This Winter Solstice on the eve of December 21, please consider joining me. Go outside and settle into the night.  Listen. Think about the night as if it were an island. Have in mind what is important to you — what you want to release from your life and what you want to welcome into [...]

Easter is derived from two ancient traditions: Pagan and Judeo-Christian. Easter celebration is definitely traceable all the way back to ancient Babylonian trinitarian paganism, Circa 1500 B.C. Pagans have celebrated death and rebirth themes following the Spring Equinox for millennia. Passover Pasch can be traced to a pre-Israelite pagan ritual practiced by wandering Semitic shepherds.

This year I did not take part in the Bloggers’ Unite International Women’s Day event because I could not overlook this irony. Just days prior to International Women’s Day our Canadian government passed a bill that legislates away the right of women who are public sector workers to file complaints for pay equity with the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

Letʼs begin with a caveat. No matter how many tips for success you read, nothing replaces competence. Assuming a minimal aptitude for the work, what follows are some practical lessons learned over a 35 year career working in a large organization as a middle manager.

Ears hear – hearing is easy. Hearts listen and listening is hard work. You can hear without listening but you cannot listen without “turning off your filters” and becoming one with the speaker in order to discover their truth within you as they speak. When we are communication online we are, in essence, sensory deprived. Therefore it’s not surprising that listening with our hearts is more difficult to achieve online than it is to achieve in person.

My husband and I were best friends for a very long time before we became intimate.  Ours was not a relationship based on being swept off our feet and becoming deeply entangled in romantic love. And, when we decided to become intimate, we lived together for a year and a half before we  committed to [...]