Nature's Inspiration Blog

Sometimes events do not turn out as we expected and we can feel angry and confused. Discover how to cultivate joy in the cycles of change.

The very way we go about our lives is governed by how the ancients observed the planets to organize time. What did they see?

Gobekli Tepe and Ratnagiri are two ancient sites that portray symbols in carvings and petroglyphs that predate written records. These symbols emerge in cultures around the world with no known contact.

From a paved and man-made road, we travel deep into the heart of the granite mountain.

Chaos can create an environment where traditional constraints are lifted, and the need for novel solutions drives people to tap into their creative potential.

Blunt the sharpness is an idea that comes from the Tao te Ching. We can overcome the need to come to immediate judgments and recognize that there is nothing to fear.

Discover how stillness or the art of letting go can guide our life purpose through intuition, synchronicity and life experiences.

We look for the written records of more advanced civilizations. However, it may be that our most ancient ideas came from dreams and the bicameral mind that preceded consciousness.

Whether examined scientifically for its unique properties, or philosophically for its powerful, yet adaptable behavior, water is an amazing teacher.

Taoism is a study of nature that allows us to understand the human journey. Wu Wei as effortless action and Ming, as an awareness of our limited perspective allow us to move with the flow to live more joyfully.

Learning to become receptive and free from the known can open you to the numinous as a transcendent and transformative experience.

Adversity can be viewed as nature’s alchemy. Each challenge demonstrates the remarkable ability of nature to turn adversity into an opportunity for growth and authentic well-being.

Tranquility in Disturbance doesn't mean to negate the experience. It means recognizing why an event feels disturbing so we can give it proper respect and learn from it.

Since ancient times, the spider has been an enigmatic teacher of Wu Wei. It is honored for the way in which it spins a web and waits for its needs to be fulfilled. However, the spider can teach us so much more.

Explore the differences and similarities between Taoism, Judaism, Christianity and Buddhism. Open to the joy of embracing the unfathomable.

You can only activate the power of originality that nature bestowed upon you by being fearlessly yourself. Explore how nature tells a story about why you are unique.

Taoism teaches us to follow rather than lead – to be the guest, not the host. What can this reveal about who is really in charge? Our need for control is what generally leads to frustration and disappointment.

Ideas like ‘life is good’ or ‘life is ‘getting better’ may seem subjective or idealistic. Explore how evolution leads to better outcomes, and how nature uses unstable energy to explore a better way.

Many spiritual practices use meditation and mantras to cultivate compassion. Taoism approaches compassion as a type of living meditation, where everything on our path is an opportunity to return to a state of innocence.

The use of the Hu Gua and Zong Gua are founded on the idea that each hexagram is not a static concept. By its very nature, the I Ching and its hexagrams remain ever-changing and fluid.

While the West pursues a unified theory or a way of reducing nature into strings, quarks or elemental building blocks, the ancient Taoists had already found this in Tao. Explore the Taoist view of consciousness.

Words are at the root of how consciousness develops. By transforming them into a different meaning, we can loosen our assumptions in the same way our dreams achieve this while we sleep.

If the practice of Taoism can be summed up in its greatest benefit – it would be how it trains the mind to unleash joy. Three ideas from the Tao te Ching can help liberate your joy.

Gravity offers a lesson about how to become more aware of our focus, commitment and stability. We can be committed to either success or failure, and the result of our actions will always reveal which is at play.

Pine trees have held a special role in our spiritual beliefs since ancient times. We find the pine cone featured in ancient stela across the world. What is the significane of the bags they carry in the other hand?

Although only 6 main elements and 4 known forces make up the building blocks of life, our dictionaries contain more than 1 million words. We make life more complicated than it really is. Discover the simplicity of Taoism.

In Taoism, the unknown is a given – not something to be described. We wander in the unfathomable, and faith comes from the wonder uncertainty provides.

Many people have asked for the written version of my poems, which appear in my translation of the I Ching. Explore the hexagrams of the I Ching as minimilist poetry.

We get our news in an 'echo chamber' that resembles the way projection works in psychology. Explore the archetype of the 'Other' and what it reveals about what we are hiding.

Since dreams show us how the mind constructs reality – they present us with insight into the power to create our experiences.

Pollination and reproduction in nature often involves the interplay of the most unusual pairings. What if nature used dating sites?

Nature or the universe is a type of consciousness that understands itself by way of the consciousness it creates. Its possibilities cannot be actualized until we are self-actualized. We do this when dreaming.

When we look at nature, we observe how over time, the unimaginable becomes reality. From the one, its strange duplicity became the many. We observe the world using knowledge, but growth is activated by something else.

Minimalism can be applied to décor, art and even as an outlook. It can actually lead to a more expanded sense of existence because it is about detachment. When we stop holding the self to be separate from, or more important than anything around us...

As a dream analyst and Taoist, I believe Zhuang Zhou's butterfly dream is one of the best ways of understanding Taoism’s philosophy of removing boundaries.

If nature can teach us anything about politics, it is that there isn’t just one form of leadership that works for all. Cooperation and balance are the driving force of an eco-system’s sustainability.

The Moon in your chart represents what security looks and feels like for you. Representing the subconscious, exploring the Moon through the signs can describe the content and themes of dreams.

We tend to want answers as to why life unfolds the way it does. Wrestling with what you cannot change can be an opportunity to relax into the just-is-ness of life, and to look deeper at what is possible. Explore nature's answer to: why?

We attempt to define our world with singular ideas, but nature seems to hide in its duality. Explore nature's paradoxes, the expanding universe and the answer to the riddle: "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"

Electromagnetism and its flow of energy powers our electrical devices and allows us to feel the sunlight warming the atmosphere. It portrays the interaction of Yin and Yang, a Taoist concept that was developed in the 3rd century BC.

Nature inspires and teaches us, beyond how it renews our senses and fills us with wonder when we stand within it. Looking more deeply at its diverse life forms, we gain insight about the human journey.

Microorganisms remove greenhouse gases from the environment, and they also play an important role in our evolution. Disruptions to the membrane or ecosphere will bring about changes at the microbial, cellular, atmospheric and terrestrial levels.

These five aspects of nature can be observed in all that we see. Each offers inspiration that can help us develop a sense of faith in how life unfolds so that we can keep any challenges in perspective.

Explore the similarity of dreams and the path to enlightenment to see how ego is the enemy of enlightenment. What is ego fearfully protecting and why?

One of life’s most amazing gifts is how it attends to the body through unconscious and autonomous processes that continuously cure us. Do our experiences also cure us?

When you think of creativity or inspiration, you might associate it with freedom. But what if the challenges you face are actually a form of inspiration? Can limitations make us more creative?

The Secret of the Golden Flower is an ancient Taoist text that inspires inner alchemy. Because it is meant to be a personal and silent journey, it is described by some as 'Zen with details.' Learn to activate the breath to circulate qi.

Imagine a world where the night sky is a glowing cuneiform text of symbols that tell a story. What did the ancients see written in stars in the night sky? Explore the more ancient roots of our modern zodiac.

As we say goodbye to 2020 and look forward to a return to normal in 2021, we are reminded of the fragility of life. So often, we get caught up in routines and forget about the joy of living. Explore nature's way of change as a return to abundance.

The way of the artist is one who has mastered the art of getting lost. We spend so much of our lives focused on finding things like directions, meaning or even pleasure. Explore how getting lost can transform the mundane into heightened creativity.

You’ve heard the saying – go with the flow…and its usually when you are frustrated because nothing is unfolding as you expected. When the door of expectation closes, another always opens, and it can lead to opportunities you’d never imagined.

I live in a rainforest that has become a giant mud puddle. I also live on a little speck, swirling in an expanse of space that is inconceivable. Both reveal how life has a Messy Secret. If the Secret hasn't delivered your abundance, read this.

Of all the concepts in Taoism, Wu Wei is perhaps the least understood. The idea of not-doing leads some to imagine a meditative state, where the outer world recedes in importance. But Wu Wei is not about the cessation of activity - so what is it?

My newest course - Live Green and Blossom is a one and one half hour video course with questions, exercises and a life path worksheet. This nature-inspired course inspires an awareness of daily synchronicity in a way that will change your life!

"Everything is enfolded into everything." Carl Jung and David Bohm were great thinkers of the 20th century, and pioneers in intuiting our deeper connection to the transcendental. What do their ideas have in common?

One of the most curious things about dreams is how they mirror our inner world. Other people portray qualities we are adopting and discarding. Break free from the limitations that ground you and explore nature's endless field.

Isolation or Meditation? It is normal to feel anxious when forced into social isolation. As social creatures, interaction is important. But you can actually use this time for personal growth.

In last month’s blog, I outlined the many ways the ‘strange attractor’ seems to regulate events on the earth. Through the chaos of bringing opposites together, life is returned to balance, and here we are.

The word strange attractor comes from mathematics. It describes how a set of values will begin to emerge from chaos, toward which everything seems to trend. Chaos, order, then chaos again: disorganization is simply change.

The word ‘te’ appears in the title of Taoism’s most popular book: the Tao te Ching. But this is not virtue or moral rectitude. Taoists describe it as one’s inherent character. Te is key to understanding our authenticity.

Today is the past in a future that has not arrive. In other words, what you are facing today will someday become a memory. Something beneficial for your well being can feel like bitter medicine only because it was not of your choosing.

In my books, I present the 3 parts of a dream that describe the conflict, its cause and resolution. In dreams, we are the hero who embarks on a journey to discover clues that reveal our blind spots. Dreams tell us who we really are.

More often than not, we are wrong about our assumptions. Nature, however, is always correct. This is a major theme in the Tao te Ching and I Ching. What do the opposing energy of Yin and Yang teach us about politics?

When we think of our connection to nature, we usually speak in terms of protecting and caring for the environment. But nature teaches us that our human relationships might be a part of its larger drive toward unity and balance.

We are always portraying nature in human terms, but how might nature view the human experience? The mechanics that create, consume and redistribute energy in our universe suggest we are no different from any other entity.

Nature is intelligent, but its drive toward evolution allows us to understand the path to enlightenment. Evolution shows us how something previously unknown or that hadn’t existed emerges because of a type of opening.

The story of life is not what you think because any good story requires meaning. If we understood the meaning of life, history wouldn't be riddled with so many wars.

Imagine you are a tree. What type of consciousness do you possess? The factors determining consciousness include a sense of survival that indicates self awareness. It also includes a sense of understanding where we stand in time and space.

What is synchronicity? Synchronicity is derived from the Greek word syn or 'with,' and Chronus, the word for 'time.' Synchronicity means united, acting or considered together and synchronous with time. So what is it that acts together with time? ...

In helping others shift their perspective to live more joyfully, I focus on three themes: mastering tranquility in disturbance, removing any sense of feeling separate from what unfolds, and tapping intuition and dreams.

No matter where you look in life - you will see change taking place at every level. Sometimes you meet a challenge that calls you to change and observe it as a negative event. But you stand in a universe that thrives on change and reorganization.

"To the mind that is still, the entire universe surrenders." If autumn can teach us anything, it is how life prunes and 'takes away' to ensure that new life can thrive. The gift of emptiness often comes with closing doors.

Walking through a forest, you look up to admire the canopy of leaves. Everywhere are leaves opened like tiny solar panels in a diversity of angles to capture the light. What might the root structure reveal about your lifepath?

"Dragging the adversary when there is no adversary will cost you your inner treasure."

"Identify Yourself with the Infinite, and Wander in the Unfathomable"

Anything is possible when we dream - Taoists are after this same freedom.

Many people wonder which line prevails in an I Ching reading when there are many lines changing.

The Circular Aspect of Life

Dreams Tell Us What is Really Going On

Explore the eight ba gua of the I Ching as nature's primary archetypes.

We once used the moon to regulate time. Today, we regulate time in a way that an entire month can happen without a full moon.

Exploring The Emerald Tablet and the Tao te Ching

What can the earth's atmospheric pressure teach us about reducing stress?

What can chemical bonds teach us about a positive outlook?

What can nature's conservation of energy teach us about our reactions?

What can nature's cycling of nutrients teach us about inspiration?

What can evolution teach us about success and failure?

What can friction in nature teach us about meeting adversity?

What can a seed teach us about finding our life purpose?

What can gravity teach us about self-esteem?

What can erosion teach us about tending to our inner garden?