Step-Forward

A Gift of Thankfulness

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 13:14:00 GMT

By: Scott Leuthold

The circle of life swings around each and every Thanksgiving for me and returns me once again to a place of reflection. I ask myself if I have lived the past year with gratitude.

Thanksgiving is just another day. But, the true beauty of our desire to recognize a day for 'thankfulness' is that it practically forces us to take pause at least to the extent of recognizing the words 'thanks' and 'giving.'

Frankly, I think the day should be called 'Giving Thanks Day.' In the United States, often we are taunted by the commercialistic machine to make this day about eating exorbitant amounts of food as an act of recognizing how good we have it. However, if we do take pause and reflect on what such a day truly means, we would actually spend less time eating and more time giving. Ah, the perfect diet program... giving.

In my process of reflection, moments flash before my eyes that warm my heart, make me smile, and gift me appreciation for all the good that surrounds me. In fact, in all honesty, some of my experiences in the past 365 days were incredibly challenging if not some of the greatest challenges of my life. However, even those moments give me warmth. I realize that these moments are just as valuable to me as those I perceive as good. They are all good, after all.

As I reflect, I acknowledge just how much I have learned, and this I am tremendously thankful for. I am a more evolved being since this day past me by a year ago, and my world is the recipient of that wisdom. I am more at peace, more wise, more tolerant, more patient, ...

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Being Realistic About Spirituality

Mon, 05 Sep 2011 19:01:00 GMT

By: Scott Leuthold

I spent some time this weekend making new friends while visiting a log cabin in the mountains of Arizona. I feel blessed to have spent time with these people and throughout the weekend that we shared, I often found myself observing and reflecting upon the experience and their personal perspectives in association with my own life and where I am headed.

With good fortune, as we sat on the back porch in the evening hours sitting around tables by candle light, I was gifted some great philosophical conversations. As ambient music played in the background and crickets chirped in the surrounding forest, we shared stories of our past and perspectives of the spiritual realm.

One point of interest that surfaced more than once was what a 'spiritual person' is. I found that judgment tended to creep into the conversation at times. Specifically, I shared a story from my past that might not be considered that of the accepted spiritual view. All is forgiven within, however, and forgiveness to myself has been already exercised.

In my eyes, spiritual beings are those who truly make an effort to be loving, forgiving, compassionate, warm and tender, inclusive, non-judgmental, selfless, and practice helping others to become greater versions of themselves and do so wholeheartedly and without condition. But, not practicing these things at times doesn't mean one is any less a divine soul. This is something we must all realize.

Spirituality is not an immediate shift. It is transitionary. Because belief systems are so engrained into who we seemingly are, releasing them is not as immediate as we might hope, once we start walking our self-empowered, all loving path. We have chosen to be human, after all, so holding ourselves in contempt when we realize something we may have done, felt, or believed, that may in our own eyes or others appear to be out of the character of a spiritual individual, deprives ourselves of true compassion. Compassion is one of the cornerstones of spirituality. We are whole and complete no matter what we seemingly do and the only forgiveness we must exercise is for subjecting ourselves to guilt or shame. We hav...

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The Power of Transformation

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 23:42:00 GMT

By: Scott Leuthold

I sit here at my computer screen looking upon a blank white page that patiently waits for my words to be cast upon it. It awaits my medium, thus painting a picture like spreading explosions of watercolor recreating the powerful visions in my mind. So much has transpired over the past months… such commanding shifts have bestowed themselves upon me, delivered by the recent series of transformative eclipses.

My life has changed in ways I could have only wished on my greatest adversaries… if my heart were in such a place to cast harm upon another. But, my heart is open, and thus I must only receive its gifts and sculpt in my hands the raw cold clays of reality into lessons for the greater good. For being seemingly lost is most effective for helping us ultimately to be found.

The treasures of my world, that which is outside of me, seemed to hang in the balance and with my tipping scales of the Libra, where I wholeheartedly find my center, I allowed my ego to overcompensate the imbalance out of fear. But, we all know fear is simply a tool the divine has graciously concocted to give us vantage points from which to see what is real. What is real… really? What is real, is our 'purpose' for being here. Purpose. This is what is real, and purpose leads us to love. We are here to realize purpose. To learn who we truly are among the trials and the challenges we are given to face, ultimately, opening our minds to knowing beyond any doubt that we are that of the divine. Truly knowing what that purpose is, I have discovered, is leading the way for me to help 'purpose' fulfill itself. You see, I am here to open eyes, to love you, to express wholeheartedly in the face of criticism and my masculine ego… to share thoughts, ideas, experiences, my seemingly glaring faults and monumental triumphs. But, all is only scaled among the tall grasses of ego. For the aphid sings its song of harmony with the intensity of a lion. No truth shall be shouted from the cliffs of bewildering selfishness and greed. Lost are we whom cherish nothing but societal inheritance. Our true inheritance is that of the sacred power of love. Nothing casts a shadow over love, for love towers above all else.

I see this now. I see how my artistry of words, of images, of thoughts, hopes for our world, and my own realization and integration with what matters, what I am here for, and what I am setting my mind and breezing forward like the untethered winds of change to do, has been simply cast down to illuminate a path to follow. Looking forward, the path disappears as it twists through the thickets and meadows of my future. But with every roll of terrain passing below my feet, my own shadow casts out behind me as the light warms my face. I walk toward the light staying the course of purpose. I shall not hide my eyes from the brightness of truth. I shall gaze into the light and allow it to illuminate my soul.

As change led the way in my life these past few months, I discovered that with her difficult lessons, she also gifted me with opportunities. She always does… with the seemingly tough love she comforts us with. As I began to release my ego fears, as we must always make attempts to do, I most effectively rubbed my palms on the dusty window panes of life to allow just one ray to penetrate into the darkness. With each wipe of the hand, another ray was allowed in, until one of those rays struck me in the eyes. Nothing strikes you like the rays of love and truth. These rays, though their power feeds our living world, also ignite the power of the divine Self. In such moments the rays are transformed within and photosynthesize into energetic atoms of peace and happiness. The seeds are sewn into the fabric of our own existence, and when nurtured and valued above all else, sprout into new experiences that lead our way.

One such experience I was profoundly blessed to have shared happened earlier this week. In the fleeting moments of a passing day of business I made a decision to wrap up my work to give myself an opportunity for meaningful advancement of Self. My dear friend, Sherry Anshara, was holding her monthly group meditation class. Preceding the class a group of people congregated in her facility. We sat in chairs staged into a circle. Of the people in the room, I only had previously been acquainted with one or two. Across from me sat several men I hadn't met. A woman, who was assigned the duty of initiat...

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Love, for the simple truth that nothing else matters.

Thu, 07 Jul 2011 22:51:00 GMT

By: Scott Leuthold

A conversation:

Would it scare you if I told you that I sense that the second coming of Christ may very well be within each of us through a spiritual awakening? That I believe that we have a oneness with God now and always will but, maybe we just don't realize it? That heaven could be realized right here on Mother Earth? That love is the way simply by wholeheartedly being now, right here, what you believe God to be? Forgiving, nonjudgmental, unconditionally loving.... and that if we were purely this way, we may cease to physically exist because we would vibrate so high that we would transcend the physic...

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A Revolution of the Heart

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 21:46:00 GMT

By: Scott Leuthold

Is't my desire,
to finally inspire,
a revolution in the heart of thee. 

From wills within,
may heaven spin,
it's evolution of the blooming tree.   

On planes and rays,
across sails and cayes,
may winds of change leave a trace.  

In the song of the lark,
and a moment too dark,
may the light cast upon your face.   

Under the spell of time,
an imposing rhyme,
shall complete this thought to soon. 

In the midst of night,
shall the dreams of flight,
release you from this captive room.   

With a gentle caress,
our hearts will confess,
the longing for the warmth of love. 

In a far away place,
void of time and space,
the truth shall be revealed above.  

On angel's wings,
from immortal kings,
this truth shall penetrate our minds.

 The tethers will tear,
our souls...

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The Genius of Self-Reliance

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 07:43:00 GMT

By: Scott Leuthold

I have found there to be such a deeply rooted relationship between our internal evolution of Self with our association as a living, breathing human being within our natural surroundings. I have been pondering this concept of self-reliance and the attraction to societal conveniences lately, all while meeting and interacting with a number of new friends who have made the valiant jump toward a self-sufficient existence. I recently wrote about Self-Reliance in my last blog 'Self-Reliance in Suburbia'. My musing lately has transformed me into an acute observer of my surroundings from the self-reliant perspective and thus, I have witnessed a number of moments that have been quite enlightening. I have toiled for years over the 'inconvenience of convenience', writing about it in the past here on Token Rock. But until I really began to delve into self-reliance I hadn't really grasped what the universe was suggesting to me.

Emerson's 'Self-Reliance'

In his essay, 'Self-Reliance', Ralph Waldo Emerson begins by defining the term 'genius': 'To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men—that is genius. Every educated man, he writes, eventually realizes that ‘‘envy is ignorance' and that he must be truly himself. God has made each person unique and, by extension, given each person a unique work to do. To trust one's own thoughts and put them into action is, in a very real sense, to hear and act on the voice of God.'

Emerson states that 'people must seek solitude to hear their own thoughts, because society, by its nature, coerces men to conform.' He continues by calling society 'a conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members.'

What I gain from these words in relationship to my new-found perspectives on self-reliance in the modern world is that for me to see a shift in humanity at large I must be that very change. The hologram of this experience must shift if I do so, myself. This is what leading a movement tends to do. Now, of course I am not starting something that hasn't already begun. Many are moving away from the inconvenient conveniences of the capitalistic corporate regime. But, in astronomical proportions, the population at least here in the United States, is still a Costco hoarding consumer. I was one, too, at one time. Back in the hey day of the market, I too, would spend $500 a pop when visiting the wholesale warehouse grocer. I would fold down the seats and stuff the back of the large SUV I had at the time to the ceiling with gobs of processed, chemically infused, artificial slop-in-a-box. That was back then.

The Costco of Convenience

Recently I visited the grocery warehouse, Costco, with my wife to purchase just a few items and observed the droves of consumers pushing pallet loads of consumables out the door. One-by-one they pushed the behemoth loads toward the door attendant like the Grinch's tiny pup on the snowy cliff, grudgingly pushing the overloaded Christmas sleigh up the hill in the movie The Grinch Stole Christmas. I was disgusted, to be completely honest. So many things crossed my mind; that I, too, had been that blind; that in many parts of the world one stinking box item on one cart could feed an entire family in another part of the world for a week or more; that America has become down-right fat. That statement isn't directing judgment to any particular citizen. It's a startling absolute truth. If the food runs dry because the corporate elitists choose to do so, well, I'm sorry but there is going to be a big wakeup call for a lot of glutinous convenience mongers. As I passed through the paper products isle I noticed a mother and father tending to their six children. This family of eight, by way of the loaded cart containing their inevitable purchases, clearly demonstrated to me their real dependence on the commercialized system to provide. Unless they control a sizable portion of land and master the art of real farming, how else would these parents be able to provide for their large number of offspring? Maybe it is time we as a species start curbing our need for more of everything, including replications of ourselves. Must we really continue to build larger and larger religious congregations? Do each of us really need a bus load of children to be happy? Again, I really don't want to pass judgement but I wonder when we will begin to realize that more and more is not necessarily better. That we must only create and posses what we truly need and can provide for.

Where I live, there is one grocery store within 6 miles. Many, many people rely on this outlet for everything they consume. It doesn't take but one scare and the shelves will be cleared. But, yet, we continue to lean heavily on the system, depending upon it with every morsel of our existence. This is just one of many issues.

It isn't just that we are completely and utterly dependent on the convenience system to provide, it is that due to the dependence, we must take it in the pants with a smile when the prices of real food is not affordable. Instead, we are served pretty-labeled canisters of toxic dump that is surely shortening our life spans. Labels on typical mass market favorites almost certainly detail a laundry list of artificial ingredients that in some cases are proven to have serious health risks if consumed. In fact, I have even heard that certain sprays an soaps are allowed in certified organic farming. So, even certified organic products found on mass market store shelves are not necessarily free from harmful chemicals.

It's Time to Go Local

What is one to do? Know your grower. If that individual is not you, then get to know your provider personally. Do not depend on the corporate fat cat to care about your family's health any longer than the end of this sen...

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Self-Reliance in Suburbia

Fri, 20 May 2011 06:46:00 GMT

By: Scott Leuthold

For the past several years, Carrie-Anne and I have been planning to finish our backyard off with a swimming pool, a few flower beds, and a citrus grove of four citrus trees. Our home and yard décor is an old-world Italian theme and the part of our backyard that is near completion features beautiful stonewalls, columns, and fountains. The pool area was going to resemble a classic Tuscan pool.

Our thinking started to shift this spring when we decided to scrap the plans for that remaining 2000 square feet of yard and instead start installing a space that would support our desire for a more self-reliant lifestyle. Thus, we began researching urban farms online. We found several excellent examples of real success stories including one of the original 'urban farms' located right in the heart of Pasadena California called Path to Freedom. The 4000 square feet of private residence outdoor space in that example generates more than 6,000 pounds of produce per year, thousands of eggs a year, and their own goat milk and cheese. They produce so much that they sell a great deal of what they grow to local restaurants to the tune of $20,000 in profits each year. They use these funds to purchase items that they cannot produce on their own property.

Path to Freedom Video

We plan to divide our available space into 1,500 square feet or raised beds for a wide variety of vegetables and herbs. The rest of the space is going to be used for a citrus grove containing lemon, Valencia and Navel oranges, and tangerine trees. Other areas of the yard will feature apple, pear, apricot, and plum trees. Around the sides we intend to plant and grow berries and edible flowers. Scattered about the space we have allocated room for a composter, a small tool shed, possibly rain capture barrels, and a few other key components.

Our existing yard currently offers many edibles such as peach, nectarine, lime, and two producing olive trees as well as strawberries, two grape vines and an herb garden where we regularly cut fresh basil, oregano, sage, rosemary, and others for gourmet cooking. We also have a Mesquite Tree and have recently learned that the pods the tree produces can be ground into Mesquite flower. The flower is one of the most nutrient ingredients in the desert.

(Hold that thought while I put Simon and Garfunkel's Scarborough Fair on my iTunes… you will get a better article to read.)

Our research has led us to discover several local examples of urban farms as well as one fantastic example of a 'off the grid' self-reliance ranch and school called Reevis Mountain Self-Reliance School. The facility is located at about 3500 feet in elevation along the eastern slopes of the Superstition Wilderness here in the great state of Arizona.

The urban farm we found, called 'The Simple Farm', is located in Scottsdale, Arizona. The facility is run by a very warmhearted couple, Michael and Lylah, who were much obliged to provide us a private tour of their operation last week. They introduced us to their many goats, chickens, and much cherished plants and trees.

This past weekend, Carrie-Anne and I ventured in the Jeep to visit the self-reliance school located east of Phoenix and north of Globe, Arizona. The facility is the home to Peter Bigfoot and his lovely partner Patricia. We arrived at the facility by driving along a 6-mile-long and very rough back-country road that traversed high Sonoran Desert ridge lines, and dry, sandy arroyos as it led us deep into a remote valley surrounded by high peaks.

Peter obtained the property in 1979 with a group of friends and has since, for the past 30 years, been living off the land. No stranger to survival, Peter is known around the area for his highly publicized 15-day, 80-mile trek across the Sonoran Desert with no food or water simply relying on his knowledge of surviving off the land. Suffice to say, Peter is a pillar of knowledge and after meeting him, clearly an individual willing to share his wealth of information. In the short time we visited, I learned a great deal and felt his sincere desire to support an individual's desire to learn.

Peter shared with us that his farm requires some 20,000 gallons of water a day, all of which comes from a natural year-round running stream that flows through. We walked his property and fou...

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Thirty-Eight Years of Spitting Toothpaste

Tue, 17 May 2011 07:49:00 GMT

By: Scott Leuthold

At age 41, I figure I have been spitting toothpaste twice a day for the past thirty-eight years. After figuring in the first few years of not having teeth and another few hundred days I probably didn't even brush my teeth as a kid, I estimate that I have spit toothpaste somewhere in the neighborhood of 27,540 times. I find this to be an interesting fact since recently I discovered a Probiotic toothpaste that consists of many beneficial ingredients including live healing microbes that are beneficial to the mouth, stomach, and intestines.

As children we are encouraged to brush, brush, brush. We are provided by our parents a tube of paste chock full of what television programming describes as 'defensive' ingredients and instructed by our dentists to coat our teeth with super-hero shielding substances such as sodium fluoride. We are told this is good for us. Ha!

Harmful Flouride in Many Products

So, for a better part of my life, aside from the past few years of using fluoride-free Tom's of Main toothpaste, I subjected my bloodstream to countless unrecognizable chemicals that together compose into such brands as Colgate, Crest, AquaFresh, and other mass-market consumer brands. Frankly, Tom's is only slightly less offensive than the rest, and now that Tom's has sold out to Colgate, it may become harder and harder to even find a tube of their paste without fluoride.

Healing Microbes in Probiotic Toothpaste

Last weekend I was introduced to a whole new view about mouth cleaning and for the first time in my life, I was encouraged to swallow the toothpaste I was using to brush my teeth. It was a very strange feeling doing so. Swallow toothpaste? Seriously? But, sure enough, when I was done brushing and swishing the mud colored substance I swallowed it. I was informed that doing so not only would benefit my mouth but also my gut by infusing my body with healing microbes that I apparently had replaced over time by consuming processed foods. And, guess what, my mouth felt fresh and clean.

It really made me stop to evaluate why in the world I would even put into my mouth any substance that warns that consumers not swallow it. Why would anyone swish around in their mouths any substance that most certainly would enter the bloodstream if it didn't benefit the body?

Convenience Isn't Always Our Friend

I realize this seems naive and I'm most certainly not when it comes to consumption and application of non-organics into and onto the human body. Admittedly, I am only in the preliminary stages of a dietary conversion in my life. Let's just say it is in the plans. I believe in free will and self-healing and therefore also believe that adverse effects can be avoided at least to some extent simply based on how we think and feel. So, in some respects negative effects can be avoided, however, as with treatments of illness, a comprehensive approach is always the best path to recovery. Therefore, the avoidance of the 'convenient' foods, skin care, mouth care, and hair care processed products, would best benefit this 'Earthly vessel' we call the body. This becomes a slippery slope when we expand the assault to microwaves, radiation, leaching of chemicals into water from plastic bottles, and the list goes on and on. Convenience isn't always our friend.

It isn't that easy to avoid consumption of and exposure to harmful influences. The corporate machine has schemed to keep the masses consuming their cheap, artificial, and often, harmful products to line their pockets with widespread control.

Why is natural food called Organic?

The most glaring atrocity is the excessive cost the capitalistic machine has placed on the products we seek for healthier living. Why should it be too expensive to live healthy? It seems to me that life longevity and freedom from influences that cause disease has been reserved for the elite but it doesn't have to be so. The real question is, why is natural food labeled organic? Why ...

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Mythical Walls of Belief

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 22:55:00 GMT

By: Scott Leuthold

The wind blew across the land stirring up dust from the arid landscape. As the Sun descended upon the horizon, the dust particles reflected an auburn glow. Gazing to the distant west, ridgelines highlighted a maze of endless walls. Countless passageways spread in a spherical pattern into the blinding light.

These walls of ancient stone command each of us to traverse our labyrinth of life. Spiraling we must, into our deepest contemplations.

Reaching the nucleus of the maze, we discover that what seemingly spiraled inward also radiates outward. As within, so without.

The steep shadowed walls curve about giving us the occasional comfort of warmth from the Sun's rays.

Pacing forward, echoes collide, blocks remove like windows to the other side. But the walls make fools of us, for they only separate us from ourselves.

Their cavernous recesses and protruding pinnacles push and pull at the fabric of what we think we are. We are no more or no less than these particles massed together into surfaces expressing their power and pain… their joy and sorrow, their weaknesses and ultimate triumphs.

In my most profound moments, I have traversed these pathways, walking with my eyes of the physical darkened, yet with my eyes of spirit opened wide, thus taking in all that I thought I could not see. Then as swiftly as these moments were received, they rapidly fled.

I've held these moments close with the gift of their knowledge seeding my thoughts with the heart-fluttering anticipation of their return. These walls are penetrable, for what lies on the other side and what lies within is everything we are as well.

We question our movements forward and backward, side-to-side, and above and below, failing time and again to consider inward and outward, but how could we not? We see not beyond the walls. Our seeming reality balances upon the fragile foundation of a world constructed in limiting beliefs. These beliefs shimmer like radiant heat rising from a scorching desert floor. Like a mirage, th...

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Decisions in Difficult Times

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 10:47:00 GMT

By: Scott Leuthold

Sometimes we feel like we want to hold onto something so intently and yet, just as readily let go of it and be free from how we feel it burdens us. It is easy to say that we can simply make change happen as many of the self-help books suggest. This is why I am not a life coach. I am no more 'advanced' in new thought than the experiences that challenge my thinking every day. These challenges are no different than yours. They may have different labels, but they are all the same. We must work together to create change for the greater good of all involved and when that change seemingly effects us in an adverse way, we must realize that no action has been taken deliberately against us. We are all pure and innocent.

Love always prevails no matter what the experience. In irony, when love itself is the challenge, we must dig deep within to find love for ourselves first and that love will radiate from within us outward to those we share our lives with. It is that simple. When we are happy with who we are and content with the choices we have made in life we are free to allow good things to come to us. The choices often seem very hard. I know that as well as anyone else. But, ultimately we must make them and when we do, they need to be for our own happiness.

When I take a moment to really evaluate how easy it is to choose a direction, it isn't the choice itself that is difficult, it is the acceptance of the outcome. We want to have it all and we wonder wh...

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We Are All Homeless

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 10:49:00 GMT

By: Scott Leuthold

Recently I was surfing Facebook and discovered a post that was made by one of my friends that read that when he sees a homeless person on the street with a dog, he always feels worse for the dog. Well, I love dogs, too, but I have a lot to say about this statement. I thought about posting it on his profile, but I refrained. I did post, though, 'how sad, what about your fellow man?' Why did I not post more on his profile? Because I realize that he has lessons in life to learn no differently than I do and I am certainly not in a position to judge.

Later in the string of posts I discovered his mother had made a comment that she agreed with him and she even went so far as to state that when she walks by them she makes the comment 'You should have listened to your mother.' Here, I really had to curb myself from responding. I had entered a number of comments in the post box but decided after much contemplation not to post any comment. It bothered me all evening.

Now, let me elaborate on the weight of the post above. I recall that the woman I mentioned above had suffered and recovered from alcoholism round about the time her children were in high school. As her children made it through their teens, one of them, I had been told through the grapevine, had suffered from drug addiction and also recovered in rehab. Knowing the whole family, I considered that both of the recoveries were at least in some part a result of love and support from those around them. The woman's husband stood by her side as she recovered from her illness. Then, she and her husband stood by their son's side as he recovered from his addiction.

It made me wonder how the woman could use such shallow words to remind the homeless person of his past, one that she likely has no awareness of how difficult it might have been for him growing up. What if his mother had been an alcoholic like she had been and he just couldn't take it anymore and ran away?

Then I contemplated the deeper concern for the dog than the man. I wondered if the dogs that these homeless individuals kept were leashed. If not, then it was clear to me that the dog was there by choice. Maybe the dog wasn't even aware that it was homeless! Maybe instead the dog loved his counterpart and was there because he had found in the man what he wanted most, to be loved and cared for. I reflected upon the notion that the man and the dog might actually be the ones to possess something that the onlooker might subconsciously desire. Maybe they had real love and commitment that an onlooker wished to have in their life. The man and the dog could count on one another for love and support, but even more importantly, do so in an unconditional way.

Then, this morning, I revisited the post string on my friend's profile and noticed that his mother had removed all of her posts regarding her perspective about the matter. I realized I didn't need to say anything at all. Maybe she realized how heartless her comments were.

Then I noticed yet another strange twist to the experience. I visited the woman's profile page and in irony, she had posted that she was moving into a new home today. I wondered if she might reflect upon her good fortune that she has been blessed with. A loving husband, loving children, and a beautiful new home. I wondered what might happen if she were to invite just one of these individuals into her home for a warm meal. Maybe sat down next to one of these individuals on the street to offer them her warm heart and a smile.

I am not going to sit here and type away at my keyboard acting all high and mighty. I hav...

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The Return

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 22:07:00 GMT

By: Scott Leuthold

I came across some music this evening that, while listening to it, sent me whirling into deep contemplation. From that experience came my latest poem. It is called 'The Return'.

The Return

I've been here before among the willows and stone
Returning again for what's left to be shown

Far from the light of the grand mother's womb
But ever closer to unearthing my tomb

The faceless wanderers have numbed my persistence
But no power's been lost from my truthful existence

Take me to your secret garden above
Together we can plant the the seeds of love

No diamonds or crystals will find us there
The temples will be lost in our gazing stare

I shall not falter with the influence of fear
Hope bids me moments that have kept me here

The mind's eye sees a shimmer in your glow
This knowing drifts my thoughts to worlds below

Your warmth is my home in this unforgiving mind
This dying dream has been to unkind

The reeds of wheat wave noble and free
But our mom...

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A Challenge

Tue, 04 Jan 2011 15:07:00 GMT

By: Scott Leuthold

As we embark on this year anew, settling into the aftermath of this great solar eclipse and it's many gifts bestowed upon us, may we each pause in retrospect… before our attention is captured by the promise of what is to come…. and focus just for a moment on what gifts the past year has shared.

Challenges may have tattered the fabric of our emotions and forced upon us new growth within, but look upon that growth as tethers released and an essence set adrift, embarking on a great journey toward internal truth.

Who are you, really...

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A Special New Year Message

Fri, 31 Dec 2010 21:26:00 GMT

By: Scott Leuthold

I would like to take a moment to thank all of our very valued contributors, our dedicated Facebook and Twitter followers, our thousands of monthly website visitors, and our committed TruJournal members. Your continued interest and support is a driving force behind this website.

I continue to share with you an insatiable quest for knowledge along my journey and this has put each of us on parallel paths for which I am deeply grateful. I have made so many new friends and shared so many meaningful experiences with many of you. I look forwa...

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Literal Dream

Tue, 28 Dec 2010 20:28:00 GMT

By: Scott Leuthold

I awoke in the early hours this morning. Laying in the darkness this message formulated in my mind.

The luminous sphere emerges, piercing the darkness with it's daggers of auburn light. Rising over the eastern horizon, it casts its life force over the baron landscape. The energy gently floats down, blanketing the surface of a once fierce planet. It is settled now and longing for the possibility of peace and love... of life. The energy settles in the cracks of the cold granite boul...

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On Relationships

Sun, 05 Dec 2010 09:13:00 GMT

By: Scott Leuthold

Let go of what you think someone wants you to be and free yourself. Let go of what you expect someone else to be and free them. Let go of what you think your relationship should be and free you both. If the relationship remains or fall apart it will be because it was meant to be. ~ from my own experience.

Love is the most challenging and rewarding learning experience availa...

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Stand Up For Happiness

Sun, 21 Nov 2010 21:51:00 GMT

By: Scott Leuthold

I worked on a yard project today in the rain. Well, it rained on and off. I was planning on attending an outdoor Jazz and Wine festival here in my community but once the rain began it didn't seem to make a lot of sense spending the money to buy tickets and go in the rain. Going with the flow, I ended up really still enjoying my day and appreciating th...

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Making Thanksgiving Meaningful and Memorable

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 11:33:00 GMT

By: Scott Leuthold

I've decided to post this blog early because I hope that it may inspire readers to think ahead and plan for a truly memorable Thanksgiving day.

Thanksgiving is that time of year that many of us have been brought up with under particular tradition. Sometimes tradition is a fine bit of nostalgia that we cherish as we look back on life. Time spent with family and the traditional Thanksgiving dinner can be quality time. But, maybe not every year and for many it can tend to become burdensome.

It's all good, but to be honest, my best Thanksgivings have been those I have spent being thankful in my own way. Sometimes spending it with family is just how I like it. Other times it isn't. Unfortunately, as most (as I call them) 'Hallmark Holidays', tradition is pushed on us as we are brought up. The magazine advertisements and television commercials seem to paint the whole experience as a cozy cabin in the woods with close family, a fire in the stone fireplace, and a hot turkey steaming fresh from the oven placed on deep red and green plaid tablecloths. That simply isn't always the reality.

Thanksgiving to me is to be spent being thankful for everything and everyone you have in your life but most importantly spending time being thankful for connection to Self and being conscious in our reality.

Some of the best Thanksgiving holidays I have ever spent were those spent either by myself or with no set plans. Once you release yourself from guilt caused by pressures from those who expect you to be in a particular place at a particular time, then you are free to decide for yourself how you want to spend the day in appreciation for what is important to you.

For example, when I was in high school on one particular Thanksgiving my parents decided to spend the holiday in California with my aunt and uncle. My sister had moved out of the house being that she was in college. I found myself alone for the holiday. Just a day or two before Thanksgiving day I received a telephone call from my brother John and his girlfriend Susan. They called me to suggest that they travel from the other side of Wisconsin to my home at the time in La Crosse. They thought they would join me and we might take a day hike in Perot State Park located about an hours drive north in the town of Trempealeau, Wisconsin. I accepted their invitation and within a day they were there to join me.

On Thanksgiving, ...

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The Tightrope Walker

Mon, 04 Oct 2010 03:35:00 GMT

By: Scott Leuthold

Welcome to October, the realm of Libra. My realm, and I'm not just saying that because of when I was born. We strive for harmony and balance like no other. Living in this dualistic experience we all call reality is, in my opinion, the experience of understanding balance. Not because balance is something that we can actually achieve, but rather learning that it is simply something to strive for. Duality simply means there are two sides to every story--always in a dual to overpower the other. It is, in my opinion, an imbalanced world designed to allow us to taste all that life has to offer and yet, find value in what is important to us in the process.

Many Libras tend to be, and I can almost anguishly admit, often times the ultimate strivers for balance. Our desire for harmony is not just for our own lives but for every life that our lives touch... especially those that are of utmost importance to us even if it means putting others needs before our own.

I just want everyone to be happy and my greatest challenge is often times the fact that such an emotion in others is not within my control. I find myself frustrated with this often, then after several hours of tossing and turning in bed, and then getting out of bed to write on TruJournal, or in this case on my blog, I finally come to grips with duality.

We need not look very far beyond our own families to find a microcosm of the psychology of the human race. I have more than enough people sharing my home to experience some level of humanity's social diversity. Though in some ways our home is a very warm and peaceful place, in others it is a constant struggle. Then on top of that, being the tightrope walker (a relentless seeker of balance), I'm always on the lookout for what needs to be fixed. However, when it comes to these entangled relationships and emotional pipe leaks and squeaky doors, rather than being 'honey dos' they are often 'honey don'ts'. I find that delving too deeply in the minds of those I share my home with to make attempts to...

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Staright Glow

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 22:12:00 GMT

By: Scott Leuthold

Yet another of one of the poems I wrote. This one written about 8 years ago. But this one in particular has stuck with me. Recently, the double eclipses, one in the end of June and the other last week, have left me with such a shift in my experience. It is so peculiar how the words of this poem have held such an accurate account of recent moments. Life comes full circle.

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Warm afternoon and starlight glow as I gaze upon you
I ride on dreams of midnight blue
Wishing away time as the changing eclipse grew

Standing on edge with the glare of Northern Light
I watch as they dance like glitter in flight
Into the sun's rays they twi...

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