Aldea Spiritual Community

What Does "God" Mean To You? | Kathleen Roberts, Tarell Lewis, Mary Engle & Glenn Kagan

On Sunday 8/18, Kathleen hosted a panel of Aldea community members asking the question: "What does "God" mean to you?" 
 
 

Reality Check (Part 4): Loving What Is | Jake Haber

As we close out our series "Reality Check", we look at how words like "should" and "supposed to" are beliefs that keep us trapped in how we want things to be. What would it be like to come to terms with - and even embrace - the way things are? 
 
Quotes: 
 
Lao Tzu:
"Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow.”
 
Byron Katie
“When you argue with reality, you lose, but only 100% of the time.”
“I am a lover of what is, not because I'm a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality.”
“When we stop opposing reality, action becomes simple, fluid, kind, and fearless.”
 
Genesis 32:24-30:
"but Jacob stayed behind, left alone in his distress and doubt. In the twilight of his anguish, an
unknown man wrestled with him until daybreak.* When the man saw he was not winning the battle with Jacob, he
struck him on the hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was thrown out of joint as he continued to wrestle with him. Man:
Let me go; the dawn is breaking. Jacob: I will not let you go unless you bless me. Man: What’s your name? Jacob:Jacob. Man: You will no longer go by the name Jacob. From now on, your name will be Israel because you have wrestled with God and humanity, and you have prevailed.
 
Eckhart Tolle:
"Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment."
 
Peter Crone:
“What happened, happened and couldn’t have happened in any other way… because it didn’t.”
 
Thich Nhat Hanh:
"Jesus Christ knew that to truly embrace reality, one must accept both the suffering and the joy. His life was a testament to saying 'yes' to the fullness of existence.”
 
Matthew Fox:
"Christ's message is about embracing the whole of creation, saying yes to life in all its forms, and finding the divine spark within each moment."
 
Ram Dass: 
"Everywhere you are attached, you will find a hook to pull you into suffering. Whatever you are attached to, that is where you will be asked to let go. Wherever you are stuck, that is where you are not free.”

Reality Check (Part 3): Beyond Words | Jake Haber

For Part 3 of our Reality Check series, we examined the power - and limitations - of words. 
 
Quotes:
 
Hermann Hesse:
"Words do not convey the beauty of the Tao; they merely point to it. The true nature of the universe is beyond description.”
 
Søren Kierkegaard:
"Once you label me, you negate me.”
 
Alan Watts:
"Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth."
"The more a thing tends to be permanent, the more it tends to be lifeless. To define something is to limit it.”
 
Rumi:
"Words are a barrier between the heart and the soul; the heart's language is beyond words.”
 
Thomas Merton: 
"Silence is God’s first language; everything else is a poor translation."
 
Philippians 4:7: 
“…the peace of God, which transcends all understanding”
 

Reality Check (Part 2): The Spectrum of Life | Jake Haber

For the second part of "Reality Check", we recognized that life is not so black and white, but is actually a spectrum of nuance and complexity. This affects our faith, our connection to one another, and our understanding of the world at large! 
 
Quotes:
 
Lao Tzu:
"The truth is not always beautiful, nor beautiful words the truth. The wise man sees all in the spectrum, not in black and white.”
 
Ed Yong: 
“There is a wonderful word for this sensory bubble—Umwelt… Umwelt comes from the German word for“environment”…an Umwelt is specifically the part of those surroundings that an animal can sense and experience—its perceptual world…a multitude of creatures could be standing in the same physical space and have completely different Umwelten….” 
“It tells us that all is not as it seems and that everything we experience is but a filtered version of everything that we could experience.”
 
Eckhart Tolle:
"The whole is made up of both the dark and the light.”
 
Samsara (Film): https://www.barakasamsara.com/
 
 
 
 

Reality Check: Cognitive Biases | Jake Haber

Join us for the first installment of our "Reality Check" series, as we examine the cognitive biases of the human brain and how they prevent us from experiencing true reality.
 
Quotes: 
 
Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
Reality Check - Something that clarifies or serves as a reminder of reality often by correcting a misconception
 
Joseph Roux:
"Our experience is composed rather of illusions lost than of wisdom acquired."
 
Ramana Maharshi:
"Realization is not acquisition of anything new nor is it a new faculty. It is only removal of all camouflage.”
 
Rumi:
"Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
 
Buddha:
"It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell." 
 
John 8:32: 
"Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
 
Biases & Heuristics:
Blind Spot Bias, Naive Realism, Confirmation Bias, Egocentric Bias, Cloak of Invisibility Illusion, Barnum Effect, Negativity Bias, In-group/Out-group Bias, Fundamental Attribution Error, Self Fulfilling Prophecy, Primacy Effect, Availability Heuristic, Affect Heuristic, Halo Effect
 
 

Let's Talk About Hope | Jake Haber & Guests

What does it look like to talk about hope in a time of overwhelming challenges, division, and uncertainty about the future? Let's find out together, as we hear from Jake & members of the Aldea community who respond to the question: "what gives you hope?" 
 
Quotes:
 
Desmond Tutu:
"Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.” 
 
Mahatma Gandhi:
"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.” 
 

Deep Tracks: Both Sides Now | Jake Haber

For the series finale of "Deep Tracks", we explored the Joni Mitchell song "Both Sides Now", allowing ourselves to be impacted by its themes of personal growth, evolving perceptions, and the wisdom of saying "I don't know". 
 
Lyrics:
Rows and flows of angel hairAnd ice cream castles in the airAnd feather canyons everywhereLooked at clouds that way
 
But now they only block the sunThey rain and they snow on everyoneSo many things I would have doneBut clouds got in my way
 
I've looked at clouds from both sides nowFrom up and down and still somehowIt's cloud illusions I recallI really don't know clouds at all
 
Moons and Junes and Ferris wheelsThe dizzy dancing way that you feelAs every fairy tale comes realI've looked at love that way
 
But now it's just another showAnd you leave 'em laughing when you goAnd if you care, don't let them knowDon't give yourself away
 
I've looked at love from both sides nowFrom give and take and still somehowIt's love's illusions that I recallI really don't know love at all
 
Tears and fears and feeling proudTo say "I love you" right out loudDreams and schemes and circus crowdsI've looked at life that way
 
But now old friends, they're acting strangeAnd they shake their heads and they tell me that I've changedWell, something's lost, but something's gainedIn living every day
 
I've looked at life from both sides nowFrom win and lose and still somehowIt's life's illusions I recallI really don't know life at all
 
Quotes:
 
Pema Chodron: 
"The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.”
 
Rumi:
"Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.” 
 
Thomas Merton: 
"You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith, and hope.”
 
Richard Rohr:
“This process of transformation was slow, and the realizations that came with it were not either-or; they were great big both-and realizations… I could transcend precisely because I was able to include and broaden…It seems we all begin in naiveté and eventually return to a 'second naiveté' or simplicity, whether willingly or on our deathbed.This blessed simplicity is calm, knowing, patient, inclusive, and self-forgetful. It helps us move beyond anger, alienation, and ignorance. I believe this is the very goal of mature adulthood and mature religion.” 
 
Carl Jung:
"The paradox is one of our most valuable spiritual possessions...only the paradox comes anywhere near to comprehending the fullness of life.”
 
Albert Einstein:
"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.”
 
Rainer Maria Rilke:
"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer”

Deep Tracks: Imagine | Jake Haber

Tune in to a message on John Lennon's iconic peace anthem "Imagine", and how it explores powerful themes about using our creative capacity to envision a better world. 
 
Lyrics: 
Imagine there's no heavenIt's easy if you tryNo hell below usAbove us, only sky
 
Imagine all the peopleLivin' for today
Imagine there's no countriesIt isn't hard to doNothing to kill or die forAnd no religion, too
 
Imagine all the peopleLivin' life in peace
 
You may say I'm a dreamerBut I'm not the only oneI hope someday you'll join usAnd the world will be as one
 
Imagine no possessionsI wonder if you canNo need for greed or hungerA brotherhood of man
 
Imagine all the peopleSharing all the world
 
Quotes:
 
Woody Guthrie: 
 
“It’s a folk singer’s job to comfort disturbed people and to disturb comfortable people.”
 
John Lennon: 
“..the concept of positive prayer ... If you can imagine a world at peace, with no denominations of religion—not without religion but without this my God-is-bigger-than-your-God thing—then it can be true” 
 
Crowfoot (Chief of the Blackfeet):
"We cannot sell the lives of men and animals; therefore we cannot sell this land. It was put here for us by the Great Spirit and we cannot sell it because it does not belong to us"
 
Massasoit (Leader of the Wampanoag):
“What is this you call property? It cannot be the earth, for the land is our mother, nourishing all her children, beasts, birds, fish and all men. The woods, the streams, everything on it belongs to everybody and is for the use of all. How can one man say it belongs only to him?”
 
Crazy Horse:
“One does not sell the land people walk on.”
 
Chief Seattle:
“We do not own the freshness of the air or the sparkle of the water. How can you buy them from us?”

Deep Tracks: What Was I Made For? | Jake Haber

Tune in to Part 2 of Deep Tracks as we examine Billie Eilish's Oscar Winner "What Was I Made For?" from the movie Barbie.
Behind the vibrant cinematic flair of the film and the melancholy beauty of the song lies a powerful message of embracing the full spectrum of human experience.
Lyrics: 
Iused to float, now I just fall down
I used to know but I'm not sure nowWhat I was made forWhat was I made for?
 
Takin' a drive, I was an idealLooked so alive, turns out I'm not realJust something you paid forWhat was I made for?
 
'Cause I, II don't know how to feelBut I wanna tryI don't know how to feelBut someday, I mightSomeday, I might
 
When did it end? All the enjoymentI'm sad again, don't tell my boyfriendIt's not what he's made forWhat was I made for?
 
Think I forgot how to be happySomething I'm not, but something I can beSomething I wait forSomething I'm made forSomething I'm made for
 
Quotes:
 
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks:
"I believe faith is not certainty but the courage to live with uncertainty"
 
Alan Watts:
“This, then, is the human problem: there is a price to be paid for every increase in consciousness. We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being more sensitive to pain."
 
Joanna Macy:
"The heart that breaks open can contain the whole universe... All is registered in the 'boundless heart' of the bodhisattva. Through our deepest and innermost responses to our world - to hunger and torture and the threat of annihilation - we touch that boundless heart."

Deep Tracks: I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For | Jake Haber

Check out the first installment of our "Deep Tracks" series as we unpack the spiritual themes behind U2's iconic song  "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For". 
 
Quotes: 
 
Carl Jung:
“One cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning; for what was great in the morning will be of little importance in the evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening become a lie." 
 
Bono:
 “Could you imagine Ireland in the '70s, it's a civil war….The country's dividing along sectarian lines. I was very suspicious, and still am a little suspicious of ... religious people, I mean, religion is often a club that people use to beat someone else over the head with. I learnt that at a very early age in Ireland.”
 
Joseph Campbell:
“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life…. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive” 
 
Alan Watts:
"No one imagines that a symphony is supposed to improve as it goes along, or that the whole object of playing is to reach the finale. The point of music is discovered in every moment of playing and listening to it.