not merely unpleasant situations. They are unpleasant situations … Read more

I was awake at 3 am. My dog was anxious, whining. Maybe I tapped into his field. Or more likely he tapped into mine. My mind was whirling with everything that’s wrong in my life. Story after story, scenario after scenario, all reinforcing the “truth” that my life was teetering on a precipice. Everything, I … Read more

During a sacred plant ceremony I found myself on the receiving end of a temporary gift of  clairvoyance, ( “clear seeing”). I was in a room with twenty-five others, sitting with an open, clear mind, listening to the beautiful suffering. Strange as this latter phrase might sound, it’s an apt description of the experience of being … Read more

I came across the term “the watcher” reading the late and controversial, Buddhist monk, Chogyam Trungpa’s book, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism. The watcher is the expression of self that learns, over decades of socialization, to watch what s/he says, watch how he acts, watch what he wears, watch his tone of voice, watch whether he … Read more

Singer-songwriter, Lucinda Williams, sings a protest song about losing her joy in life: “You stole my joy, I want it back”. It’s a terrible thing to lose joy in life. It can erode gradually, even though there comes a definitive moment when we awaken to its absence in our life. Although it can feel sudden, typically … Read more

I’ve given this post the title of “allowing” humility, reverence, and gratitude, because these are feelings that we are not able to manufacture. They are signs that we are making the transition from the level of personality to soul. Only when the vigilance of the personality to defend itself is relaxed are we able to … Read more

Nearby is the country they call life. You will know it by its seriousness — Rilke One of the archetypes that comes on-line when we begin to take life “seriously”, particularly our own life, is the spiritual warrior. My first experience of my warrior happened when I was in bioenergetic therapy – a body-oriented therapy. I … Read more

The only way not to be a victim as we move through life is to realize that the current state of our life is a fairly accurate reflection of our choices—made consciously or unconsciously. I say “fairly” accurate because there are circumstances and outright evil acts that we obviously haven’t chosen. When an eleven year-old … Read more

Grieving is a highly underestimated core capacity of becoming human. Ungrieved heartbreak accounts for much in our life that never seems to change despite our best efforts. Until the heart releases the trauma that caused the heart to break in the first place, whenever we are faced with a situation in life that remotely resembles … Read more