Spiritual Evolution and Groundhog Day

Whenever I think of spiritual evolution, I think of Groundhog Day. 

Not the day itself, although it is my favorite holiday (probably because of its pagan roots—happy Imbolc/Candlemas/St. Brigit’s day everyone) but because of the 1993 movie that starred Bill Murray. 

Bill plays Phil Connors, a cynical, egocentric Pittsburgh weatherman who suffers through covering the annual Groundhog Day celebration in Punxatawney, PA.  Andie MacDowell plays Rita, the likeable, wise (in a low-key kind of way), news producer.  After the celebration, while trying to return to Pittsburgh, the news team encounters a bad snow storm and is forced to return to Punxatawney and stay over night. 

The next morning Phil wakes up to find that it is Groundhog Day all over again.  This happens day after day and we get to laugh as Phil Connors struggles with this difficult, seemingly endless, situation.  When Phil realizes that he is the only one trapped in this time loop, he begins to take use his situation to take advantage of people in the town, commit crimes, seduce women, etc.  He also continually tries to impress Rita. 

As time wears on, however, he becomes increasingly depressed and even tries to kill himself.  He eventually tells Rita what is happening to him and she recommends that he use the time to try and improve himself, which he does.  He learns how to play the piano, helps people in the town, and even learns how to speak French.  By the end of the movie, Phil Connors is a changed man and the most popular person in Punxatawney.  Of course the movie has a happy ending.  Rita falls in love with this most wonderful man, the time loop is broken, and they live happily ever after in Punxatawney.

Groundhog Day just sums it all up.  (So does the Bhagavad Gita but it’s not that funny.) 

A Soul starts out on its journey in matter very self-involved, always looking for an angle to get ahead, make more money, get more power, and impress the other Souls along the way.  In time, for many Souls, this story begins to lose its meaning.  Everyday just seems like the day before.  We get depressed, sometimes really badly depressed.  Or, we get sick, lose our jobs, get divorced.  We lose faith.  But, just when nothing seems to matter, we begin to hear Spirit’s call and we begin to evolve.  Slowly at first.  Maybe we just start questioning who we are and what we’re doing here.  Maybe we decide to stop taking everything so damn seriously and personally.  Maybe, just maybe, we stop thinking all together for a few minutes a day and start feeling, listening.  And then eventually, everything starts to shift.  Our hearts open.  We begin to realize that we are spiritual beings—each and every one of us.   And then it dawns on us—there is no separation between us and Spirit.  We’ve never been apart.  It only looked that way.  And we live happily ever after, no matter what happens.

What is Spiritual Counseling?

What is Spiritual Counseling?

Spiritual counseling is a method designed to help a person awaken to the reality of “The One Life Principle.”

This ancient idea says that there is a single underlying power in the universe but the expression of this power takes many forms. Scientists call this power Energy, Nature, the Unified Field, or Consciousness. Theologians call it God or Spirit.

This power expresses itself as you, me and everyone and everything else in the Universe. When we wrap our minds around this simple premise, we realize that because everyone and everything comes from the same spiritual source, we are all spiritual. If we all come from the same spiritual source, then there is no separation — not only between us and God — but between us and anyone or anything else.

Like computers hooked up to a network server, each one of us has access to any and all information stored in the spiritual database of the Universe. As a result, we are inherently able to directly communicate with God/Spirit and all of its creations. As expressions of spiritual energy, we can do and be whatever we want. On the deepest spiritual level, we are not stuck, isolated, alone or being punished.

The goal of spiritual counseling is to wake up to our own underlying divine power and express ourselves as spiritual human beings. The reward of spiritual counseling is realizing that there is no upward limit to what we can experience, do or be.  With this realization, we can go forth in the world with confidence, inner peace, and deep and abiding love for all that is.

Gateways

I was born in 1960 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a hard-working steel town that was still in the process of transforming itself from an immigrant-dominated, working class city to its current status as a well-respected corporate headquarters.

There's something about Pittsburgh that has stayed with me long after I left to go to college in Massachusetts. Maybe it’s the location. Before St. Louis, Pittsburgh was the "Gateway to the West." Only 300 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, Pittsburgh’s three rivers made travel and transport possible between the East Coast and further west. However, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the Allegheny Mountains made getting people and goods to Pittsburgh from the East Coast difficult, so Pittsburghers created their own goods to sell which led to the city’s evolution into an industrial “smokey old town.” In some ways, Pittsburgh is similar to other industrial cities like Chicago and Detroit, but as a sort of dividing line between the East and the Midwest—Pittsburgh is unique.

I've now lived in New York City longer than I lived in Pittsburgh and while I am one of those New Yorkers who is deeply in love with the wild energy that is NYC, in my heart I am and always will be a Pittsburgher. I went to my first protest march in Pittsburgh, saw my first opera, heard my first symphony, and got my driver's license there too. I got my resourcefulness and stick-to-it-iveness from the values that emerged from the 'burgh’s industrial history and the keen sense that we're all in this together—no matter what kind of job we're doing, level of education we've received, or salary we're pulling down—from its role as a true ethnic melting pot.

It’s hard to imagine now, but for many years, Pittsburgh didn’t appeal to me. After living in Paris and New York, the city seemed too self-conscious and not nearly sophisticated enough for me. It symbolized everything about my past that I wanted to forget—especially my struggles with my father. My dad was a powerhouse of a man, and to me Pittsburgh belonged to him. In order for me to carve out my own life, we needed to live in different cities. And since New York is a hell of a town, I didn’t think I’d ever need Pittsburgh again. After my dad’s death, however, I felt the need to reclaim Pittsburgh as my own and now I know why.

Like the city of my birth, I am a gateway—not to the west like Pittsburgh—but to the Soul. And after all these years I know how to get there. Come with me and let’s ride the river together. A new frontier beckons.