David Marshak, emeritus professor in the College of Education at Seattle University, has written a book, The Common Vision:  Parenting and Educating for Wholeness (Peter Lang Publishing), that integrates the developmental ideas of three esoteric thinkers from the early 20th century:  Rudolf Steiner, Hazrat Inayat Khan, and Sri Aurobindo.   As the title indicates, Marshak...Read More

I’m impressed with the work of  Susan Linn, author of The Case for Make-Believe: Saving Play in a Commercialized World, whose organization, Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC), has been attempting to stop corporations from using characters like Sponge Bob Square Pants,Sesame Street’s Elmo, and cartoon movie figures to advertise everything from sugar-rich cereals and unhealthy McDonald’s “happy meals” to...Read More

An 2006 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) suggests that abnormalities in the lower brainstem affecting serotonin production may be a major predisposing factor in the occurrence of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) in infants.  The neurotransmitter serotonin is best known for its mood-regulating characteristics (many current antidepressant drugs affect the regulation...Read More

I’d like to recommend an amazing film entitled Bodysong.  It chronicled the entire human condition through hundreds of video clips taken from many cultures, many historical settings (back to the very beginnings of the history of film), and most importantly, from each stage of the human life cycle.  It begins with images of conception, and then, in...Read More

The stages of life in Native American traditions are sometimes represented through the Medicine Wheel, a cross within a circle that indicates the Four Directions:  East, South, West, and North.  The symbolism that is usually described goes as follows:  East – birth, childhood;  South – youth, growing up;  West – aging, mature adulthood;  North –...Read More