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SPIRIT is concerned with personal development. We try to bring to you items relating to the growing confluence of materialist, reductionist business and academics and older, traditional, non-material themes. It's an interesting time to be alive, as skeptics about spiritual concepts can gain empirical affirmation of what mystics and contemplatives have been saying through the centuries. Questioning Duality - Interview with Karen Ciaramella Victory of Laughter over Hate in Knoxville What a wonderful, uplifting story. A bunch of clowns (literally) laughed Nazis and Klansmen out of Knoxville, Tennessee recently, using their wit to mercilessly mock the 'White Power' advocates. Must reading! Yeah! One poignant part to me was when the police offered an escort to the clowns for a triumphal march through town, after the clowns had defeated the haters. Selfish Selflessness There is an argument to be made that every thing is connected, regardless of time and space, and certain empirical findings give some support to that. Check out entangled atoms sometime. Given this belief, one might find oneself coming to a conclusion that our actions have reverberations beyond our current understanding. If everything is connected, then out of our own self-interest, we might consider being kind, as 'what goes around comes around'. Here is a more direct and measurable reflection of this thesis: During the annual PBS pledge drives, several popular series are usually re-run, such as the Bill Moyers conversations with Joseph Campbell, Christiane Northrup, and others. Dr. Wayne Dyer is part of that annual offering, and in one of his presentations some years ago, he said that serotonin levels (which promote immune system performance) are increased in the person who receives an act of kindness (makes sense), and the one who bestows the kindness. By reaching out to another, you help yourself; you don't have to be all starry-eyed and wreathed in smiles while you do the kindness, by the way (my contribution to this), so even if you are a bit grumpy at the time, the serotonin benefit still is there. Here's the really nice unexpected dimension, maybe tied to our mirror neurons:  Anyone who simply WITNESSES the altruism ALSO has a serotonin boost. Last Gasp of Brutal Old World-view? A recent column in SFGate by Mark Morford sees the possible value in the current mess we are in. Partial quote from his Sept 14 piece: "[M]any in the alternative set, the lightworkers and the gurus and the healers and the deep teachers ... see Iraq, BushCo, the American right and all the sanctimonious bleakness surrounding them as merely the inky remnants of a passing disease, the last, vicious gasp of a dying ideology, the violent struggle of resistance that always erupts before any great cosmic shift." Hey, "from your lips to God's ears", as I used to hear my parents say as kids. These should count as good news, although the two items in the report are delivered in the midst of (predictably) not-so-good news about the state of the earth. The Times Comprehensive Atlas Of The World came to newstands this weekend, with new maps showing the impact of climate change. The new atlas also reveals that 13 per cent of the world's land area is designated as protected (a surprising amount, and one which raises the question about exactly what 'protected' means). In addition, large areas of the Mesopotamian Marshlands in Iraq, drained by Saddam Hussein to expel the independent-minded 'Marsh Arabs', who had lived there since antiquity, are being re-flooded and restored. I remember learning with great sadness about this brutal and thoughtless onslaught at the time; one thing about living long enough is that you often see how things come full circle. Quotes for the Spirit Fathers of Faith High-Powered Business Types tout Meditation Generational Drugs of Choice The first few paragraphs of this article (several years old) are especially interesting, but I'm not sure of how valid the entire treatise is; worth a read. Don't forget Afghanistan Regardless of how you feel about the people in Washington, there are people in Afghanistan who would benefit from our continued involvement, and a person-to-person connection can easily be forged in this era of the Internet. Consider how girls in Afghanistan have seen their prospects and life changed significantly since the fall of the Taliban, and how that victory of modernity needs consolidation and defense. Consider how you can invest some time and money to sending a big message of solidarity. Here is one place to start, Soccer Moms. Im going against the tide I wish to offer a small note of praise about a currently vilified figure, George Bush. It's easy to 'pile on' since his flaws are manifold, and unfortunately for the world, also manifest due to his power, but let's exercise our spiritual muscles, and let's stretch a little toward compassion. George Bush will be judged by history for his actions, and for the beliefs which motivated them; this is not the venue for such a discussion, but I am mentioning him because we should seek and applaud the good in everyone, for the sake of our common humanity. Let me therefore say something positive about him out of sheer contrarian joy, if nothing else. At a dinner of Texas Republicans while he was still Governor,  he was heard to have made a very enlightened stance on attitudes toward our Mexican neighbors, with whom we share so much history --- enlightened because it's so true and in retrospect self-evident. He said at the time that 'family values do not end at the Rio Grande'. The entire room fell silent in response, and not because they had shared an enlightened breakthrough; their attitudes towards 'those people' were the opposite of this sentiment. The audience's silence implied that this 'otherness' attitude had to be maintained; perhaps the attitude is reflective of the ancient, fear-driven lizard brain, and thus can be seen by a compassionate person as a prop to a fragile, frightened ego, and thus pathetic in more than one sense of the word. In any event, Bush probably knew their mindset, yet said the right thing anyway. Whether the Bush statement is borne of conviction, or simply another line item in a Karl Rove campaign strategy (goodbye and good riddance), the statement rises on its own merit, unsullied by any political consideration; we are all the same in our basic desire for security, some comfort and some pleasure. (For a fuller picture of Bush, we feel it incumbent upon ourselves to mention that infamous interview with Tucker Carlson, where he mocked a woman who was executed for a heinous murder, but had apparently had a sincere religious conversion in prison).