The beauty of this life experience is that we bring our own unique gifts and perspective to it.

By Mary Boutieller

The capacity to learn is both an individual journey and accessible to everyone. From birth, we begin to take in information, survey our surroundings, and formulate ideas and truths. We learn from our parents, friends, school and experience. It’s a lifelong journey and one that never ends.

Think about that for a moment... to know that there is always more to learn, if we choose to do so. It’s an idea that is both fascinating and terrifying, if I’m being honest.

Fascinating because the world is our oyster! There is so much to explore. I could learn to speak a new language or play an instrument; I could dive into any topic and spend years learning more about it. The opportunities are endless.

Terrifying, because sometimes I think I won’t measure up. I know many people who make it look easy (even when it isn’t). They seem brave and smart and capable. For me, I tend to start and stop a lot when learning something new. I might tell myself that it’s too hard or I’m just not smart enough. It seems easier to stay in our wheelhouse than to venture out into unknown territory.

Yet I know that’s the ego talking. After all, I don’t have to become a concert pianist to pluck on the keyboard. I don’t have to be a great novelist to write a meaningful article.

I just have to be curious. I have to be vulnerable and open to the possibilities. I have to be willing to make mistakes, and be okay with coloring outside the lines of my neat and tidy life.

Healing, too, is both an individual journey and accessible to everyone. When we give ourselves the love we deserve, we find openings that we didn’t know were there. When we become curious, we find patterns that no longer serve us. When we slow down, we find that we have always been whole.

The beauty of this life experience is that we bring our own unique gifts and perspective to it, and can then share that with others. It doesn’t have to be perfected to be impactful. Who we are evolves each and every day. To know that we are continuously evolving fills me with awe. Perhaps we could learn and heal and play more like children—a little more carefree and a little less worried about what others might think?

The other day I offered up to a musician friend that maybe one day I’d get up and sing with him. That terrified me a little...doing something like that in front of strangers...and it was thrilling at the same time. I’ll do it one day and, even if I sing off-key, my friend will smile and I will find myself coloring outside the lines.

The Yoga of Life with Mary Boutieller

Mary Boutieller is a Registered Yoga Teacher through Yoga Alliance. She has been teaching yoga since 2005. Her work experience includes 22 years as a firefighter/paramedic and 10 years as a Licensed Massage Therapist. Mary’s knowledge and experience give her a well-rounded understanding of anatomy, alignment, health and movement in the body. She is passionate about the benefits of yoga and the ability to heal at all levels through awareness, compassion, and a willingness to explore. She can be reached at: SimplyogaOm@gmail.com

By Jo Mooy

The sound of Westminster Chimes is hard-coded into my cellular memories. They trigger ornate family memories that go back to early childhood. Playtime came to a halt when my grandfather came to the formal living room to perform a weekly ceremony that, to us children, was as rich in detail as a British coronation. I can still see him, properly dressed up in island business attire of well-ironed shorts and shirt, a tie, and khaki colored knee socks with tassels on top.

His shiny brown shoes echoed on the polished hardwood as he approached the tall cherry-hued and aptly named Grandfather Clock that had a place of honor against one wall. He unlocked the glass front of the clock and from some mysterious place, pulled out a long metal old-fashioned key. He placed the key into each of the three holes in the clock face. Then he placed his ear against the clock as he wound the springs in each hole, stopping at the right spot. When finished, the key was tucked away, the glass cover locked and, looking at his brood of grandchildren, he said: “Don’t touch it!” Nobody was ever dumb enough to touch his clock.

He left a legacy with that clock because all his children and many of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren ended up owning their own Grandfather Clocks that chimed the same Westminster Chimes first heard in the late 1700s. Four distinct chimes are toned on the quarter, half, threequarter and hour times. One could build a lifetime schedule around the Westminster Chimes, and the sound would always bring you back home. My mother didn’t choose to own a big tall one, but rather a smaller camel-back mantle clock. It too governed our lives, always sounding and calling out the hours in the background. Sometimes you heard it, other times hours would pass as though it had no sound. But, it was always there in the background, tolling the time. Perhaps having these clocks was an acquired family tradition. Once, a guest came to stay for the weekend. In the middle of the first night he got up, tried to stop the clock, and ended up breaking the delicate mechanism. After the hysteria of such a violation of protocol and hospitality, he was never invited back.

My Grandfather Clock is also a camel-back mantle clock made from beautiful Colombian mahogany. When I got it 50 years ago, I chose a battery operated model for convenience, deciding the weekly winding ritual belonged in the nostalgic memories of my grandfather. What I didn’t realize, though, was that the “modern mechanism” for keeping time was cheap plastic that would have to be replaced every five years or so. Recently, the clock began to chime the wrong hour. At 11 it chimed 4 o’clock, at 3 it chimed 7. I debated if it was worth the aggravation to replace the mechanism rather than buying a new clock until I saw the price of new ones. What I thought was a relic of another time was not true. It seems Grandfather Clocks are a “thing” and still very much in demand. I had to fix it.

Waiting for the parts to arrive from some offshore location, the house became strangely silent. What had been a constant toning in the background, noticed or not, was mute. The energy of the clock had gone. I’ve never lived in a house without Westminster Chimes, and not having the sound in the house was like being cut loose from a tether. What were these chimes that were so rooted in my psyche? What spell did they have on me?

The Westminster Chimes are more than just a sound in a clock. They are my family. They are comfort food like mac ’n cheese. They are Big Ben tolling the news when the Queen died. They track the time in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep. They are countless remembrances in my mother’s house. They bring a smile when they chime in a British film. They are the ice cream truck cruising summertime streets. They are my Grandfather’s footsteps sealing a ritual into his lineage. They are a sure continuation of the legacy in the clock at my daughter’s home. They are the past and they are the future. Their four-part sound is my ever-present anchor.

Conscious Living with Jo Mooy

Jo Mooy has studied with many spiritual traditions over the past 40 years. The wide diversity of this training allows her to develop spiritual seminars and retreats that explore inspirational concepts, give purpose and guidance to students, and present esoteric teachings in an understandable manner. Along with Patricia Cockerill, she has guided the Women’s Meditation Circle since January 2006 where it has been honored for five years in a row as the “Favorite Meditation” group in Sarasota, FL, by Natural Awakenings Magazine. Teaching and using Sound as a retreat healing practice, Jo was certified as a Sound Healer through Jonathan Goldman’s Sound Healing Association. She writes and publishes a monthly internationally distributed e-newsletter called Spiritual Connections and is a staff writer for Spirit of Maat magazine in Sedona. For more information go to http://www.starsoundings.com or email jomooy@gmail.com

By Owen Waters

Long ago, the first time I read the ancient Tao Te Ching (pronounced “Dow Day Jing”), I ran into so many apparent contradictions that I felt like I was going cross-eyed with confusion!

I have not been alone in that type of feeling. To most Western minds, the nature of the Tao is a huge mystery that makes little or no obvious sense. I ran into statements that suggested that the Tao was manifest as everything in the world and, yet, the Tao was nothing and nowhere. Well, which is it, I thought, everywhere or nowhere?

The problem lies with the limitations placed on Western translators, as they are part of a cultural tradition which rarely teaches that there is an original state of unchanging, perfect beingness that lies behind even the Creator.

In the 6th Century BC, the sage Lao Tse (“Lay-OTE-say”) is said to have written the Tao Te Ching, which became fundamental to philosophical Taoism. The word Tao is usually interpreted as meaning The Way, although it can also mean The Principle or The Doctrine. However, none of these interpretations address its true nature.

Lao Tse was reluctant to even name the Tao, as giving it a name weakened its basic concept of silent unchangeability, so he actually preferred to refer to it as “the nameless.”

There are over 100 translations of the Tao Te Ching in English. One apt interpretation of the meaning of the title is, “The book of the way of Divine inner power.”

Translators to English find themselves forced beyond literal translation and into interpretation because characters written in the original Chinese often have multiple meanings and need to be distinguished in context with one other. Because of this, the original intent of the message may not even be immediately apparent. For example, they face literal translations of sentences like this: “Name named not eternal/unchanging name.”

It takes an understanding of the concept first before the meaning becomes clear. This passage points to the concept that the Tao is “the nameless” that encompasses the universe, while the universe itself is filled with what Lao Tse often refers to as “the ten thousand things” or the manifestations of the Tao. We give names to objects in the material world and that which is beyond all things is referred to as “the nameless.”

The Tao, by definition, existed before Heaven and Earth. It is said to be still, formless, standing alone and undergoing no change. It is both larger than the largest thing and it is within the smallest object.

The part that really trips Western translators up is the idea that the Tao is simultaneously perfectly still and yet constantly moving. Ideas like this are confusing enough to stop a logical mind, short-circuit some brain cells, and make smoke start to curl slowly up out of a person’s ears!

In Western culture, we generally lack an appreciation of the original nature of God as unchanging beingness. In our action-oriented culture, we think of the Creator as the One God. Typically, unless you studied Eastern philosophies or some branches of metaphysics, then you were never made aware of the state of beingness that is behind even the One Creator. The Tao is the unchanging, perfect consciousness which is behind all things. The Tao is pure, tranquil beingness, and it formed the Creator as the aspect of itself that would take action and experience change.

Taoism is not alone in studying the original, unchanging beingness behind all things. The same concept appears in Hinduism as the still, silent Brahman, or Godhead, behind the creative Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.

Chapter 42 of the Tao Te Ching gives the Taoist version: The Tao produced the One. The One produced the Two. The Two produced the Three. The Three produced all things. This means that the unchanging beingness produced the One Creator. This aspect then saw that it was necessary (using Genesis terminology) to divide the “waters” of its consciousness into two aspects. These different and complementary aspects were the principles of thought and feeling. A third aspect was still needed, which was the principle of motion, which allowed the command, “Let there be light!” to create the original template of the universe. The three aspects of the triune nature of the Creator then worked in harmony to create the universe and all material within it.

Students of modern metaphysics are familiar with the concept of a beingness that is behind all things. It has been referred to as the Absolute, the Isness, the “I Am” Presence, and “the All That Is which is behind all things.” My own choice of words is Infinite Being. All of these terms refer to the same perfect, unchanging beingness that is behind everything. The universe exists within the field of silent consciousness of Infinite Being, so its essence is within everything in the world. That silent Isness is the