How Love is Learned, Modeled and Shared From Early Childhood on Kinds Of Love Love is a family of capacities. Some forms occur through biology, others through relationship and still others through deliberate moral and spiritual cultivation. As a felt experience, many types have been identified. Eros is romantic or erotic; Philia is friendship and […]
A Practice of Compassion, Presence and Shared Humanity After placing an order at a fast food restaurant takeout menu, Linda pulled up to the window. I was in the passenger seat. She handed over the money and moments later, when the bag of food was delivered she noticed a sandwich was missing. She waved to […]
A Fundamental Phenomenon That Shapes Human Development and Consciousness Ethan Miller, our grandson filling my shoes My routine before going to sleep at night is to cite some of the happening of the day for which I am grateful. Often, snuggled under the covers with my head on the pillow, I become aware of the […]
The feeling we get when touched by something vast Clinical psychologist Neil Farber defines awe as “an overwhelming feeling associated with vastness, reverence, wonder and at times a touch of fear; a sense of transcending day-to-day human experience in the presence of something extraordinary. Awe is inspired by objects or events that are considered to […]
Whether books, baseball cards or baby dolls, they reflect the soul’s agenda… We come here for a reason. Once here, the soul guides us, in part, by the way’s we’re compelled to feed it. Specifically, we activate the endowments (gifts) we were born with, those that drive our interest and motivation to grow and contribute, […]
Qualities of Love and Consciousness Are Shaping Our Evolutionary Future My common practice for this blog is to select a photograph that will prompt a contemplation. In this instance, due to a period of focused readings in theology and philosophy relative to the future of humanity, there came a moment when I had the distinct […]
The Intersection of Nature and Technology Through the many decades that I’ve been photographing landscapes, utility poles of all kinds, sizes and wires have been a nuisance. Their placement often interfered with rural settings, and in cities the lines tended to be a mess. I don’t like being critical, but when I see these, the […]
Seeing the Divine as Relationship While researching for my post “What Makes a True Leader” (October 19, 2025), it became apparent that “dominators” historically created and thrived due to a hierarchical social structure. Thinking about it, I began to realize that hierarchies are pervasive; we take them for granted. In Western religious traditions, the spiritual […]
Why the “Domination” Paradigm Fails and the “Communion” Paradigm Endures Through decades of studying the rise and fall of the ancient Maya civilization of Central America, one of my areas of interest has been the formation and decline of “kingship,” how power was gained and wielded and how it failed. Universally, and from a whole-systems […]
Are They “Individuals” or “Persons?” In the early 1960s I was photographing quite a lot in Cincinnati’s Findley Market downtown. This woman turned and saw that was pointing my camera at her, so she turned and posed. I took the shot, thanked her and we moved on. After writing my post, “The Typewriter and Authenticity,” […]
Contemplative Photography 