Tammie Byram Fowles, PhD, MSW

The sacred everywhere

   I sat in a circle of fellow travelers last night where we shared our reflections on the day, a day of deep introspection and truth telling.  The night was warm, the flickering and sputtering of the campfire was soothing, the open space felt sacred...

   This morning I awoke early and sat in the mist rising up from the lake, and listened to the loons in the distance.  I had recently read in States of Grace by Charlene Spretnak,  "If at the end of life one could recall the nature of all the thousghts and emotions that had occupied the mind from moment to moment and sort them into three piles - the loving, harmonious mindstates; the neutral mindstates; and the fearful negative mindstates - the last pile would most often tower over the others.  Our minds simply get caught in inner storms of insecurity, jealousy, craving, or ill will."  I thought about the countless gifts that can touch our hearts, filling them with love, beauty, gratitude, appreciation, awe, and wonder if we only open up to them...   

   

   

Depression is Real

   A wonderful resource for those suffering from depression is the "Down and Up Show" sponsored by the "Depression is Real Organization."  This week Joshua Wolf Shenk, author of Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness was interviewed.  You can also subscribe to their podcasts.

Global Warming, Misinformation, and Addiction

   Western culture has been accused of being 'a culture of addiction.'  It is commonly known that one hallmark of addiction is denial.  According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary denial is defined as:

" a (1) : refusal to admit the truth or reality (as of a statement or charge) (2) : assertion that an allegation is false b : refusal to acknowledge a person or a thing : DISAVOWAL  3 : the opposing by the defendant of an allegation of the opposite party in a lawsuit
4 : SELF-DENIAL
5 : negation in logic
6 : a psychological defense mechanism in which confrontation with a personal problem or with reality is avoided by denying the existence of the problem or reality."

     The issue of global warming has long been a glaring example from my perspective of the power of denial and "The Great Global Warming Swindle Swindle" by abc science writer, Bernie Hobbs provides yet one more example of its tenacity.

     The article begins, “There's nothing like an accurate, well researched documentary to help make sense of a complex issue like global warming. It's a shame that The Great Global Warming Swindle isn't one.

The Swindle is a one-sided anti-global warming argument put together by a film maker with a name for skewing the facts, and featuring greenhouse skeptics with media profiles that far exceed their scientific publishing records.”

   

      

Fox News and global warming

Despite overwhelming evidence provided by scientists, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the National Academy of Science, Fox News continues to claim that global warming doesn't exist, it was simply created by Al Gore and a manipulated media.